Roald Dahl and the woke censor

The best-selling stories for children by British author Roald Dahl (1916-1990) have been put through a savage editing process by Puffin Books, following the advice of ‘sensitivity readers’ from the organization Inclusive Minds.

This activist group has the stated aim of making children’s books “inclusive, diverse and accessible” to all children. Dahl’s books, first published from the 1960s to ’80s, include famous titles such as: James and the Giant Peach (1961), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), The Witches (1983), and Matilda (1988).

As detailed in The Telegraph, hundreds of words and phrases have been removed from the latest editions, and often replaced by more innocuous language. Many of the changes are clearly overreaching to the point of absurdity. In Fantastic Mr Fox, chickens cannot be called stupid anymore, and in Esio Trot tortoises cannot be backward. Would Animal Liberation be offended, or is it the possibility that people may also be frankly stupid or backward?

Countless other descriptive terms are considered too strong for children: fat and ugly, crazy and mad; idiot and moron; balmy, batty, nutty, screwy, and dotty; off his wump and dim-witted, revolting, dirty and filthy. The remarkable richness of English is on display here. Replacing these with words like clown and silly just isn’t Roald Dahl anymore; it’s something your nice Aunt would say.

The putative offense is not only caused by blunt descriptors or slang words that many people still use. Traditional gendered words, that counter the so-called ‘gender spectrum’, are often erased: mother and father is changed to parents, boys and girls to children, brother and sister to siblings, men women and children to people, ladies and gentlemen to folks.

Dahl’s books in their original form are beloved by millions – boys and girls, mothers and fathers included. Are ‘non-binary’ readers really so eager to erase the reality of those who came before, and who are still alive and well?

To change children’s books written over 40 years ago, to conform to newly-invented controversial identities, is disrespectful and dishonest on multiple levels: to the author and the reader, to literature, history, and truth itself.

More logical changes of gendered terms include firefighter for fireman, police officer for policeman, cleaner for maid, and Mayor for Lord Mayor. Going further, mother’s dressing table and father’s toolshed are now de-gendered, and wives cannot cook for their husbands anymore.

Yet even here, where is the great need to ‘protect’ children? They have the chance to develop basic critical reading skills, to be exposed to 20th century culture and learn how societies change through time. The updating of language now makes this impossible.

The corrections continue, changing the meaning and poetry. Mrs Silver in Esio Trot cannot be an attractive middle-aged lady, she must be a kind middle-aged lady instead. In The Witches, a great flock of ladies suggests the witches are birdlike, and has been changed to a great group of ladies.

Unmalicious references to different ethnic groups are also forbidden. Bedouin tribesman becomes local person, a dervish becomes a frog, Esquimo becomes Inuit, Sultan becomes Mayor, and a weird African language is no longer weird. Any suspicion of disrespecting other cultures must be avoided at all costs.

In the book The BFG (The Big Friendly Giant), various comments by the giant on eating people of different nationalities are also censored completely:

Greeks from Greece is all tasting greasy.

Japanese beans is very small.

Nothing hots a cold giant up like a hot Hottentot.

Perhaps not great literature, but quite understandable and funny when voiced by an ignorant giant who eats people like hors d’oeuvres. Context makes a difference.

In other hyper-sensitive edits, supposedly to avoid racial associations, the giant in The BFG, no longer has black eyes or a black cloak, and his tall black figure becomes a tall dark figure; in George’s Marvellous Medicine a girl’s pale brown teeth become simply rotting teeth; and in James and the Giant Peach an earthworm’s lovely pink skin becomes lovely smooth skin.

This removal of colour words in their everyday usage is ridiculous, and shows an insultingly paternalistic attitude towards young readers, as though they could be unintentionally offended.

The ‘culture wars’ that have seen Western civilization marginalized in academia are real enough, and the consequences for the integrity of literature and art of the past are now being faced: ideological revisionism and censorship spreading through social institutions.

Books of the past are of their time and are valuable precisely because they show us how others lived and thought before us. Historical diversity is surely something we need, to maintain a sense of perspective on social evolution – where we have come from and where we might be going.

The corporation Netflix, after buying The Roald Dahl Story Company last year, are now openly planning to exploit and reshape the imaginative worlds that Dahl created. A saccharine statement on their website makes this clear:

“As we bring these timeless tales to more audiences in new formats, we’re committed to maintaining their unique spirit and their universal themes of surprise and kindness, while also sprinkling some fresh magic into the mix.”

To this massive corporation, Dahl’s fictions are money-making property, investments that need to be pruned and shaped for future growth.

At the bottom of the copyright page there is this Orwellian decree in small print:

“Words matter . . . This book was written many years ago, and so we regularly review the language to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.”

A book enjoyed by millions for decades until only yesterday has been changed forever, without the author’s consent, to “ensure it can continue to be enjoyed.” It’s an offer you can’t refuse, as they say in The Godfather.

Since this article was written, Puffin have responded to criticism and announced that Dahl’s original books would be reissued in the Penguin imprint, as a ‘Classic Collection’ for adults and older readers.