Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #707 Rewriting Roald; What's the Deal With Dahl?

Transcript

#707 Rewriting Roald; What's the Deal With Dahl? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers.
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  Speaker 2: Now Britain's Telegraph you dealed hundreds of word changes across
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  Speaker 2: the author's works made by Doll's publisher Puffin and the
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  Speaker 2: Royal Dolls Story Company since twenty twenty, omissions and additions
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  Speaker 2: related to Wheat, gender, Reese and more.
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  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My Mum
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  Speaker 1: and Dad.
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  Speaker 3: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coilson, Happy Families dot com
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  Speaker 3: Dot you Dad to six kids. Here with Kylie, wife,
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  Speaker 3: mum to those children and Kylie today a podcast. We're
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  Speaker 3: just going to mention this in our book Club episode,
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: which we've pushed back till next week because this is
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  Speaker 3: such a big topic. I thought we'd just slotted it
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  Speaker 3: in here, but I think it deserves its own episode.
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  Speaker 3: And therefore today's podcast conversation is about an issue that
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: affects every single parent who loves to read their kids,
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  Speaker 3: and that is that books are changing. Kylie.
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  Speaker 4: So last year we actually talked about the fact that
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  Speaker 4: Doctor Seuss was under condemnation. Yes, because in today's society,
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  Speaker 4: so much of what was written in there isn't acceptable anymore.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so this came about. There was big news last year.
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  Speaker 3: I've gone and found an article that reminds us of it.
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  Speaker 3: There's a n Edith Cowen University report. The lead author
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  Speaker 3: of the reporter is Helen Adam, and she's concerned that
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  Speaker 3: six of the ten most popular kids books in Australia
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  Speaker 3: have animal characters with no humans in them, decreasing the
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  Speaker 3: likelihood of children from minority background seeing characters similar to themselves.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I always thought that you use the animal
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  Speaker 3: characters so that you can be inclusive, and no child
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  Speaker 3: feels like they're not being included because they're boys or girls,
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  Speaker 3: or because they're one racial background or another. So you
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  Speaker 3: use the animals because then it's just applicable to everyone,
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  Speaker 3: because everyone can be a bunny, rabbit or a bear.
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  Speaker 3: And we're talking about kids. Yeah, And the reason we're
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  Speaker 3: having this conversation today, of course, is because the next
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  Speaker 3: one who is very much on the nose is Roald Dahl.
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to say right up front, I don't actually
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  Speaker 3: like Rolled Dard books. I've never liked Roll darbooks. I've
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  Speaker 3: always found him a reverend. Even when I was a kid,
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  Speaker 3: I didn't like him. I didn't like the way he spoke.
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  Speaker 3: I thought that he was just rude and horrible.
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  Speaker 4: Well, it's funny, I probably feel the same way for
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  Speaker 4: lots of different reasons. But the kids recently were watching
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  Speaker 4: the latest rendition of Matilda and I was absolutely flawed
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  Speaker 4: at I guess I'm going to use the word abuse
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  Speaker 4: that was depicted of children by the matron and especially
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  Speaker 4: in today's society and in the climate that we live in,
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  Speaker 4: confronting it was really, really confronting.
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  Speaker 3: Let me ask you a question. I know you're going
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  Speaker 3: to make a point, but I want to ask you
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  Speaker 3: a question real quick. How do the kids feel about
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  Speaker 3: what they're seeing? They loved it. They loved it. They're
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  Speaker 3: singing the songs. They absolutely they're hooked.
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  Speaker 4: What they loved though, was that Matilda stood up for herself.
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  Speaker 4: That's what they saw out of it.
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  Speaker 3: And they get that it's fantasy, like they know it's
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  Speaker 3: not real. So Ossie bloke to mention he was the
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  Speaker 3: one who put the Matilda stuff together. Have listened to
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  Speaker 3: these changes, have listened to these changes that the publisher
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  Speaker 3: Puffin have made to Roald Dahale's books. And there are
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  Speaker 3: many people who are calling this censorship. This is from Matilda.
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  Speaker 3: This is the two thousand and one edition. She went
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  Speaker 3: on olden day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad, she went
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  Speaker 3: to Africa with Ernest Hemmanway and to India with Rudyard Kipling.
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  Speaker 3: And then in the twenty twenty two edition they've changed
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  Speaker 3: it to she went to nineteenth century estates with Jane Austen.
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  Speaker 3: She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and California with
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  Speaker 3: John Steinbeck. Like they've they've just updated it. It's no
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  Speaker 3: longer relevant that Rudyard Kipling and Joseph they're just not
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  Speaker 3: in there. Have listened to this from the Witches, even
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  Speaker 3: if she is working as a cashier in a supermarket
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  Speaker 3: or typing letters for a businessman. They've updated that in
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  Speaker 3: the twenty twenty two edition to say even if she
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  Speaker 3: is working as a top scientist or running a business,
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  Speaker 3: because well, you know what that's going. We're comparing we've
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  Speaker 3: got a woman working as a cashier in a supermarket
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  Speaker 3: or typing letters for a businessman, and now she's a
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  Speaker 3: top scientist or running a business. And this one also
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  Speaker 3: from the Witches twenty and one versus twenty twenty two
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  Speaker 3: don't be foolish, my grandmother said, you can't go around
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  Speaker 3: pulling the hair of every lady you meet, even if
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  Speaker 3: she is wearing gloves. Just you tried it, and see
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  Speaker 3: what happens. That's the old one. Here's the new one.
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  Speaker 3: Don't be foolish, my grandmother said. Besides, there are plenty
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  Speaker 3: of other reasons why women might wear wigs, and there
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  Speaker 3: is certainly nothing wrong with that. And so what we've
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  Speaker 3: got here is just this shift to be I guess
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  Speaker 3: more inclusive. They're gentler fired. I don't know if that's
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  Speaker 3: clearly not a word, but they've made roll Dal a
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  Speaker 3: whole lot more, gentle, a whole lot more.
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  Speaker 4: But that's not who he was.
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  Speaker 3: No, and.
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  Speaker 4: To do so actually destroys the integrity of the work
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  Speaker 4: as it was written.
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  Speaker 3: So you want some hot takes, go for it, okay.
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  Speaker 3: Christopher Palini says, as usual, George orl had the measure
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  Speaker 3: of our times. Here's a quote from George Orwell from
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  Speaker 3: nineteen eighty four. Every record has been destroyed or falsified,
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  Speaker 3: every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue
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  Speaker 3: and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered,
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  Speaker 3: and the process is continuing day by day and minute
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  Speaker 3: by minute history has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless
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  Speaker 3: presence in which the party is always right. Nine and
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  Speaker 3: eighty four is such a great book. Here's another hot
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  Speaker 3: take for you. Michael Hobbs says this is going to
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  Speaker 3: be invoked as woke censorship for years to come, despite
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  Speaker 3: no one asking for it and the publisher receiving widespread
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  Speaker 3: criticism from the left. James Drayfer says, it's only a
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  Speaker 3: few words. What does it matter to you if it's
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  Speaker 3: more inclusive. I don't see what's wrong, because of course
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  Speaker 3: you don't. This is setting a dangerous precedent and essentially
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  Speaker 3: giving the go ahead for further purging of wrong right
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  Speaker 3: wait and see. Somebody else says, speaking as one of
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  Speaker 3: the folks, that angry people often disparages woke. I find
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  Speaker 3: the rewriting of rolled dar books to be insane. Read
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  Speaker 3: them or not talk to your kids about them, or
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  Speaker 3: not let them go out of print or not, but
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  Speaker 3: don't rewrite an author's words. This is madness. And this
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  Speaker 3: person says, changing not many years ago to many years
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  Speaker 3: ago is the most minor of the role dull edits,
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  Speaker 3: but it's the one that I can't stop thinking about.
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  Speaker 3: It's not even trying to fix something potentially offensive, it's
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  Speaker 3: just kids are too stupid to understand that a book
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  Speaker 3: was written in the past, and so we've got I mean,
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  Speaker 3: the Twitter sphere has gone absolutely nuts about all these
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  Speaker 3: changes that are occurring. Newspaper articles are going off across
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  Speaker 3: the world about all of it, and it kind of
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  Speaker 3: makes me want to go and buy all of his
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  Speaker 3: old books. I don't even like him, but I kind
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  Speaker 3: of want to just have all of those books for
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  Speaker 3: posterity for our kids and our grandkids. Because of this,
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  Speaker 3: I think the reason the kids loved Roald Dahl stories
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  Speaker 3: is because the baddies were so gross and so disgusting,
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  Speaker 3: and they got their come up ands in gruesome and
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  Speaker 3: horrible ways exquisitely described. And when we're censoring that for sensitivities,
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  Speaker 3: fails to tap into what's going on with kids. I
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  Speaker 3: found this in The Guardian. The word fat has been
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  Speaker 3: cut from every new edition of the relevant books, while
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  Speaker 3: the word ugly has also been culled. Augustus Gloop in
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  Speaker 3: Charlie the Chocolate Factory is now described as enormous in
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  Speaker 3: the Twits. Missus Twitter is no longer ugly and beastly,
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  Speaker 3: but just beastly.
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  Speaker 4: Because Beastley's better than ugly.
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  Speaker 3: In previous editions of James and the Giant Peach, the
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  Speaker 3: Centipede sings Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat and tremendously flabby
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  Speaker 3: at that, and ant Spiker was thin as a wire
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  Speaker 3: and dry as a bone, only drier. Both of those
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  Speaker 3: verses have been removed and in their places of the rhymes.
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  Speaker 3: Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute and deserved to
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  Speaker 3: be squashed by the fruit, and Aunt Spiker was much
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  Speaker 3: of the same and deserves half of the blame. Here's
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  Speaker 3: something else that's really interesting. References to female characters have disappeared.
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  Speaker 3: So Miss trunch Bull in Matilda was once a most
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  Speaker 3: formidable female and is now a most formidable woman. So
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  Speaker 3: even the word female has been taken out, and they've
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  Speaker 3: put a whole lot of gender neutral terms in places
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  Speaker 3: where they never used to be. So in Charlie, the
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  Speaker 3: Chocolate Factories upulumper situation where we had small men than
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  Speaker 3: our small people the cloud men and James and the
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  Speaker 3: Giant Peach had become cloud people. We're just seeing this
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  Speaker 3: dilution of rold Dat's stories and whether you like him
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  Speaker 3: or not, and whether he was even a nice guy
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  Speaker 3: or not. Because I've heard and read over the years
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  Speaker 3: some awful things about the guy. It feels like it's
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  Speaker 3: just an over the top response the moral outrage because
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  Speaker 3: we have to be sensitive, and I believe that we
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  Speaker 3: need to be sensitive. I believe that we should be appropriate.
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  Speaker 3: But the books were written thirty forty years ago, fifty
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  Speaker 3: sixty years ago. In some cases, I reckon it's worth
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  Speaker 3: having as we wrap up the podcast, a short conversation,
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  Speaker 3: maybe a couple of minutes, on what we should do
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  Speaker 3: about it as parents, because we can sit on the
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  Speaker 3: podcast and we can wing and wine and say what's
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  Speaker 3: going on in the world, but we need to have
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  Speaker 3: a conversation about where to go and what to do
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  Speaker 3: with this. I came across a quote years and years ago.
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  Speaker 3: I just love this quote. It's a quote from LP
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  Speaker 3: Hartley in his nineteen fifty three novel The go Between,
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  Speaker 3: and he says this, the past is a foreign country.
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  Speaker 3: They do things differently there. And I love this idea
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  Speaker 3: of Hartley's that we can look at the past and say, Okay,
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  Speaker 3: so that's how it was, and not necessarily okay, not
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  Speaker 3: necessarily the way that it should have been. But rather
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  Speaker 3: than losing the plot, rather than calling this totalitarian censorship
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  Speaker 3: and condemning the authors and the publishers and everyone who's
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  Speaker 3: doing it, which is understandable and probably even justifiable, I
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  Speaker 3: think instead that we just need to teach our kids
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  Speaker 3: that the past is a foreign country. They did things
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  Speaker 3: differently there, and what that will probably do then is
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  Speaker 3: lead to a deepening of the appreciation of the world
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  Speaker 3: that we live in. When when people look back on
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  Speaker 3: the world now, I'm sure they're going to say, oh,
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  Speaker 3: my goodness, what were they doing in twenty twenty three, Like,
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  Speaker 3: let's go fifty sixty seventy years down the track, I'd
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  Speaker 3: say that our twenty twenty three world will probably look
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  Speaker 3: fairly quaint and quite strange to our kids. I just
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  Speaker 3: don't think that we need to be as judgey as
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  Speaker 3: we're being about the past. Let's just accept that the
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  Speaker 3: past was what it was, and now we're trying to
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  Speaker 3: do better use it as a teaching tool.
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  Speaker 4: And that's how I see it. If we were to
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  Speaker 4: take this in a really I guess, personal and practical
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  Speaker 4: point of view and look back at my childhood. For
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  Speaker 4: all intents and purposes, that's my children's history. Yeah, right there.
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  Speaker 4: There is so much of that childhood that I would
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  Speaker 4: love to rewrite that I wish never happened, or that
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  Speaker 4: was painful and damaging, and yet for me to turn
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  Speaker 4: around and pretend like it never happened. That's actually where
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  Speaker 4: the real damage takes place, not that it happened, but
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  Speaker 4: that I try to pretend that it didn't.
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  Speaker 3: I feel like there's a quote out there somewhere where
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  Speaker 3: somebody said, if we don't remember history and learn from what,
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  Speaker 3: we're about to repeat the mistakes of the past.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, so much of my childhood has helped me
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  Speaker 4: develop and become the person I am today. For the better. Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: because I have learned from those experiences the things that
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  Speaker 4: I don't want in my life moving forward.
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  Speaker 3: And I think there's one other thing that's probably worth mentioning,
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  Speaker 3: and that is as you read these books, read the
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  Speaker 3: old versions, read the ones that have got the forbidden
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  Speaker 3: grossness in them, the words that apparently we don't use anymore.
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  Speaker 3: I think that we can have a conversation with the
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  Speaker 3: kids and say, well, what do you think, how does
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  Speaker 3: that feel? Where do you sit with this because they
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  Speaker 3: can enjoy the fantasy of it, but they can also
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  Speaker 3: then internalize the morality that they've been raised with and highlight. Well, obviously,
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  Speaker 3: this is a fun book and I'm laughing at Matilda
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  Speaker 3: on the screen, or I'm laughing at James and the
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  Speaker 3: Giant Peach or the twits in the book. But I
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  Speaker 3: would never say that to somebody. I would never behave
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  Speaker 3: like that. That's obvious what's happening in the story.
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  Speaker 4: I was just thinking about some of the other books
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  Speaker 4: that we've read with the kids over the years, and
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  Speaker 4: you go back to those early fairy tales.
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  Speaker 3: And they were morbid.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, the kids reading The Little Mermaid thinking
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  Speaker 4: they were reading this beautiful fairy tale because that's what
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  Speaker 4: they've grown up with, going back a century and a
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  Speaker 4: half and reading Hans Christian Anderson's version of which was
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  Speaker 4: obviously the very first version of it, was just devastating
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  Speaker 4: to our girls. But would I want them to rewrite it, No,
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  Speaker 4: because it gives us just so much insight.
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  Speaker 3: But that's what Disney's done, though. And you can put
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Disney Channel on now and watch any of the old
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: shows and oh my goodness, like there's Disclaimers in the mornings,
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: and they've actually edited some of them as well and
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: removed content because it has depictions that are are deemed
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: defensive now. But the world was different. I love that meme,
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: and we do need to end this podcast, but I'd
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  Speaker 3: love to finish it with two things. First of all,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: there's that I don't know if you've seen it. There's
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: this guy. He's wearing a denim jacket with like a
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: fleecy collared lining. He's got the long hair, and he's
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: walking through a doorway, and he's being a different person
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: for each era of the last few decades. So the
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: first one's born nineteen seventy. He walks through the doorway,
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  Speaker 3: his shoulder hits the door and he looks at the
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: door like ye. Then nineteen eighty he kind of looks
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  Speaker 3: at it and says something to the door. Nineteen ninety
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: says something at the door and then rolls his eyes
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: as he walks away. But then we get to the
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  Speaker 3: one who's born in two thousand. He hits the door
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: and he falls to the ground with huge acting and
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: then he pulls out the phone and takes a photo
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: of himself in all this pain. So that everyone can,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: but there's that performative aspect to it, and I just
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: think there's so much going on here that's performative, so
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: much of it that's over the top. Obviously, people are
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: really upset about it. Salmon Rushdi, who is one of
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: the world's most prolific and well known authors, said this,
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  Speaker 3: Roald Dahl was no angel, but this is absurd censorship,
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  Speaker 3: puffin books, and the Dal estate should be ashamed. Really
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  Speaker 3: strong words from a lot of people who are very
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: upset about Roald Dahl. Well, he's dead, but the books
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: being changed and the meanings of the books being.
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  Speaker 4: Changed, well, I think that this weekend I plan on
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: going and buying me a few copies of a few books,
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: just to be sure that history.
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  Speaker 3: We hope it's giving you some food for thought. We
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: hope that if you've got some roll dar books, even
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: if you don't like them like me, I mean I
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: really don't like them. I'm looking on our bookshelf now
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  Speaker 3: I can see three of them from where we are.
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  Speaker 3: Pull a book out, read it to the kids and
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: have the conversation about how the past is a different country.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: They do things differently, they're the past is foreign country.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: They do things differently there. And if you've got any
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: feedback on what we've had to say about this one,
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: let us know. Podcasts at Happy families dot com dot you.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: That's Podcasts with an S. The podcast, as always, is
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: our executive producer. Let's wrap this up with one really
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: important idea, Kylie, Regardless of what you think about what
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: you've said, read to your kids, read, read, read to
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: your kids. Make sure you kids are involved in books.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Make sure that they're getting the information, make sure that
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: they're reading themselves. Make sure the kids see you reading. Ultimately,
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: I think people care so much about this because people
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: care about books, because we know that books inform, books
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: teach books, help read to your kids this weekend. That's
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: the takeout message.