Revision for Comfort? Safety? What the Fuck?
When I had a VHS player, I used to buy copies of the movies I loved. When it was a cassette player, I bought cassettes. CD player? CDs. DVD player? You get the picture. I like to own my music and film. I don't crave that ownership out of a hoarder's wish (I knew a guy whose house looked like a Blockbuster Video so complete was his collection) but stemming from the days when I couldn't simply summon the viewing of a favorite movie or album. I had to either wait until it was on or own a copy to be played upon demand.
Then came Netflix. Sure, I didn't own the movies but I could rent a copy and watch it five times in a row if I wanted to and that was the convenience I sought. Then it became a streaming platform and, holy shit, I had the entire video store at my will. With Amazon Prime and Apple+ you can even buy the music and the movies to download right on to your computer.
Except...
You don't actually own those purchased albums or movies. You own them as long as A) you stay with Amazon or Apple, B) as long as Amazon and Apple stay in business, and C) as long as the corporation that actually owns the music and film continue to lease them to Amazon and Apple.
This doesn't bother me. I've never been keen on owning a home because it's just renting from a landlord who doesn't fix your toilet if it's broken. I've rented my homes, all apartments, my entire life. The only items I own are my clothes, furniture, and of course my books.
Except...
“Words matter,” begins the discreet notice, which sits at the bottom of the copyright page of Puffin’s latest editions of Roald Dahl’s books. “The wonderful words of Roald Dahl can transport you to different worlds and introduce you to the most marvellous characters. This book was written many years ago, and so we regularly review the language to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.”
Put simply: these may not be the words Dahl wrote. The publishers have given themselves licence to edit the writer as they see fit, chopping, altering and adding where necessary to bring his books in line with contemporary sensibilities. By comparing the latest editions with earlier versions of the texts, The Telegraph has found hundreds of changes to Dahl’s stories.
At the behest of sensitivity readers, a special class of censorious job category defined by pouring through a text to zero in on those words and phrases no longer in vogue or considered out-of-date in the current orthodoxy, the estate in charge of Dahl's cannon have edited and changed his words to reflect the tastes of a new secular morality at play.
Recently, I exhorted a young director to defy the limitations on Beckett's Waiting for Godot. This is different than actually changing the text of the play for future generations. One is interpretation; the other is revision. You know who else revises works of art to fit an ideological narrative?
China. You know, the communist dictatorship.
CNN Business and the BBC reported last month that the Chinese changed ending erased the entire explosive final scene [of Fight Club]. In this altered ending, the mayhem was replaced with text onscreen telling audiences that authorities arrived just in time to save the day.
"Through the clue provided by Tyler, the police rapidly figured out the whole plan and arrested all criminals, successfully preventing the bomb from exploding," the caption reads. "After the trial, Tyler was sent to (a) lunatic asylum receiving psychological treatment. He was discharged from the hospital in 2012."
I'd hazard a guess that when, in lockstep with a specific worldview, an industry adopts the practices of an authoritarian regime it might signal some alarm klaxons. Perhaps that's a bit overhyped and, in the most mild take, this represents less censorship and more vandalism. Whichever you buy into, it is still a bizarre and untethered practice to consider.
Among the changes in Dahl's works, according to the Telegraph, include removal of the word "fat," such as when it was used to describe the character of Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The word "ugly" was also removed.
Gender-neutral language was also added to describe certain characters, such as in reference to "mothers and fathers," which is now "parents."
In some cases, language was also added, such as in The Witches, in a paragraph about the witches being bald under their wigs. "There are plenty of other reasons why women might wear wigs and there is certainly nothing wrong with that," a new line reads, per the Telegraph.
Slippery slope arguments are almost always fear-based. It isn't a stretch in this case, with major publishing houses cancelling books because of their progressive staffs on the regular, to see where this sort of revisionism leads. We start with children's books written by dead authors we find objectionable. Eeyore is no longer gloomy. He has PTSD and put on anti-depressants. The Grinch isn't just foul, he's an instrument of systemic racism. The little boy in the giving tree will be replaced with a gender fluid kid. The Big Bad Wolf will be rebranded as the Massive Misunderstood Wolf and his enemies will be known as the Three Height-Challenged Omnivorous Hoofed Mammals.
Eventually, any book released becomes a literary deepfake of what the author wrote. I don't read children's books. The issue is strictly theoretical for me. When the estates of Mark Twain's novels come for the insensitive language or the sensitivity readers object to the works of Bukowski or Ginsburg, I'm covered because I own those books. Not the digital versions which I can only ever rent, but the books themselves. In this wave what becomes of Nabokov? Henry Miller? Toni Morrison? Hunter Thompson might as well just be redacted.
So, go out and buy books. The Right are banning them, the Left are revising them, and at least when you buy a book—a real, made of paper and ink book—you actually own it.
