The articles, the opinions, the stories, the poems and the cartoons Ovi magazine covers for Thursday March 2nd, 2023
Sensitivity Rewrites: The Cultural Purging of Roald Dahl by Dr. Binoy Kampmark
Censorshipis never innocent, made worse for its strained good intentions. For those responsible for setting and policing such policies, the inner judge comes out, stomping on assumed meanings, interpretingand removing things to ensure the masses are not corrupted. Children’s stories and tales have not been exempted from this train of revision, expurgation and adjustment.
In modifying the language of children’s texts, a number of agents come into play: concerned parents, worried authorities, and the considerations that reflect the temper and mores of the time. Publishers, keen to ensure a wider readership, feel pressure to alter the original text to stay modern and trendy.
In 1853, Charles Dickens took the illustrator and former friend George Cruickshank to task in an essay “Frauds on the Fairies” for meddling with fairy tales through incorporating a temperance message. “We have lately observed with pain the intrusion of a Whole Hog of unwieldy dimensions into the fairy flower-garden.” It was vital, Dickens warned, to respect fairy tales, most notably in the utilitarian age Britain found itself in.
The latest victim of this lack of respect, albeit one posthumously affected, is Roald Dahl, whose books for children have drawn unwanted attention from a wretched consultancy in conjunction with veteran publisher Puffin Books. Evidently not feeling anyone capable within their ranks, Puffin Books decided to retain Inclusive Minds, which claims to “offer a range of services to help people engaged in all aspects of children’s literature build a new, more inclusive world.”
Continue reading HERE!
Somewhere #poem & #painting by Nikos Laios
“Somewhere the night falls,
Somewhere the night begins
And the stars illuminate the sky,
And the love, chaos, pain and
Transcendence all revealed
Naked and unadorned;”
Continue reading HERE!
Sceptic feathers #59 #cartoon by Thanos Kalamidas
For more Sceptic feathers HERE!
For more Ovi Cartoons, HERE!
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