Roald Dahl's books edited to be more 'inclusive'

Yet films get re-edited all the time after test screenings and nobody gives a shít. "Hollywood ending" has even entered the lexicon.

The film comparison does not hold water as such edits are for entirely different reasons than the edits to these books. I'll go back to my 'apples and oranges' above.

Is the reason for the Roald Dahl edits to make the books a more complete vision of what the author had in mind? (Ie; a directors cut?)

Is the reason for the Roald Dahl edits to make the books shorter and punchier? (Ie: a theatrical cut?)

We all know it's not. they're being edited for entirely different reasons, which is what are important in cases like this.

I know there is a loud 'anti woke' (Christ I hate that term) brigade jumping on this, which I am not part of by the way.

It is possible to disagree with changes to literary works without having vested interests in the whole left/right fuckkery on Twitter.

At a guess - 'female' is used as a dehumanizing noun as on it's own we don't know if it means a cat, a dog or a person. 'Woman' acknowledges that this is a human person. I'd like to think that if there was a reference to muscular male that it would be changed to man. Its a pity the alliteration is being lost in the ff example.

'Female' on its own is just not a good way to refer to someone in text written in the 3rd person (which I believe this segment is).

I think it is important that the original works remain untouched as it demonstrates the authors thoughts and language. Of it's time.

For example I remember seeing a very old book from about the 1800's in it there was an imitation/parody of the speech of a black American of it's time. 'Yes masser' and so on. It was shocking at first to see it in print. But that was the reality of the world and society then.

As for the Roald Dahl books I honestly don't think there is much that is offensive in them. To find offence you would have to go looking for offence. I remember as child I just took the books as enjoyable stories adventures where your mind was able to escape into the story.

I think we should give kids a bit of credit here, I'm sure they'd be able to infer from the context of the story that we're talking about a human teacher, rather than a cat or horse

It depends. Usually, at the editing process, the director is generally involved. It really depends on the type of film we're talking about. They'll submit a cut for approval, which could be subject to further cuts or reinstatement of previously excised material.

But this is usually a collaborative process. Again, though, it will very much depend on the type pf film. For instance, on the aforementioned "Marvel crap", you'll have an army of producers with varying levels of umph and usually a director for hire. On something like a George Romero movie, he'd be working in a closer relationship with his producer (even though they certainly didn't see eye to eye all the time).

In any case, cuts and edits to films are usually done with pace and running time in mind (which is an essential part of the editing process), as opposed to what's happening here with Dahl's stories, whcih appears to be of a more airy fairy nature...and into the bargain, completely unnecessary too.

I thought of that as well in 30 or 40 or 50 years time what will be viewed as abhorrent? It will be the unborn future generations that decide it.

And the really auld lads like meself will be really confused about about what you are supposed to say and not. Thankfully by that stage they will likely say he is a very elderly, he doesn't understand.

So the crashing U-turn has come.

Penguin Random House (who own the Puffin publishing brand for Kids) are going to continue to print the Dahl originals under the main Penguin brand itself, usually intended for all non-child focused titles, as 'The Roald Dahl Classic Collection'.

Francesca Dow, MD, PRH Children

Netflix - The Roald Dahl Story Company

A carefully stage managed retreat evident there. I have no doubt the vandalised versions will be quietly killed off, once the money already invested has been recouped. Although maybe it never will be.

Might be worth actually investing in the edited versions now, for sale as a rare curiosity in years to come.

You have widely missed the point.

The family never wanted to initiate a debate on literary revision. Nor did the telegraph obviously.

Dahl was very much in danger of being "cancelled" because it came light once more in a resurfaced interview of how much a vile person he was.

No one is talking about that anymore are they?

Quite the opposite, we just had the loudest perma contrarians in the media practically threaten to go war for the mans works.

So it should be ok for dweebs to go back through the history of people who created art, be it music, literary works and so on… and on a ‘judicious’ decision on behalf of some rabble of lonesome dweebs with nothing better to do, said artist(s), author or whomever, gets ‘cancelled’…edited or whatever… ?

i think in a civilised and mature society, people should have the ability to make up their own minds… don’t like Dahl, don’t read his work, easy.

What has gone under the radar is the Rolling Stones, playing live last few years they’ve changed the lyrics to certain songs…Brown Sugar… “ just like a black girl should “ no longer features…..

Considering rap artists can be anti white, anti Asian, extremely and absolutely unapologetically and openly homophobic in their lyrics and literally, yet, nobody cares, nobody requests rewriting the lyrical content, editing, or cancelling 🤪 why ? Complete double standards, jokeshop double standards…..

Nothing ‘inclusive’ there so….

I’m still confused as to where people read it was “formidable female” when I was able to show in print that it was “formidable middle-aged lady”, who does things like this 😁

Netflix knows well what they’re doing, and Penguin knew well what they were doing before then - their only motivation is to generate revenue. I mentioned the example of The Witcher in another thread - the Netflix adaptation makes many changes from the books, some small, others more significant -

https://www.looper.com/824404/the-biggest-differences-between-netflixs-the-witcher-and-the-book-series/

You wouldn’t know unless you’d read the books (and thankfully they were translated from their authors native Polish), which it seems a lot of people did after the Netflix series was released -

The Witcher series has been described as having a cult following in Poland and Central and Eastern Europeancountries. They have been translated into 37 languages and sold over 15 million copies worldwide as of December 2019. Two weeks after the Netflix TV adaptation was released in 2020, revenue from the books was reportedly up 562% compared to the same period in 2018. Entries in The Witcher series have earned Sapkowski the Janusz A. Zajdel Award three times; "The Lesser Evil" (1990), "Sword of Destiny" (1992), and Blood of Elves (1994). The Last Wishwon the 2003 Premio Ignotus for Best Anthology. Blood of Elves won Best Novel at the first David Gemmell Awards for Fantasy in 2009.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witcher

Good luck finding Matilda the Musical on the Irish Netflix btw (I’ve checked just now and it’s still unavailable), only the DeVito movie is, where the same scene above is done like this -

Something to do with whomever pays the piper… maintains the rights to the IP (not Tim anyway 😂) -

The star also explained that Matilda the Musical was funded by Sony as well as Netflix, and as Sony is not a streamer, it ‘retained the rights to release the movie in the UK in the traditional manner.’

https://metro.co.uk/2022/12/31/tim-minchin-sorry-matilda-not-available-on-uk-netflix-explains-why-18019113/amp/

Is there any thread you won't drag this constant racist bullshít into?