{"id":91183,"date":"2023-02-26T12:31:55","date_gmt":"2023-02-26T20:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/?p=91183"},"modified":"2023-02-26T13:03:40","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T21:03:40","slug":"censorship-is-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/blog\/2023\/02\/26\/censorship-is-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Censorship Is Back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have to confess, I\u2019ve had it up to here with the politically correct police (and my \u201chere\u201d is any place you\u2019d like to picture on my body).&nbsp; Last week, there was a heated debate about \u201cfat shaming\u201d in the classic <strong>Roald Dahl <\/strong>books.&nbsp; Some of the passages that caused concern included the depiction of the Oompa-Loompas (which <strong>Dahl <\/strong>himself changed in later editions from African pygmies to Caucasian little people).&nbsp; Then there was Augustus Gloop, who was changed from \u201cfat\u201d to \u201cenormous\u201d (I\u2019ll be the judge of that).&nbsp; One line in <strong><em>James and the Giant Peach<\/em><\/strong> came under fire: \u201cAunt Sponge was terrifically fat, and tremendously flabby at that.\u201d&nbsp; <strong><em>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory<\/em><\/strong> has this offensive bit of prose: \u201cThe man behind the counter looked fat and well-fed.&nbsp; He had big lips and fat cheeks and a very fat neck.\u201d&nbsp; What\u2019s wrong with that, asks someone who just saw a film called <strong><em>The Whale<\/em><\/strong>?&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Even the iconic <strong><em>James Bond<\/em><\/strong> is not safe.&nbsp; A new edition of <strong>Ian Fleming<\/strong>\u2019s 007 books is being readied for the 70<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary.&nbsp; These volumes include some sanitized language and eschew certain circumstances.&nbsp; They also carry the following disclaimer: \u201cThis book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace.\u201d&nbsp; This begs the question \u2013 when was <strong><em>Octopussy<\/em><\/strong>&nbsp;commonplace?<\/p>\n<p>I know that words and sensitivities change over time.&nbsp; We\u2019ve heard calls for censoring <strong>Mark Twain<\/strong>, <strong>Harper Lee<\/strong>, and even <strong>Margaret Mitchell<\/strong>.&nbsp; Apparently some of these cries for rewriting have actually been heeded.&nbsp; Did you know that in 1969, <strong><em>Pippi Longstocking<\/em><\/strong> underwent some racial cleansing in Sweden?&nbsp; Well, you know\u2026Swedes!&nbsp; Closer to home, my beloved <strong><em>Nancy Drew <\/em><\/strong>went through a bit of \u201cwhitewashing\u201d regarding some of the depictions of African Americans in 1959.&nbsp; I hope nobody laid a hand on those nice, wholesome <strong><em>Hardy Boys<\/em><\/strong>.&nbsp; They\u2019re all mine!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have to confess, I\u2019ve had it up to here with the politically correct police (and my \u201chere\u201d is any place you\u2019d like to picture on my body).&nbsp; Last week, there was a heated debate about \u201cfat shaming\u201d in the classic Roald Dahl books.&nbsp; Some of the passages that caused concern included the depiction of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breaking"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91183"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91200,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91183\/revisions\/91200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billymasters.com\/custom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}