THE BBC CENSORS FAWLTY TOWERS

 I have said before how books like Tintin in the Congo or elements like Santa's pipe have been removed due to political correctness. 

The same has happened with Puffin Books' sensitivity readers to Roald Dahl, where Matilda's reading of Rudyard Kipling has become Jane Austen, "hopping like a dervish" became "hopping like a frog," "fat" became "enormous," "ugly old cow" became "nasty old shrew" and "gay" and "queer" were completely excised, even if they mean "happy" and "strange" respectively.

James Bond and Agatha Christie (Ten Little Soldier Boys, anyone?) have also been given the PC treatment, but what shocked me the most was that they did it to FAWLTY TOWERS :O !

But the billboard anagrams are not the only issue in translating FT. How to translate cultural references...? "At the Oval" becomes "en el críquet", but "Wogs?" (British slur for South Asians, very offensive to them!) And Manuel's funny mistakes, based on the Anglo-Spanish language barrier?

Mr. Fawlty: Manuel, there is too much butter on those trays.

Manuel: ¡No, no, no, señor Folty! ¡Not "on, dous, treis"! ¡"Un, dos, tres"! (counting to three with fingers)

This fragment is simply cut out. Just because most Spaniards, due to the lack of long vowels and other features of their mother tongue, prove as ineffectual when it comes to foreign languages as Manuel in the dialogue above.

I grew up with this scene, where Mr. Fawlty and the Major are discussing ethnic groups. The Major, a veteran of both World Wars, thinks (obviously) that Germans are the enemy but that German women are very attractive... then the conversation turns to (pardon my French) Injuns and Niggers, and Wogs. He recalls having taken his ladylove to see England vs. India at The Oval, the most important cricket ground in the UK and maybe in the world. The Major and his girlfriend got into an argument - she kept referring to the South Asian cricketers as "niggers," while the Major said niggers were the West Indians, from the Caribbean, and these cricketers were "Wogs" instead:

• Major Gowen: I must have been keen on her because I took her to see India.
• Basil Fawlty: India?
• Maj. Gowen: At The Oval.
• [...]
• Maj. Gowen: The strange thing was that throughout the morning, she kept referring to the Indians ("Injuns") as niggers. 'No, no, I said'. 'Niggers are the West Indians, these people are Wogs!' 'No, no', she said, all cricketers are niggers.'
• [...]
• Maj. Gowen: I hate Germans! I love women.
• Polly Sherman (the maid): What about German women?
• Maj. Gowen: Good card players.

++++++++

The term "Wog" comes most probably from "pollywog," an amphibian larva, but also metaphorically a novice sailor in the Royal Navy, one that is young and inexperienced, and has not crossed the Equator yet (compare Spanish "renacuajo"). It could also be an initialism for Westernised Oriental Gentleman. The most xenophobic of the Brits regard all foreigners as Wogs: for these people, "the Wogs begin at Calais", while their French counterparts have the same opinion of us Spaniards: "l'Afrique commence aux Pyrénées".

And now the BBC has taken out these scenes where the Major discusses niggers and Wogs...

The BBC deleted this scene in 2013 and this was met with collective outrage.

After all, the point of the scene was to present Major Gowen as arrogant, aloof and out-of-touch. But Brits love him warts and all, with his antiquated racism, and I am not the only one who has grown up with this series, or Monty Python, or 'Allo 'Allo!, or Blackadder, or Hyacinth "Bouquet..."

The major tells Mr. Fawlty about the time he took a woman to see India play cricket at the Oval. He then says: ‘The strange thing was, throughout the morning she kept referring to the Indians as niggers. “No, no, no,” I said, “the niggers are the West Indians. These people are wogs”.’

Several years ago there were concerns that the episode would never be shown again because of the offensive words. However, recent editions of The Complete Fawlty Towers DVD, distributed by BBC Worldwide, have not been edited and included the segment that was cut by the BBC.

Some fans took to the BBC’s Points of View message board to say they ‘despaired’ at the ‘unnecessary’ editing.

One wrote: ‘You can’t airbrush history away and I doubt if anyone but the terminally thin-skinned could be offended by the Major, a character we’re clearly supposed to laugh at rather than with.’

Another posted: ‘The point is that the Major is a racist old bigot, incongruous with modern society – even in the Seventies. The audience isn’t supposed to agree with him, they’re supposed to laugh at him. The whole episode is about xenophobia in various forms – it’s social satire. I instinctively dislike the airbrushing of history.’

A third viewer wrote: ‘So how sad BBC you have finally succumbed and lost the guts to transmit the episode of Fawlty Towers “The Germans” in its original form. The major’s speech of his experience of going out with a woman to the Oval is one of the funniest things ever.

‘You edited it because it includes the W-word and the N-word. Let’s face it, the whole episode and much of Fawlty Towers is racist by today’s standards and misogynistic, but above all it is hilarious.

‘We are all grown up, you know. We, the vast majority of us, can laugh at this without being racists.

‘It’s about time you grew up BBC, and trusted your audience. We know what is acceptable and what is not and what is funny and why, and the fact it is of a time which is now long past. We understand context, the major is a figure of fun, he doesn’t whip up hatred.’

Fawlty Towers was written by and starred John Cleese and his then wife Connie Booth as Mr. and Mrs. Fawlty. "The Germans" was the sixth episode of the 12 that were made and was voted number 11 in Channel 4’s One Hundred Greatest TV Moments in 1999.

The series has continued to entertain families since being made in the 1970s and was in 2000 voted by industry professionals to be the best British series of all time.

A BBC spokesman said: ‘We are very proud of Fawlty Towers and its contribution to British television comedy.

‘But public attitudes have changed significantly since it was made and it was decided to make some minor changes, with the consent of John Cleese’s management, to allow the episode to transmit to a family audience at 7.30 pm on BBC2.’

The BBC has cut from a repeat of the episode The Germans (screened many times since it was first seen in 1975) a speech in which the blimpish hotel resident Major Gowen uses two outlawed racial insults while reporting on a trip to see an England v India cricket match at the Oval.

It is impossible to discuss properly the censored dialogue without quoting the line. Very sensitive readers should stop now and it should not be assumed that I, the Guardian – or, indeed, John Cleese and Connie Booth, the show's writers and co-stars – endorse the general or casual use of such terms. In his anecdote, the Major tells Mr. Fawlty that he went to the cricket match with a woman who "kept referring to the Indians as niggers. 'No, no, no,' I said, 'the niggers are the West Indians. These people are wogs.'"

The objection to those shows is that the assumptions behind the characterisation and writing date from an era of different attitudes to race and therefore risk causing offence now. In contrast, Cleese and Booth, when they wrote the character of Major Gowen, were clearly not being unthinkingly racist; rather, they were satirising an English upper-class bigot. The joke depends on the audience first thinking that, when the Major rebukes his companion "No, no, no", he is condemning her for inflammatory language, when it turns out that he is simply a particularly pedantic racist. A liberal pedant might object that it was odd of the BBC to cut just that one line from the episode in question as the entire premise of "The Germans" is English post-WW2 humour and hostility towards the country. But, while the show will never win a prize for encouraging Anglo-German cultural understanding, Cleese is comically depicting – rather than politically promoting – fear of "Fritz".

 The same defence can be made of Major Gowen's speech and so there may be pressure for the entire episode to be shown at a later date, with an appropriate note about its content. Major Gowen is racist; Fawlty Towers isn't.

I am not the only one who has grown up with this series, or Monty Python, or 'Allo 'Allo!, or Blackadder, or Hyacinth "Bouquet..." Before I watched this episode as a tween, I knew nothing about cricket, I didn't know what the Oval was or what "Wogs" meant. Now in my thirties, I am very sad that the BBC has removed this conversation between Mr. Fawlty and the Major. I can tolerate that Tintin in the Congo is no longer in Swedish libraries, that Santa no longer smokes a pipe, that Roald Dahl has been edited by Puffin Books - BUT PLEASE DON'T TOUCH MY MAJOR OR HIS WOGS!!!

ONCE MORE - LOVECRAFTIAN CHILDREN IN ANDERSEN'S XENOFICTION

Finally The Midnight Archives released their Ugly Duckling episode - and I couldn't wait to get to the part where the protagonist spends the winter on a farm with Lovecraftian, monstrous (sadistic in his eyes) children, so I skipped ahead:

The farm children crowd around, excited by this strange pet bird their father has brought home. They've never seen anything like him. They want to touch him, to hold him, to play with him. But the ugly duckling doesn't understand play. He only understands danger. When the children reach for him laughing, he sees only hands coming to hurt him. The same human hands that have always hurt him. Every touch in his life has been violent. Every approach has been an attack. He panics. [...] The children laugh and try to catch him, which only makes his terror worse. The whole cottage descends into chaos. It's almost comedic if you don't think about what's happening inside the duckling's mind. He's been given a second chance at shelter, at safety, at warmth, and he's destroying it because he can't recognize kindness. He's been hurt so many times that even genuine friendliness looks like an attack. 

[...]

From the very beginning, Andersen was marked as different. He was a tall and gangly ginger, with a prominent nose and hands that seemed too big for his body. And, moreover, left-handed. He moved awkwardly, spoke strangely, didn't fit in with other children. He preferred putting on puppet shows and reciting poetry to playing normal games. While other kids in Odense rough-housed, he stood apart, watching, dreaming, already somewhere else. The other children thought he was bizarre, and bullied him. Most surely, he was autistic.

Very clever of the narrator to portray these children as "predators" from the Ugly Duckling's point of view! So far, the only humans he has known before them, the maid on the farm where he hatched (a teenage servant) and the huntsmen (adult men) have abused him; how can he understand play when all the other humans he's known are enemies? - and moreover small children ignore that a pet is not a toy - they haven't developed empathy yet. I have spoken before of Andersen's double standard - ie Children are Innocent (the Romantic ideal) when they're the protagonists VS. Kids Are Cruel (seen as predators by the non-human protagonists) when they're secondary characters. This is NOT unique to Andersen, but can also be seen in other authors, who, unlike Andersen, feature Innocent Children as the protagonists and Cruel Kids as the side characters (even as the villains!) in THE SAME stories. This includes Christoph von Schmid (Good Friedrich and Wicked Dietrich, Good Friederike and Wicked Dorothy, the list goes on), Victor Hugo (Cosette vs. Éponine, both as children and as teenagers), and most importantly Roald Dahl (Charlie Bucket vs. the four Bad Kids, Matilda vs. her brother Michael and Bruce Bogtrotter, the Narrator vs. Bruno in The Witches, the list goes on).

There seems to be a double standard. Whenever children are the protagonists (The Snow Queen, The Little Mermaid, Thumbelina, etc). they are pure and innocent, and victims of suffering we should empathize with 

- but in Andersen's works of xenofiction, where the protagonists are non-human and the children are secondary characters, these children are portrayed as inhuman monsters who only want to play, to have fun, to eat sweets... But in that pursuit, they treat the non-human protagonists not roughly, but even cruelly, and lacking empathy (they chase the Ugly Duckling, pull the Fir Tree's branches, send the Tin Soldier downstream in a paper boat... Not even adult humans are spared, as seen in their treatment of the storyteller [Andersen inserting himself?] also in The Fir Tree, here). 

Long story short: children as protagonists=pristine angels to empathize with, children as secondary characters in xenofiction=sadistic Lovecraftian monsters without empathy. This double standard, especially in the light of Romanticism (Rousseau's and Locke's ideas, Andersen as a Romantic), has always fascinated me.

Here are Maria Tatar's comments on the monstrous, sadistic children in Andersen's xenofiction:

In The Ugly Duckling:

the duckling was afraid they would hurt him. Andersen’s surprising dislike of small children, given the audience for his stories today, is well documented. In the plan for a commemorative statue in Copenhagen, he asked that the child looking over his shoulder be removed from the design. But his hatred of one of the sketches, which reminded him of “old Socrates and young Alcibiades,” may have been inspired by very different anxieties. As a child he was an avid reader, who stayed away from other children. “I never played with the other boys,” he reported in a letter to his benefactor Jonas Collin, “I was always alone.” (Moreover, Andersen was bullied! Note from S. Dermark)

In The Fir Tree:

(This tale is absent from Maria Tatar's annotated edition, but note here how they treat the storyteller [Andersen inserting himself!], showing that not even the human adults are inmune to their lack of empathy!)

Here is the scene as translated by Jean Hersholt:

Suddenly the folding doors were thrown back, and a whole flock of children burst in as if they would overturn the tree completely. Their elders marched in after them, more sedately. For a moment, but only for a moment, the young ones were stricken speechless. Then they shouted till the rafters rang. They danced about the tree and plucked off one present after another.

Then the children had permission to plunder the tree. They went about it in such earnest that the branches crackled and, if the tree had not been tied to the ceiling by the gold star at top, it would have tumbled headlong.

The children danced about with their splendid playthings. No one looked at the tree now, except an old nursemaid who peered in among the branches, but this was only to make sure that not an apple or fig or gingerbread man had been overlooked.

"Tell us a story! Tell us a story!" the children clamored, as they towed a fat little man to the tree. He sat down beneath it and said, "Here we are in the woods, and it will do the tree a lot of good to listen to our story. Mind you, I'll tell only one. Which will you have, the story of Ivedy-Avedy, or the one about Humpty-Dumpty who sat on a wall and had a great fall, tumbled downstairs, yet ascended the throne and married the princess?"

"Ivedy-Avedy," cried some. "Humpty-Dumpty," cried the others. And there was a great hullabaloo. 

The fat little man told them all about Humpty-Dumpty, who sat on a wall, had a great fall, tumbled downstairs, yet ascended the throne and married the princess. And the children clapped and shouted, "Tell us another one! Tell us another one!" For they wanted to hear about Ivedy-Avedy too, but after Humpty-Dumpty the storytelling stopped.

In The Tin Soldier:

street urchins came running along. As is often the case in Andersen’s stories, schoolboys and street urchins can be counted on to engage in sadistic behavior. Saintly urchins like the little match girl are invariably female.

for no reason at all, (his owner) threw him right into the stove. The tin soldier seems to be a survivor, but in the end, he loses his life “for no reason at all”—just on a small boy’s whim. The Tin soldier attributes the boy’s urge to an evil power, suggesting that the jack-in-the-box has engineered his death.

......

So basically here we have the Kids are Cruel (sadistic, lacking empathy, caring only for their own amusement) trope in Andersen's xenofiction, in child secondary characters, stemming from his own hatred of children (misopaedia) stemming in turn from bullying trauma... One of the causes of the Kids Are Cruel trope in real life is explained in Developmental Psychology. It's called ego-centralism and until a child reaches a certain point in their mental development they don't understand that their actions can hurt others even though they are not hurt themselves. This is what happens in Andersen's stories, even though Andersen himself uses the trope to view them as sadistic monsters from the POV of non-humans, to channel his childhood trauma!

- vs. the Children are Innocent (pure, angelic, whose suffering elicits empathy) whenever children are the protagonists in Andersen, stemming from the Victorian / Romantic notions/Rousseaunian and Lockean myth of pristine, unsullied childhood as a black slate. This can lead to an unawareness that they are doing anything wrong. They can commit offenses unwittingly and face a Bewildering Punishment. Children have to learn empathy, and not to be self-centered, and also often have a poor grasp of consequences of their actions. This can then lead to Ambiguous Innocence. Again, ego-centralism.

A well-known experiment by Wimmer and Perner (1983) called the false-belief task demonstrates how children show their acquisition of theory of mind (ToM) as early as 4 years old. In this task, children see a scenario where one character hides a marble in a basket, walks out of the scene, and another character that is present takes out the marble and puts it in a box. Knowing that the first character did not see the switching task, children were asked to predict where the first character would look to find the marble. The results show that children younger than 4 answer that the first character would look inside the box, because the children have the superior knowledge of where the marble actually is. It shows egocentric thinking in early childhood because they thought that, even if the first character themself did not see the entire scenario, the first character has the same amount of knowledge as they did, and therefore should look inside the box to find the marble. As children start to acquire ToM (and empathy), their ability to recognize and process others' beliefs and values overrides the natural tendency to be egocentric.

---

Andersen's xenofictional children see the world as a huge playplace and everything as a toy - they are ego-centralists, they only want to play and have fun, they're rough-housing all the time, but they haven't learned yet that a pet is not a toy, that a plant is not a toy either, and neither is an adult human, no matter how good stories he might tell. They simply haven't developed empathy yet. At heart, all young children are like that, and that is why they're perceived as "naughty" or "rough-housing." I was the same myself as a toddler; I made potions with my shampoos and other cosmetics, I cut my dolls' hair and doodled on their faces, I cut out the characters in fairytales to use them as paper dolls... fortunately all my pets were confined to their habitats (the fish in their fishtank, the turtles in their terrarium, the budgies in their cage) and therefore spared a rough treatment from a young child who moreover needed constant external stimulation, with her autism and ADHD! Like Andersen's bullies, I rough-housed, but like Andersen himself, I also spent the hours away in daydreams and in books, and was bullied both for my social awkwardness and Nordic looks (and I'm left-handed too!). 

LENNART HELLSINGS SJÖRÖVARBOK

För några år sedan, under eller innan pandemin, lyssnade jag på ett avsnitt av podden Snedtänkt som handlade om censur i svensk barnlitteratur och om vissa barnböcker som antingen förändrades på vissa känsliga ställen - eller rycktes bort helt och hållet från skol- och folkbiblioteken över hela Sverige, ifall det känsliga innehållet inte kunde förändras:

• Hattstugan - såväl eldsvåda som barnaga förekommer i denna Elsa Beskow-klassiker - rycktes bort
• Tintin i Kongo (och andra Tintin-serier där han besöker exotiska platser) p g a nidbilder av mörkhyade, asiater, judar, m fl - rycktes bort
• Gammaldags julböcker där Tomten röker pipa - antingen pipan suddades bort eller böckerna rycktes bort. I de flesta fallen suddades bort både pipan och dessa verser: the stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
  and the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
• Kapten Efraim Långstrump (Pippis pappa) - kunde inte ryckas bort, eftersom Astrid och Pippi är Nationella Skatter och dyker t o m upp på tjugolappen - men det blev en hel del förändringar:

1. Kapten Långstrumps pipa suddades bort, precis som jultomtens
2. Kapten Långstrump kallas nu för "söderhavskung" eller helt enkelt bara "kung"
3. Hans undersåtar, kurrekurreduttarna, kallas nu för "infödingar" och har suddats bort, eftersom illustrationerna föreställde nidbilder 

Men -

Det finns en barnbok av Lennart Hellsing (en annan Nationell Skatt, dock inte till samma grad som Astrid Lindgren), som verkar vara självaste NECRONOMICON i jämförelse med allt det här, och som har tagits bort från alla bibliotek i Sverige, fastän den handlar om ett så oskyldigt och spännande ämne som pirater.

Om du har tur kanske du kan hitta den på second hand.

Mina herrar och damer och icke-binära, jag hälsar eder välkomna till Sjörövarbok.

Här är omslaget:

Oskyldigt, eller hur? Ett piratskepp till havs med Jolly Roger i topp? Alla barn på jorden tycker att pirater är spännande.

Men skenet bedrar i det här fallet...

Lollipop, lollipop
Jolly Roger i topp!
Hur det slår! Hur det går!
Hela världen är vår!

Som ni ser är boken på vers, allting rimmar (som i flera aldra barnböcker, t ex Hattstugan och de flesta av Dr Seuss, samt de flesta av Lennart Hellsing, författaren till Sjörövarbok!). Här, som i de flesta av hans verk, har Hellsing utnyttjat versen för att få fram väldigt kreativa rim, med alla kaptenernas efternamn (och alla piraterna här är kaptener!) - fast just här är rimmen om teman som anses inte vara PK alls för nutida barn.

Om det nu är så (och det är det) att förläggare och föräldrar får dåndimpen av otäckheter som alkohol, tobak, naket och okristligt språk i våra ungas kultur så är det inte konstigt att "Sjörövarbok" i omgångar varit flitigt debatterad. Piraterna lever onekligen ett sabla liv. Under det stora sjöslaget i början på boken stupar flera kaptener (och alla pirater i den här boken är kaptener!):

"Kapten Smolk drog sin dolk 

och tog livet av folk.

Kapten Spritar gick i bitar

Kapten Klas han gick i kras

Kapten Trogen gick åt skogen

Kapten Höök gick upp i rök"

Detta illustreras med en väldig explosion där skeppet går i tusen bitar och flera tusen pirater flyger all världens väg. Det var en del av våldet då. Hur är det då med spriten? Vi följer piraterna in på en bar. Efter sjöslaget måste man läska strupen, eller hur?

"Till en bar drog envar 

varje karl som fanns kvar

Kapten Viit han kom dit 

tog en nit på kredit

Kapten Bäver drack genever 

Kapten Franz drack pommerans

Kapten Koppar Bäska Droppar 

Kapten Lans drack vad som fanns! 

Kapten Fura, Angostura 

Kapten Bayer drack tokajer  

Kapten Linn, han drack gin (är gin och genever samma sak?) 

Kapten Öd, han drack mjöd 

Kapten Boom, han drack rom 

Kapten Frälst drack vad som helst!"

 

En av kaptenerna dricker juice och en annan dricker vatten, men bara därför att det rimmar på deras respektive efternamn. Märk också att några av dryckerna (Angostura, Bäska Droppar, pomerans, tokajer) är numera väldigt okända och lika svåra att få tag på (t o m på Systembolaget!) Vem dricker t ex Angostura nuförtiden?

Och när en pirat jobbat hårt med att döda och plundra och sedan stärkt sig med ett glas har han såklart gjort sig förtjänt av lite kvinnligt sällskap:

"Kapten Skam, han tog sig fram 

till en mager madam

Kapten Sju tog itu 

med en ungdomlig fru

Kapten Hyska tog en ryska, 

Kapten Ess tog en negress

Kapten Benka tog en änka, 

Kapten Gris en servitris

Lägga an! Lägga till! Lägga upp! Lägga bi!

Kapten Punkt tog det lugnt 

och tog hand om något ungt!"

Föga förvånande har det funnit dom som velat sudda bort vissa delar. Meningen som retat upp moralens väktare är framförallt:

"Kapten Böös slog sig lös 

med en nakendansös!"

Både kapten Böos och kapten Punkt, den pedofilen!

Samt bilden där kapten Böös skålar bredvid den barbröstade nakendansösen (och negressen, en nidbild, finns med på samma illustration!) I USA, och i senare svenska upplagor, tog man sig helt sonika den konstnärliga friheten att krita dit en bikini (fast då är hon inte längre naken!). Likväl på den tjockrövade tjejen på sleeven (omslaget) på Queens Fat-Bottomed Girls.

Bikinin var INTE alltid där!

Om det är några som har ett avslappnat och icke-sexualiserat förhållande till kvinnobröst så är det väl för håken barn. (Bedöm gärna själva men varning för den hiskeliga dunka-dunka musiken!)

Historien, som är följande: två sjörövarskepp möts, slagsmål, kanonskott och till slut en stor explosion uppstår. De som överlever, efter sjöslaget, tar sig till en bar där de super loss och hittar sig en varsin fru/käresta. Efter en kväll av dans går de hem genom natten, och bestämmer sig för att ge upp sjöröveriet och istället slå sig ner som fredliga män. Men den dag som sjörövarskeppet kommer tillbaka, så kan de inte motstå att gå till sjöss igen –

----

PS. Om Roald Dahls nya PK-utgåvor:

Roald Dahl, också en Nationell Skatt i Storbritannien och vars främsta verk har alla filmats (Kalle och Chokladfabriken 2 gånger, Matilda även 2 gånger, likaså Häxorna och SVJ [den senaste först som tecknat och senare som live-action], James och Jättepersikan bara en gång, likaså Den fantastiske Räven, sagoparodierna Revolting Rhymes [som crossover i 2 delar], Naddap-Dlöks och allra senast Herr och Fru Slusk [premiär på Netflix i oktober 2025!]), har på sistone återgivits av Puffin Books (Penguins barndivision, som äger rättigheterna) med hjälp av s k "känslighetsläsare" (sensitivity readers). Allt som kunde vara negativt laddat förändrades i de nya utgåvorna:

Oompa-Loomparna kommer nu officielt från Loompalandet, inte från Afrika, och de har dessutom ljusare hy. Också: i stället för att använda Oompa-Loomparna som försökskaniner prövar Wille Wonka det magiska godiset (t ex hårkola) på sig själv.

"Mammor och pappor" byttes ut mot "föräldrar", "bröder och systrar" mot "syskon" och "män och kvinnor" mot "personer/människor".

Alla figurer som har en annorlunda kropp (utom jättarna i SVJ, som inte är människor) och/eller som inte är västerländska - deras beskrivningar suddas ut. Däribland feta figurer som August Glupsk, Bruno från Häxorna, Nikolai Thoresson (han som åt upp chokladtårtan) från Matilda och Mostrarna Sylt (den tjocka) och Snylt (den smala) från James och Jättepersikan.

Jämför bara vad småkrypen inuti persikan (tusenfotingen närmare bestämt) säger när Moster Sylt blir krossad av persikan i originalet och i den nya utgåvan!

ORIGINAL:

Aunt Sponge was terrifically fat,

and tremendously flabby at that!

NY PK-UTGÅVA:

Aunt Sponge was a nasty old brute

and deserved to be squashed by the fruit!

Moster Snylt har lika mycket otur:

ORIGINAL:

Aunt Spiker was thin as a wire

and dry as a bone, only drier!

NY PK-UTGÅVA:

Aunt Spiker was much of the same

and deserves half of the blame!

Även ord som "ugly" och "misshapen" (och motsatserna "pretty" och "beautiful") har försvunnit helt och hållet från de nya brittiska Roald-Dahl-böckerna. Rektorn i Matilda, Fröken Pitbull (tidigare känd som Domderassonskan), en stor och stark, väldigt muskulös och "maskulin" kvinna (Emma Thompson tolkar henne väldigt nära boken), man har förändrat hennes beskrivning otroligt mycket.

Andra ord som "crazy", "lunatic", och allt annat som kan syfta på psykisk ohälsa, likaså "gay" (t o m om det betyder "glad") och "queer" (t o m om det betyder "konstig"/"sällsam") har också försvunnit härifrån.

När det gäller figurer som inte är västerländska ser vi detsamma - For example, a character "hopping about like a dervish" in Fantastic Mr Fox became "hopping about like a frog".

Alla referenser till könsroller har också tagits bort, och häftiga förolämpningar har tonats ner, t ex om Fru Slusk: some insults directed at women were often softened (such as "ugly old cow" becoming "ghastly old shrew" in The Twits). 

The word fat was regularly removed, being replaced with terms such as enormous or large, as were references to short height and similar descriptions. References to characters being old was sometimes altered or removed.

The words crazy, lunatic, and mad, along with similar words, were regularly removed, as were some descriptions of low intelligence and mental disorders, such as removing a line from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory about a character being "shut up in some disgusting sanatorium". References to physical deformity or disability, including blindness, muteness, deafness, etc. were also commonly removed or altered.

References to lack of privilege were sometimes altered, such as removing a description of Sophie as "a little orphan of no real importance in the world" from The BFG.

References to poor personal hygiene were often removed, while some references to drinking alcohol and smoking were also changed. In Fantastic Mr Fox, Small Fox sniffs a bottle of cider rather than taking a sip, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory's Oompa-Loompas are no longer described as "drunk as lords" on butterscotch and soda.

Other changes focused on violence. Comic references to violence were sometimes removed, and references to corporal punishment were changed. Mentions of deadly weapons such as guns and knives were often removed.

References to slaves and prisoners were removed, and certain references to death were removed.

Other changes focused on words that in British English usage have taken on more vulgar associations, such as horny and fanny.

Language related to weight, mental health, violence, gender and race has been cut and rewritten. Remember the Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach? They are now the Cloud-People. The Small Foxes in Fantastic Mr Fox are now female. In Matilda, a mention of Rudyard Kipling has been cut and Jane Austen added. It’s Roald Dahl, but different.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/02/17/roald-dahl-books-rewritten-offensive-matilda-witches-twits/

10 ögonblick i barnböcker som ger men för livet

Av: Johanna Stenius

 

Ibland blir den mysiga godnattsagan till ett trauma för livet. Här är nio ögonblick ur barnböcker som får oss att må riktigt dåligt.

1. Pelle Snusk av Heinrich Hoffman

Pelle Snusk kommer för alltid att söka upp oss i våra mardrömmar… Struwwelpeter som boken heter på originalspråk är en riktigt läskig bok om vad som händer när man inte lyder sina föräldrar eller äter upp sin mat. I princip förtvinar och dör man.

2. Häxorna av Roald Dahl

De läbbiga häxorna kan man väl klara. Men att pojken, som är huvudperson, blir förvandlad till en mus och aldrig förvandlad tillbaka är något som inte går att komma över.

3. Hattstugan av Elsa Beskow

Idyllen förvandlas till katastrof när barnen råkar elda upp sin stuga. Fruktansvärt!

“Men gubben sa: vad är det där för gnäll?

Jag hoppas ni får riktigt mycket _____! ”

4. Kattresan av Ivar Arosenius

Upp med en hand alla som plågat tittade bort när KATTEN SPRACK. Att allt blev bra igen efteråt spelar ingen roll – det är den här bilden vi aldrig kommer att kunna glömma.

Gillar du den här artikeln? Följ oss på Instagram också!

5. Den förskräckliga historien om Lilla Hon av Lena Ollmark och Per Gustafsson

Denna Augustnominerade bok är kittlande underbar för barn som älskar skräck men… för oss räddhågsna är den nog för att inte våga titta ut genom fönstret om kvällen på en månad eller så.

6. Vem är borta? av Stina Wirsén

Att tappa bort sin förälder i ett varuhus hör till många barns hemska minnen – även om det bara är i en minut. Plåga i ett visa denna scen för sina barn … och sen kommer det en läskig fågel också, kan inte bli värre!

7. Mera monster, Alfons! av Gunilla Bergström

Kom tillbaka Bill och Bolla, allt är förlåtet! När Alfons ska vara barnvakt åt småtting och inte skräder orden i sin godnattssaga i Mera monster, Alfons! från 1992 är allt bara så himla läskigt …

“Jo, sen tar monstret
sin vanliga kraftmedicin ...
... ett par rejäla glas innan han ger sig ut.
Det är blod. Elefantblod. ”

8. Den elaka vikarien av Anders Fager och Daniel Thollin

Läsa högt ur denna bok? Kanske, men inte innan läggdags. Och inte innan skoldagen. Och inte innan … gud, stackars alla vikariers rykte, bilden av ett dinglande barn i en galge kommer aldrig lämna näthinnan.

9. Max och Moritz av Wilhelm Busch

I denna ”sedelärande” berättelse från 1865 blir två små gossar bland annat bakade som pepparkakor i en ugn. Ångest.

10. Tomtebobarnen av Elsa Beskow

Djupt inne i skogen lever Tomtebobarnen. De leker kurragömma, åker kälke på vintern och plockar bär och svamp på hösten. Ja, och så blir de halvt ihjälskrämda av världens värsta och mest ångestframkallande bergtroll också.