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Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
601–610 of 992 posts
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#602The Dahl estate owned the rights to the books until 2021, when Netflix bought them outright for a reported $686 million, building on an earlier rights deal. The American streaming service now has overall control over the book publishing, as well as various adaptation projects that are in the works. These are the first new editions since the deal, but the review began before the sale
Didn't know this, and why am I not surprised.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#603I'd be interested in hearing the most credible/reputable sources speaking out in favor of these changes. I've exclusively seen commentators dunking on this (rightfully so), across the political spectrum. To be clear: I'm wondering if we can find specific people speaking up for this, not an analysis of whose side of the culture war is most culpable for it.
I'm neither credible nor reputable, but I'm in favor of a weak version of this. When reading older books to my young child, I replace language that suggests that women are supposed to stay at home and men are supposed to go to work. One day soon he'll be able to read, and at that point I'll wish that books that were a product of their time would have been updated for the current time, so that he could just read the b…
I don’t. That’s a perfectly reasonable perspective.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
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> pointing out that Jewish people are heavily involved in the media isn't inherently anti-semitic 'Jews are controlling the media' isn't antisemitic? 'der Stuermer' was depicting caricature Jews with long noses just for the fun of it? And yes, fictional conspiracies were a big deal in antisemitic propaganda - 'the protocols of the elders of zion' is just an example.
But much of the Protocols was taken from an anti-Napoleon III tract which doesn't mention Jews at all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dialogue_in_Hell_Between...
So just talking about conspiracies isn't a good indicator of anti-Semitism.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#605Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't square that with their last sentence. Moreover, when I feel empathy with someone who feels different and unrecognized by society, something still keeps me from advocating for the censorship and misrepresentation of a writer's ideas and internal logic. I think what's stopping me is the knowledge that if I'm fortunate enough to write something that lasts beyond me, I sure as heck don't want anyone updating it f…
Again: there's no advocacy (at least nothing evident to me) in that comment. It's a descriptive comment, not a normative one.
"more agreeable authors" sounds normative to me, and "they were replaced with more agreeable authors" sounds menacing
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#606I'm a gay man and I think we are going to far with this PC nonsense. I had a hard time growing up in the 90s knowing I was different and being tormented by my peers, so I'm happy to see gay "normalized" in current pop culture more because I think it teaches the younger generation to accept themselves and others. However I feel that it's going to far, for example I started reading a novel the other day but gave up a third of the way through because every character was some form of LGBT or interracial or something. It made the story seem fake and unrealistic. I think editing classic books is wrong even if it is covering up something like hate or bigotry. History forgotten is history bound to repeat itself.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#607This makes me wonder: how many of the books I grew up with had already been bowdlerized?
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#608Earlier quoted context omitted.
Again: there's no advocacy (at least nothing evident to me) in that comment. It's a descriptive comment, not a normative one.
> It's easy to figure out why these changes are being made in particular, once you take a position of empathy. Come on guy, it's not that hard to see. People have been pointing it out to you for hours now.
Please don't cross into personal attack.
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#609Earlier quoted context omitted.
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As much as this is an obvious joke, it’s lazy and dangerous. Quite easily distinguishable from what this post is about. Conflating rewriting history with treating historical fictional works as living documents are two separate things, that deserve separate space for debate.
Dangerous in what way? Honest question
Re: Hundreds of changes made to latest editions of Roald Dahl's books
#610Here's a good list of changes. Most are about removing any references to ugly or fat. But also other strange things like changing the author's Matilda likes to read to include Jane Austin and John Steinbeck, not calling people crazy, swapping screeching to annoying, removing brothers and sisters to favor "siblings" and using "folks" instead of "ladies and gentlemen" https://twitter.com/incunabula/status/1626860237104…
Except none of that is anywhere near good.