The Patriot Post® · Awokening Roald Dahl's Classics
The late British writer Roald Dahl, author of Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The BFG, and so many more, has had his seminal contributions to children’s literature defiled by the censorship board at the publisher Puffin Books. The “sensitivity” readers (a.k.a. the Orwellian thought police) have changed the language in these books to suit modern leftist sensibilities.
Some of the examples of added wokeness are changing Oompa Loompas (from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) or Cloud Men (from James and the Giant Peach) into genderless creatures. These characters are now “small people” and “Cloud People,” respectively. In Fantastic Mr. Fox, the fox children are no longer sons, but daughters. Why? Because feminism wins. References in the books to the colors white or black are now gone because of racism. They have taken out references to the words “crazy” or “mad” to be sensitive to those who struggle with mental health. Characters that were fat are now “enormous” because of anti-fatphobia. (How “enormous” is any better on that score has us baffled, to say the least).
Our culture is, unfortunately, no stranger to the desecration and cancellation of beloved children’s book authors. Dr. Seuss, as you may recall, was canceled, and several of his books (And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, If I Ran the Zoo, McElligot’s Pool, On Beyond Zebra! Scrambled Eggs Super! and The Cat’s Quizzer) are no longer being published because they’re “not aging well” according to shifting cultural sensibilities.
Our modern woke mobs also believe in tearing down statues of American heroes because some may have owned slaves or weren’t “perfect” by their standards.
Matilda and The BFG were books that I, as a first- and second-grade teacher, would read aloud to my students every year. They are wonderful stories where children are able to overcome great evil. Dahl has a way of being relatable to his young audience. There are some curse words in the stories that I would skip over as I read, but the complete and utter woke-washing that his books have been subjected to are more insidious than outright cancellation.
There was a reason Dahl used the words he did. It is wrong to go in and hollow out someone else’s work just because woke sensibilities dictate gender neutrality, feminism, anti-fatphobia, and other nonsense. Reconfiguring history to placate modern people who might be offended is ludicrous.
This effort to revise novels by using another novel — 1984 — as an instruction manual should have us all up in arms. This is not protecting people; this is controlling them. More importantly, it is rewriting cultural history and erasing where we have come from.
History answers an important question: Where do we come from? History teaches us about change happening over time. It is the gift of a million timelines that help us construct the human story. So too are classical pieces of literature. These books broaden the human experience by giving a glimpse into the life of other people, places, and cultures. Roald Dahl is not Shakespeare, but imagine the havoc that would be wrought on the culture of the West if Shakespeare is given a similar treatment.
One reason for this sudden interest in rewriting Dahl is no doubt that Netflix has recently bought the rights to make movies and TV shows out of his stories.
Critics are sounding off on this blatant, irrational censorship. Salman Rushdie, Booker Prize winner and an author who knows a little something about censorship — Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini has called for Rushdie’s assassination, which is the ultimate censorship, and Rushdie survived an attempt last year — wrote, “Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship, Puffin Books and the Dahl estate should be ashamed.”
There are no perfect humans. Every single one of us has done or will do something that will deeply offend someone else or not age well. This applies to historical figures as well as important thinkers and writers. Their ideas, stories, and legacies are not diminished because of an alleged “sin” according to modern woke acolytes. The correct response is to take their good with the bad and critically think about their ideas in the context of their time. It is wrong to rewrite or diminish writers like Dahl because what they wrote might offend (or in all honestly might speak truth to) modern audiences.
Update 2/24: Puffin, the Penguin Random House subsidiary that publishes Dahl’s books, sort of gave in. “The Roald Dahl Classic Collection will sit alongside the newly released Puffin Roald Dahl books for young readers, which are designed for children who may be navigating written content independently for the first time,” said the publisher in a statement. “Readers will be free to choose which version of Dahl’s stories they prefer.”