I don’t think I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth, I grew up in a house full of books. As a child, I loved books of adventure, hilarity and a bit of horror.
One of my favorite authors growing up was the popular Roald Dahl. While I’m not a huge Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fan, I did enjoy The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, and my favorite… The Witches.
The classics I grew up with and loved are now being updated to make them more ‘inclusive’, which is a fancy way of saying they’re being censored to wake up the late author. So let’s see how Mr. Dahl’s words are being watered down without offending the sensitive sensibilities of our society.
As usual, Orwell had the measure of our times.#RoaldDahl pic.twitter.com/EwZ111eqaz
— Christopher Paolini (@paolini) February 18, 2023
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Who are these people?
The Puffin publishing company has announced that it will release new editions of Roald Dahl classics without “problematic phrasing and jargon”. The public notice explained that ‘sensitivity readers’ had “reviewed” the language and changed some of it “to ensure that everyone can continue to enjoy it today”.
I had never heard of a ‘sensitive reader’ until this story hit the wire, and I’m still in shock that it’s a paid job. So I was naturally curious and had to see what this job entailed; After all, I am always open to new experiences and opportunities.
A sensitivity reader is someone a publisher hires to read through a book with characteristics outside of the author’s. For example, I’m a white heterosexual woman, so if I’m going to write a book, a publisher can hire a black gay nonbinary sensitivity reader to make sure I don’t use harmful or inaccurate stereotypes in my writing.
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This article made me think twice about starting the book. These people are the novel’s new “moral gatekeepers,” wrote Joey Dubnow in The Spectator.
To become a sensitivity reader, you need a resume and credentials, just like any other job.
Zubnow writes, “To become a reader of sensitivity you must advertise your suffering—a CV of otherness, emotional pain, trauma, a CV that vindicates your oppression to enter the victim-for-hire system.”
You can earn some money while drowning in your victims. So what did readers of Puffin sensibilities find inappropriate in Dahl’s books?
Irony of our time: Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss’s works have been moderated and modified to remove “harmful content” by “sensitivity readers,” while obscene books are still allowed in K-12 school libraries in the name of inclusion after parents. protested. It is backward. pic.twitter.com/KRVmaoSIu8
— Wenyuan Wu, PhD (@wu_wenyuan) February 22, 2023
Related: A Non-Binary God? The Church of England considers the language of Scripture to be gender-neutral
Does this book make me look fat?
The most headline-grabbing change was the removal of the word ‘fat’ from beloved books, most notably the description of Augustus Goop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Rather, Augustus is merely “overwhelming,” which detracts from the character’s point.
The rotund Augustus symbolizes gluttony and greed; It can be enormous without being gluttonous and fattening with greed. Mrs. Twit of The Twits is now just a “beast” and no longer “ugly and beastly.”
Why the word ‘dirty’ is offensive, I don’t know; The truth is some people are just ugly. They may be physically unattractive or ugly on the inside, but ugliness is just a reality in our world.
A ‘reader of sensibility’ has adapted a critical line in The Tweets that reads at the beginning, “You may have a crooked nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and teeth, but if you have good thoughts they shine from your face. Like the sun’s rays.” Except they removed the double chin for some weird reason, the line reads almost exactly the same.
As someone who sports a double chin, I take offense. Do they imply that having a double chin is so hideous that no good thoughts can make my face look like sunbeams?
What message does this send to children?
The rewriting of Roald Dahl’s children’s books by so-called ‘sensitivity experts’ is the latest example of ‘vigilance’ enthusiasts forcing their values on the rest of us. It is not enough to live and let live – we must convert to their ‘awake’ religion and join their mission. pic.twitter.com/SPqf8EOixP
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard) February 22, 2023
Related: It’s ‘Adios!’ to ‘Aloha!’ It’s like the leftist word police strike again
Just bad writing
My favorite Roald Dahl book was The Witches. I loved it and read it, the book was curled and had several stains from spilled drinks and dog-eared pages – all signs of a well-loved book.
These witches spend their days hunting children. As the original work explains, her dedication to her giant tasks knew no bounds, “whether she was working as a cashier at a supermarket or typing letters for businessmen.” The line now reads “even if she works as a top scientist or runs a business.”
There are so many issues with this awful change, I wonder if I have enough word count to cover them all. First, there is nothing wrong with being a cashier; Many of us started our young adult lives as cashiers, and plenty of men and women make an honest good living as cashiers.
Secondly, in his attempt to show women what they want to be these days due to the progress of time, how many top scientists do they show this group of ‘sensitivity readers’? What does this even mean?
Is there such a thing as a grassroots scientist? Also, why are we concerned about marginalizing witches?
In George’s Miracle Medicine, when describing the potion’s effects, the original text reads, “Look at you! You’re standing on your own and you’re not even using a stick! Now the text reads, “Look at you! You are full of beans!
What does hell mean? If I wrote it poorly I would no longer be writing articles for you to read.
Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship. Puffin Books and the Dahl Estate should be ashamed. https://t.co/sdjMfBr7WW
— Salman Rushdie (@SalmanRushdie) February 18, 2023
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The real point
Is all this rewriting an attempt to make Roald Dahl more accessible to today’s kids? Obviously not. Kids on The Witches don’t need a new disclaimer saying “why women can wear wigs and there’s nothing wrong with it.”
Assuming that children are dumber than they are and that they care about the same nonsensical things that their far duller and duller adult counterparts care about. This appeases a very powerful cabal of special interest groups and investors who are either actively promoting the woke ideology or passively supporting it.
In 2021, Netflix acquired the rights to Roald Dahl’s books, allowing them to create series and movies from these classic books. Interesting timing now that some rewrites are in the works, an obvious move to allow Netflix to include as much absurdity as possible in their series and movies.
The great Ray Bradbury commented on the edits after ironically changing his Fahrenheit 451 to appease so-called feminists. “There’s more than one way to burn a book,” said Bradbury, “and the world is full of people running around with lighted matches.”
Unfortunately, these changes aren’t going to make these classics any more palatable.
The changes make Roald Dahl’s work disappear into obscurity because, in addition to the obvious ideological smear in these editions, the books are boring. And children don’t like to read boring books.
But maybe that was the goal, talk about cancellation culture.
“I want to buy Roald Dahl books before 2023” pic.twitter.com/wVXKa6OULG
— Poppy Looking Blurry (@imaRNRstarr) February 18, 2023
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