Hacker News Reader

Comment by docdeek | Hacker News Reader

Is it not a little different when the author changes their own work (as in the 1970s edits you mention) versus when it is changed after their death?

View on HN

Mickey Mouse has changed several times over since the death of Walt Disney. Books and plays are adapted to film, often without the input of the author, and a film adaptations almost always require significant changes. Sometimes the changes aren’t even necessary— they’re purely stylistic in order to modernize the story.

In fact, most of Walt Disney’s films were books adapted and changed and “modernized” without the consent of the original author. Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is disgustingly racist and imperialist. Disney modernized the story significantly by removing many of those themes (although adding a few “modern” racist tropes of their own).

No one calls those adaptations “cultural vandalism” though.

There's a big difference. Adaptations are new works based on the original. The original work is still available to enjoy or critique in its original form.

However, these new editions are effectively replacing the old ones. I don't so much mind them rewriting the books so long as the originals continue to be published. However, I don't expect that will be the case. Eventually, anyone going to a bookshop to buy one of Dahl's books will struggle to find the original version. That's a real shame, I think.

Yeah to me there's something sinister about the notion there will be a time when someone just assumes that's what Dahl wrote. It's sad. Did anyone even ask for this? I can't imagine there was any backlash to Dahl sufficiently meaningful that it couldn't have dealt with simply by ignoring it.

You don't have to imagine, you can read in Dahl's autobiography that's nonsense. Pressure from NAACP jeopardised the production of the 1971 movie Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, which turned into the first plank of his international legacy. Dahl was glad to change the book so the movie would get made.

Changes Dahl was around to agree to rank differently in my mind than posthumous edits. Ethical and artistic questions aside, at a certain point we get to a Ship of Theseus conundrum, which opens all kinds of additional questions.

I'm sure a predictable contrarian like O'Neill would have found something to complain about in how it happened.

Paraphrasing from Dahl's 2010 biography but worth reading in full https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Storyteller/fit6PwGW...

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) objected to the original film version on the grounds that the book was racist ... they were adament that the title of the movie also had to change because they did not want it to promote the book.

Roald agreed to "de-negro" the Oompa-Loompas in both book and movie ... The movies title was altered to "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com