February 22, 2023 • 15 mins
Justin & Kylie share how they feel about the censorship of Roald Dahl's books
Topics included in this episode -
- Puffin are making changes to Roald Dahl's work
- Words like "fat" and "ugly" have been removed
- Gender neutral terms are being used
- "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."
Find us on Facebook at Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families
Email us your questions and comments at podcasts@happyfamilies.com.au
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
time poor parent who just once answers.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Now Britain's Telegraph you dealed hundreds of word changes across
the author's works made by Doll's publisher Puffin and the
Royal Dolls Story Company since twenty twenty, omissions and additions
related to Wheat, gender, Reese and more.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
And now here's the stars of our show, My Mum
and Dad.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Hello, this is doctor Justin Coilson, Happy Families dot com
Dot you Dad to six kids. Here with Kylie, wife,
mum to those children and Kylie today a podcast. We're
just going to mention this in our book Club episode,
which we've pushed back till next week because this is
such a big topic. I thought we'd just slotted it
in here, but I think it deserves its own episode.
(00:48):
And therefore today's podcast conversation is about an issue that
affects every single parent who loves to read their kids,
and that is that books are changing. Kylie.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
So last year we actually talked about the fact that
Doctor Seuss was under condemnation. Yes, because in today's society,
so much of what was written in there isn't acceptable anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yeah, so this came about. There was big news last year.
I've gone and found an article that reminds us of it.
There's a n Edith Cowen University report. The lead author
of the reporter is Helen Adam, and she's concerned that
six of the ten most popular kids books in Australia
have animal characters with no humans in them, decreasing the
likelihood of children from minority background seeing characters similar to themselves.
I mean, I always thought that you use the animal
(01:37):
characters so that you can be inclusive, and no child
feels like they're not being included because they're boys or girls,
or because they're one racial background or another. So you
use the animals because then it's just applicable to everyone,
because everyone can be a bunny, rabbit or a bear.
And we're talking about kids. Yeah, And the reason we're
having this conversation today, of course, is because the next
one who is very much on the nose is Roald Dahl.
(01:59):
I'm going to say right up front, I don't actually
like Rolled Dard books. I've never liked Roll darbooks. I've
always found him a reverend. Even when I was a kid,
I didn't like him. I didn't like the way he spoke.
I thought that he was just rude and horrible.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Well, it's funny, I probably feel the same way for
lots of different reasons. But the kids recently were watching
the latest rendition of Matilda and I was absolutely flawed
at I guess I'm going to use the word abuse
that was depicted of children by the matron and especially
(02:36):
in today's society and in the climate that we live in,
confronting it was really, really confronting.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Let me ask you a question. I know you're going
to make a point, but I want to ask you
a question real quick. How do the kids feel about
what they're seeing? They loved it. They loved it. They're
singing the songs. They absolutely they're hooked.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
What they loved though, was that Matilda stood up for herself.
That's what they saw out of it.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
And they get that it's fantasy, like they know it's
not real. So Ossie bloke to mention he was the
one who put the Matilda stuff together. Have listened to
these changes, have listened to these changes that the publisher
Puffin have made to Roald Dahale's books. And there are
many people who are calling this censorship. This is from Matilda.
(03:20):
This is the two thousand and one edition. She went
on olden day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad, she went
to Africa with Ernest Hemmanway and to India with Rudyard Kipling.
And then in the twenty twenty two edition they've changed
it to she went to nineteenth century estates with Jane Austen.
She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and California with
John Steinbeck. Like they've they've just updated it. It's no
(03:44):
longer relevant that Rudyard Kipling and Joseph they're just not
in there. Have listened to this from the Witches, even
if she is working as a cashier in a supermarket
or typing letters for a businessman. They've updated that in
the twenty twenty two edition to say even if she
is working as a top scientist or running a business,
because well, you know what that's going. We're comparing we've
(04:05):
got a woman working as a cashier in a supermarket
or typing letters for a businessman, and now she's a
top scientist or running a business. And this one also
from the Witches twenty and one versus twenty twenty two
don't be foolish, my grandmother said, you can't go around
pulling the hair of every lady you meet, even if
she is wearing gloves. Just you tried it, and see
what happens. That's the old one. Here's the new one.
Don't be foolish, my grandmother said. Besides, there are plenty
(04:25):
of other reasons why women might wear wigs, and there
is certainly nothing wrong with that. And so what we've
got here is just this shift to be I guess
more inclusive. They're gentler fired. I don't know if that's
clearly not a word, but they've made roll Dal a
whole lot more, gentle, a whole lot more.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
But that's not who he was.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
No, and.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
To do so actually destroys the integrity of the work
as it was written.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
So you want some hot takes, go for it, okay.
Christopher Palini says, as usual, George orl had the measure
of our times. Here's a quote from George Orwell from
nineteen eighty four. Every record has been destroyed or falsified,
every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue
and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered,
and the process is continuing day by day and minute
(05:16):
by minute history has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless
presence in which the party is always right. Nine and
eighty four is such a great book. Here's another hot
take for you. Michael Hobbs says this is going to
be invoked as woke censorship for years to come, despite
no one asking for it and the publisher receiving widespread
criticism from the left. James Drayfer says, it's only a
few words. What does it matter to you if it's
(05:37):
more inclusive. I don't see what's wrong, because of course
you don't. This is setting a dangerous precedent and essentially
giving the go ahead for further purging of wrong right
wait and see. Somebody else says, speaking as one of
the folks, that angry people often disparages woke. I find
the rewriting of rolled dar books to be insane. Read
them or not talk to your kids about them, or
(05:59):
not let them go out of print or not, but
don't rewrite an author's words. This is madness. And this
person says, changing not many years ago to many years
ago is the most minor of the role dull edits,
but it's the one that I can't stop thinking about.
It's not even trying to fix something potentially offensive, it's
just kids are too stupid to understand that a book
(06:22):
was written in the past, and so we've got I mean,
the Twitter sphere has gone absolutely nuts about all these
changes that are occurring. Newspaper articles are going off across
the world about all of it, and it kind of
makes me want to go and buy all of his
old books. I don't even like him, but I kind
(06:42):
of want to just have all of those books for
posterity for our kids and our grandkids. Because of this,
I think the reason the kids loved Roald Dahl stories
is because the baddies were so gross and so disgusting,
and they got their come up ands in gruesome and
horrible ways exquisitely described. And when we're censoring that for sensitivities,
(07:05):
fails to tap into what's going on with kids. I
found this in The Guardian. The word fat has been
cut from every new edition of the relevant books, while
the word ugly has also been culled. Augustus Gloop in
Charlie the Chocolate Factory is now described as enormous in
the Twits. Missus Twitter is no longer ugly and beastly,
but just beastly.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Because Beastley's better than ugly.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
In previous editions of James and the Giant Peach, the
Centipede sings Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat and tremendously flabby
at that, and ant Spiker was thin as a wire
and dry as a bone, only drier. Both of those
verses have been removed and in their places of the rhymes.
Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute and deserved to
be squashed by the fruit, and Aunt Spiker was much
of the same and deserves half of the blame. Here's
something else that's really interesting. References to female characters have disappeared.
(07:52):
So Miss trunch Bull in Matilda was once a most
formidable female and is now a most formidable woman. So
even the word female has been taken out, and they've
put a whole lot of gender neutral terms in places
where they never used to be. So in Charlie, the
Chocolate Factories upulumper situation where we had small men than
our small people the cloud men and James and the
(08:14):
Giant Peach had become cloud people. We're just seeing this
dilution of rold Dat's stories and whether you like him
or not, and whether he was even a nice guy
or not. Because I've heard and read over the years
some awful things about the guy. It feels like it's
just an over the top response the moral outrage because
(08:35):
we have to be sensitive, and I believe that we
need to be sensitive. I believe that we should be appropriate.
But the books were written thirty forty years ago, fifty
sixty years ago. In some cases, I reckon it's worth
having as we wrap up the podcast, a short conversation,
maybe a couple of minutes, on what we should do
about it as parents, because we can sit on the
podcast and we can wing and wine and say what's
going on in the world, but we need to have
(08:56):
a conversation about where to go and what to do
with this. I came across a quote years and years ago.
I just love this quote. It's a quote from LP
Hartley in his nineteen fifty three novel The go Between,
and he says this, the past is a foreign country.
They do things differently there. And I love this idea
of Hartley's that we can look at the past and say, Okay,
(09:19):
so that's how it was, and not necessarily okay, not
necessarily the way that it should have been. But rather
than losing the plot, rather than calling this totalitarian censorship
and condemning the authors and the publishers and everyone who's
doing it, which is understandable and probably even justifiable, I
think instead that we just need to teach our kids
that the past is a foreign country. They did things
(09:43):
differently there, and what that will probably do then is
lead to a deepening of the appreciation of the world
that we live in. When when people look back on
the world now, I'm sure they're going to say, oh,
my goodness, what were they doing in twenty twenty three, Like,
let's go fifty sixty seventy years down the track, I'd
say that our twenty twenty three world will probably look
fairly quaint and quite strange to our kids. I just
(10:05):
don't think that we need to be as judgey as
we're being about the past. Let's just accept that the
past was what it was, and now we're trying to
do better use it as a teaching tool.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
And that's how I see it. If we were to
take this in a really I guess, personal and practical
point of view and look back at my childhood. For
all intents and purposes, that's my children's history. Yeah, right there.
There is so much of that childhood that I would
love to rewrite that I wish never happened, or that
(10:37):
was painful and damaging, and yet for me to turn
around and pretend like it never happened. That's actually where
the real damage takes place, not that it happened, but
that I try to pretend that it didn't.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I feel like there's a quote out there somewhere where
somebody said, if we don't remember history and learn from what,
we're about to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Yeah, Like, so much of my childhood has helped me
develop and become the person I am today. For the better. Yeah,
because I have learned from those experiences the things that
I don't want in my life moving forward.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
And I think there's one other thing that's probably worth mentioning,
and that is as you read these books, read the
old versions, read the ones that have got the forbidden
grossness in them, the words that apparently we don't use anymore.
I think that we can have a conversation with the
kids and say, well, what do you think, how does
that feel? Where do you sit with this because they
(11:42):
can enjoy the fantasy of it, but they can also
then internalize the morality that they've been raised with and highlight. Well, obviously,
this is a fun book and I'm laughing at Matilda
on the screen, or I'm laughing at James and the
Giant Peach or the twits in the book. But I
would never say that to somebody. I would never behave
like that. That's obvious what's happening in the story.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
I was just thinking about some of the other books
that we've read with the kids over the years, and
you go back to those early fairy tales.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
And they were morbid.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Yeah, you know, the kids reading The Little Mermaid thinking
they were reading this beautiful fairy tale because that's what
they've grown up with, going back a century and a
half and reading Hans Christian Anderson's version of which was
obviously the very first version of it, was just devastating
to our girls. But would I want them to rewrite it, No,
(12:34):
because it gives us just so much insight.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
But that's what Disney's done, though. And you can put
Disney Channel on now and watch any of the old
shows and oh my goodness, like there's Disclaimers in the mornings,
and they've actually edited some of them as well and
removed content because it has depictions that are are deemed
defensive now. But the world was different. I love that meme,
and we do need to end this podcast, but I'd
love to finish it with two things. First of all,
(12:59):
there's that I don't know if you've seen it. There's
this guy. He's wearing a denim jacket with like a
fleecy collared lining. He's got the long hair, and he's
walking through a doorway, and he's being a different person
for each era of the last few decades. So the
first one's born nineteen seventy. He walks through the doorway,
his shoulder hits the door and he looks at the
door like ye. Then nineteen eighty he kind of looks
(13:22):
at it and says something to the door. Nineteen ninety
says something at the door and then rolls his eyes
as he walks away. But then we get to the
one who's born in two thousand. He hits the door
and he falls to the ground with huge acting and
then he pulls out the phone and takes a photo
of himself in all this pain. So that everyone can,
but there's that performative aspect to it, and I just
think there's so much going on here that's performative, so
(13:43):
much of it that's over the top. Obviously, people are
really upset about it. Salmon Rushdi, who is one of
the world's most prolific and well known authors, said this,
Roald Dahl was no angel, but this is absurd censorship,
puffin books, and the Dal estate should be ashamed. Really
strong words from a lot of people who are very
upset about Roald Dahl. Well, he's dead, but the books
(14:07):
being changed and the meanings of the books being.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Changed, well, I think that this weekend I plan on
going and buying me a few copies of a few books,
just to be sure that history.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
We hope it's giving you some food for thought. We
hope that if you've got some roll dar books, even
if you don't like them like me, I mean I
really don't like them. I'm looking on our bookshelf now
I can see three of them from where we are.
Pull a book out, read it to the kids and
have the conversation about how the past is a different country.
They do things differently, they're the past is foreign country.
They do things differently there. And if you've got any
(14:40):
feedback on what we've had to say about this one,
let us know. Podcasts at Happy families dot com dot you.
That's Podcasts with an S. The podcast, as always, is
produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is
our executive producer. Let's wrap this up with one really
important idea, Kylie, Regardless of what you think about what
you've said, read to your kids, read, read, read to
your kids. Make sure you kids are involved in books.
(15:01):
Make sure that they're getting the information, make sure that
they're reading themselves. Make sure the kids see you reading. Ultimately,
I think people care so much about this because people
care about books, because we know that books inform, books
teach books, help read to your kids this weekend. That's
the takeout message.
It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
time poor parent who just once answers.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Now Britain's Telegraph you dealed hundreds of word changes across
the author's works made by Doll's publisher Puffin and the
Royal Dolls Story Company since twenty twenty, omissions and additions
related to Wheat, gender, Reese and more.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
And now here's the stars of our show, My Mum
and Dad.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Hello, this is doctor Justin Coilson, Happy Families dot com
Dot you Dad to six kids. Here with Kylie, wife,
mum to those children and Kylie today a podcast. We're
just going to mention this in our book Club episode,
which we've pushed back till next week because this is
such a big topic. I thought we'd just slotted it
in here, but I think it deserves its own episode.
(00:48):
And therefore today's podcast conversation is about an issue that
affects every single parent who loves to read their kids,
and that is that books are changing. Kylie.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
So last year we actually talked about the fact that
Doctor Seuss was under condemnation. Yes, because in today's society,
so much of what was written in there isn't acceptable anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yeah, so this came about. There was big news last year.
I've gone and found an article that reminds us of it.
There's a n Edith Cowen University report. The lead author
of the reporter is Helen Adam, and she's concerned that
six of the ten most popular kids books in Australia
have animal characters with no humans in them, decreasing the
likelihood of children from minority background seeing characters similar to themselves.
I mean, I always thought that you use the animal
(01:37):
characters so that you can be inclusive, and no child
feels like they're not being included because they're boys or girls,
or because they're one racial background or another. So you
use the animals because then it's just applicable to everyone,
because everyone can be a bunny, rabbit or a bear.
And we're talking about kids. Yeah, And the reason we're
having this conversation today, of course, is because the next
one who is very much on the nose is Roald Dahl.
(01:59):
I'm going to say right up front, I don't actually
like Rolled Dard books. I've never liked Roll darbooks. I've
always found him a reverend. Even when I was a kid,
I didn't like him. I didn't like the way he spoke.
I thought that he was just rude and horrible.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Well, it's funny, I probably feel the same way for
lots of different reasons. But the kids recently were watching
the latest rendition of Matilda and I was absolutely flawed
at I guess I'm going to use the word abuse
that was depicted of children by the matron and especially
(02:36):
in today's society and in the climate that we live in,
confronting it was really, really confronting.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Let me ask you a question. I know you're going
to make a point, but I want to ask you
a question real quick. How do the kids feel about
what they're seeing? They loved it. They loved it. They're
singing the songs. They absolutely they're hooked.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
What they loved though, was that Matilda stood up for herself.
That's what they saw out of it.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
And they get that it's fantasy, like they know it's
not real. So Ossie bloke to mention he was the
one who put the Matilda stuff together. Have listened to
these changes, have listened to these changes that the publisher
Puffin have made to Roald Dahale's books. And there are
many people who are calling this censorship. This is from Matilda.
(03:20):
This is the two thousand and one edition. She went
on olden day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad, she went
to Africa with Ernest Hemmanway and to India with Rudyard Kipling.
And then in the twenty twenty two edition they've changed
it to she went to nineteenth century estates with Jane Austen.
She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and California with
John Steinbeck. Like they've they've just updated it. It's no
(03:44):
longer relevant that Rudyard Kipling and Joseph they're just not
in there. Have listened to this from the Witches, even
if she is working as a cashier in a supermarket
or typing letters for a businessman. They've updated that in
the twenty twenty two edition to say even if she
is working as a top scientist or running a business,
because well, you know what that's going. We're comparing we've
(04:05):
got a woman working as a cashier in a supermarket
or typing letters for a businessman, and now she's a
top scientist or running a business. And this one also
from the Witches twenty and one versus twenty twenty two
don't be foolish, my grandmother said, you can't go around
pulling the hair of every lady you meet, even if
she is wearing gloves. Just you tried it, and see
what happens. That's the old one. Here's the new one.
Don't be foolish, my grandmother said. Besides, there are plenty
(04:25):
of other reasons why women might wear wigs, and there
is certainly nothing wrong with that. And so what we've
got here is just this shift to be I guess
more inclusive. They're gentler fired. I don't know if that's
clearly not a word, but they've made roll Dal a
whole lot more, gentle, a whole lot more.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
But that's not who he was.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
No, and.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
To do so actually destroys the integrity of the work
as it was written.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
So you want some hot takes, go for it, okay.
Christopher Palini says, as usual, George orl had the measure
of our times. Here's a quote from George Orwell from
nineteen eighty four. Every record has been destroyed or falsified,
every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue
and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered,
and the process is continuing day by day and minute
(05:16):
by minute history has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless
presence in which the party is always right. Nine and
eighty four is such a great book. Here's another hot
take for you. Michael Hobbs says this is going to
be invoked as woke censorship for years to come, despite
no one asking for it and the publisher receiving widespread
criticism from the left. James Drayfer says, it's only a
few words. What does it matter to you if it's
(05:37):
more inclusive. I don't see what's wrong, because of course
you don't. This is setting a dangerous precedent and essentially
giving the go ahead for further purging of wrong right
wait and see. Somebody else says, speaking as one of
the folks, that angry people often disparages woke. I find
the rewriting of rolled dar books to be insane. Read
them or not talk to your kids about them, or
(05:59):
not let them go out of print or not, but
don't rewrite an author's words. This is madness. And this
person says, changing not many years ago to many years
ago is the most minor of the role dull edits,
but it's the one that I can't stop thinking about.
It's not even trying to fix something potentially offensive, it's
just kids are too stupid to understand that a book
(06:22):
was written in the past, and so we've got I mean,
the Twitter sphere has gone absolutely nuts about all these
changes that are occurring. Newspaper articles are going off across
the world about all of it, and it kind of
makes me want to go and buy all of his
old books. I don't even like him, but I kind
(06:42):
of want to just have all of those books for
posterity for our kids and our grandkids. Because of this,
I think the reason the kids loved Roald Dahl stories
is because the baddies were so gross and so disgusting,
and they got their come up ands in gruesome and
horrible ways exquisitely described. And when we're censoring that for sensitivities,
(07:05):
fails to tap into what's going on with kids. I
found this in The Guardian. The word fat has been
cut from every new edition of the relevant books, while
the word ugly has also been culled. Augustus Gloop in
Charlie the Chocolate Factory is now described as enormous in
the Twits. Missus Twitter is no longer ugly and beastly,
but just beastly.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Because Beastley's better than ugly.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
In previous editions of James and the Giant Peach, the
Centipede sings Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat and tremendously flabby
at that, and ant Spiker was thin as a wire
and dry as a bone, only drier. Both of those
verses have been removed and in their places of the rhymes.
Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute and deserved to
be squashed by the fruit, and Aunt Spiker was much
of the same and deserves half of the blame. Here's
something else that's really interesting. References to female characters have disappeared.
(07:52):
So Miss trunch Bull in Matilda was once a most
formidable female and is now a most formidable woman. So
even the word female has been taken out, and they've
put a whole lot of gender neutral terms in places
where they never used to be. So in Charlie, the
Chocolate Factories upulumper situation where we had small men than
our small people the cloud men and James and the
(08:14):
Giant Peach had become cloud people. We're just seeing this
dilution of rold Dat's stories and whether you like him
or not, and whether he was even a nice guy
or not. Because I've heard and read over the years
some awful things about the guy. It feels like it's
just an over the top response the moral outrage because
(08:35):
we have to be sensitive, and I believe that we
need to be sensitive. I believe that we should be appropriate.
But the books were written thirty forty years ago, fifty
sixty years ago. In some cases, I reckon it's worth
having as we wrap up the podcast, a short conversation,
maybe a couple of minutes, on what we should do
about it as parents, because we can sit on the
podcast and we can wing and wine and say what's
going on in the world, but we need to have
(08:56):
a conversation about where to go and what to do
with this. I came across a quote years and years ago.
I just love this quote. It's a quote from LP
Hartley in his nineteen fifty three novel The go Between,
and he says this, the past is a foreign country.
They do things differently there. And I love this idea
of Hartley's that we can look at the past and say, Okay,
(09:19):
so that's how it was, and not necessarily okay, not
necessarily the way that it should have been. But rather
than losing the plot, rather than calling this totalitarian censorship
and condemning the authors and the publishers and everyone who's
doing it, which is understandable and probably even justifiable, I
think instead that we just need to teach our kids
that the past is a foreign country. They did things
(09:43):
differently there, and what that will probably do then is
lead to a deepening of the appreciation of the world
that we live in. When when people look back on
the world now, I'm sure they're going to say, oh,
my goodness, what were they doing in twenty twenty three, Like,
let's go fifty sixty seventy years down the track, I'd
say that our twenty twenty three world will probably look
fairly quaint and quite strange to our kids. I just
(10:05):
don't think that we need to be as judgey as
we're being about the past. Let's just accept that the
past was what it was, and now we're trying to
do better use it as a teaching tool.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
And that's how I see it. If we were to
take this in a really I guess, personal and practical
point of view and look back at my childhood. For
all intents and purposes, that's my children's history. Yeah, right there.
There is so much of that childhood that I would
love to rewrite that I wish never happened, or that
(10:37):
was painful and damaging, and yet for me to turn
around and pretend like it never happened. That's actually where
the real damage takes place, not that it happened, but
that I try to pretend that it didn't.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
I feel like there's a quote out there somewhere where
somebody said, if we don't remember history and learn from what,
we're about to repeat the mistakes of the past.
Speaker 4 (11:03):
Yeah, Like, so much of my childhood has helped me
develop and become the person I am today. For the better. Yeah,
because I have learned from those experiences the things that
I don't want in my life moving forward.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
And I think there's one other thing that's probably worth mentioning,
and that is as you read these books, read the
old versions, read the ones that have got the forbidden
grossness in them, the words that apparently we don't use anymore.
I think that we can have a conversation with the
kids and say, well, what do you think, how does
that feel? Where do you sit with this because they
(11:42):
can enjoy the fantasy of it, but they can also
then internalize the morality that they've been raised with and highlight. Well, obviously,
this is a fun book and I'm laughing at Matilda
on the screen, or I'm laughing at James and the
Giant Peach or the twits in the book. But I
would never say that to somebody. I would never behave
like that. That's obvious what's happening in the story.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
I was just thinking about some of the other books
that we've read with the kids over the years, and
you go back to those early fairy tales.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
And they were morbid.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Yeah, you know, the kids reading The Little Mermaid thinking
they were reading this beautiful fairy tale because that's what
they've grown up with, going back a century and a
half and reading Hans Christian Anderson's version of which was
obviously the very first version of it, was just devastating
to our girls. But would I want them to rewrite it, No,
(12:34):
because it gives us just so much insight.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
But that's what Disney's done, though. And you can put
Disney Channel on now and watch any of the old
shows and oh my goodness, like there's Disclaimers in the mornings,
and they've actually edited some of them as well and
removed content because it has depictions that are are deemed
defensive now. But the world was different. I love that meme,
and we do need to end this podcast, but I'd
love to finish it with two things. First of all,
(12:59):
there's that I don't know if you've seen it. There's
this guy. He's wearing a denim jacket with like a
fleecy collared lining. He's got the long hair, and he's
walking through a doorway, and he's being a different person
for each era of the last few decades. So the
first one's born nineteen seventy. He walks through the doorway,
his shoulder hits the door and he looks at the
door like ye. Then nineteen eighty he kind of looks
(13:22):
at it and says something to the door. Nineteen ninety
says something at the door and then rolls his eyes
as he walks away. But then we get to the
one who's born in two thousand. He hits the door
and he falls to the ground with huge acting and
then he pulls out the phone and takes a photo
of himself in all this pain. So that everyone can,
but there's that performative aspect to it, and I just
think there's so much going on here that's performative, so
(13:43):
much of it that's over the top. Obviously, people are
really upset about it. Salmon Rushdi, who is one of
the world's most prolific and well known authors, said this,
Roald Dahl was no angel, but this is absurd censorship,
puffin books, and the Dal estate should be ashamed. Really
strong words from a lot of people who are very
upset about Roald Dahl. Well, he's dead, but the books
(14:07):
being changed and the meanings of the books being.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Changed, well, I think that this weekend I plan on
going and buying me a few copies of a few books,
just to be sure that history.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
We hope it's giving you some food for thought. We
hope that if you've got some roll dar books, even
if you don't like them like me, I mean I
really don't like them. I'm looking on our bookshelf now
I can see three of them from where we are.
Pull a book out, read it to the kids and
have the conversation about how the past is a different country.
They do things differently, they're the past is foreign country.
They do things differently there. And if you've got any
(14:40):
feedback on what we've had to say about this one,
let us know. Podcasts at Happy families dot com dot you.
That's Podcasts with an S. The podcast, as always, is
produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is
our executive producer. Let's wrap this up with one really
important idea, Kylie, Regardless of what you think about what
you've said, read to your kids, read, read, read to
your kids. Make sure you kids are involved in books.
(15:01):
Make sure that they're getting the information, make sure that
they're reading themselves. Make sure the kids see you reading. Ultimately,
I think people care so much about this because people
care about books, because we know that books inform, books
teach books, help read to your kids this weekend. That's
the takeout message.
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