The language didn’t sit well with people in Twain’s time!
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don’t make me cancel becky thatcher!
The difference between Twain and Dahl of course is that Twain was anti-racist and the language in Huck Finn exists as a way to showcase the troubled culture of that era. Getting rid of it would indeed be whitewashing and distorting his message.
What purpose does the racism in Dahl’s works serve? Particularly as the value of his books are whimsical children’s stories, not cultural period pieces.
Here is the better analogy to Dahl:
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A great reason to not read them anymore. Rewriting a racist guy’s books to take out the racism so that his great grandchildren can get even more rich is bad.
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That’s a poor analogy. Everyone understands that this is a loose adaptation of the original story. --It’s got “Walt Disney’s” right there to let you know!
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Doesn’t matter to me. Yes Dahl was a racist. His works shouldn’t be rewritten. No dead artist’s works should be rewritten without comment and presented as if that’s how they were originally written. I’m for freedom of speech, artistic freedom, academic freedom. If you’re for those sorts of freedoms, they must apply equally to views, art, and scholarship you despise. Otherwise you’re not for freedom of expression. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of expression for artists he agreed with. So was Stalin.
Urban Jim
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It’s offensive to me that people want to teach our kids that Dahl wasn’t racist and Francis Scott Key isn’t racist and the country wasn’t founded on racism
The arguments of “you can find out those things if you really want to” are so bogus. People believe the simple, rosy things they’re taught as kids, and come up with rationalizations later when they find it isn’t true. Actually just dig in harder and more radically. That is blatantly obvious when it comes to things like patriotism and the gender = chromosomes mouthbreathers.
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i learned about star spangled banner controversy in high school. are you saying they should teach it earlier? ok, i’m not opposed to that. are you saying they should teach something else? or teach it differently? but for the time being people can just sing the first stanza at ballgames?
the way my hs taught shakespeare is with an annotated edition, where more than half the text was explanations rather than willy’s original words. in fact skme of his words were edited over time. do you think twain’s art cannot possibly handle the same treatment?
Sure man if all you’re arguing for is whether or not there is an “Adapted from original” tagline on the inside cover then I’m cool with that. It sounded like what you wanted was to make it illegal for copyright* holders to edit the content of the material they possess, which seems like the antithesis of freedom of expression.
*Not defending modern copyright law. If your contention is that Dahl should be in the public domain and anyone is free to modify him and make money off it, I’d probably agree that’s an improvement over the status quo.
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That’s a silly comparison. The annotations in Shakespeare are there to help you understand the original text, not to change any of the outrageous anti-Welsh racism or naughty jokes. You wouldn’t do that with Ronald Dahl because because no one needs modern English explained to them.
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I don’t think that copyright holders should be allowed to alter their dead relatives art and still make money from it. Copyright’s purpose is to encourage artists to do art stuff and be able to profit from it. Letting heirs deface the original works of their long-dead relatives to try and make a buck has no societal benefit, indeed, there’s a harm.
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Of course the ever-lengthening amount of time that copyright has been extended past the death of the artist is a separate issue. But that scandalous corruption makes this issue worse. Dahl has been dead for more than thirty years and yes, of course his works should be in the public domain. Would he have still written his books if his heirs could only sponge off his works for twenty five years? Of course.
highly questionable
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Do you realize the Dahl estate will not annotate or footnote anything? Your posts don’t really make sense unless you are missing that part.
bruh you said you’re starting a collection of nazi plates with the swastikas scratched off plz don’t reply to me like you’re a serious person
I think it’s pretty gross. Not as bad if they put the editor’s name on the cover. If they don’t I think it’s really bad.
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