# Children's lit/film/whatever that's just TOO dated for safety **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 9, 2009, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887 "2009-08-09T23:26:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/101 "2009-08-14T21:16:05Z")
Because it’s not the topic under discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/102 "2009-08-14T21:17:40Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Because it’s not the topic under discussion. In order for parents to make sure their kids understand what they’re reading (if it’s something “too dated for safety”) then they pretty much have to be monitoring everything the kid is reading, right? I’m just saying that attitude would probably get really annoying for most kids. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/103 "2009-08-14T21:34:17Z")
Again, interesting discussion. But not the one at hand. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/104 "2009-08-14T21:35:13Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > Again, interesting discussion. But not the one at hand. I give up. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2009, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/105 "2009-08-14T21:58:25Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I give up. FWIW, my parents just had shelves and shelves of books, and never cared what I read off of them - except when I was borrowing a book they wanted to read; then they would ask that I return it when I was done. I never noticed any harm from that. But then, I suppose I wouldn’t. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/106 "2009-08-15T00:56:38Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > I’m not saying you want to censor them. I’m just saying that I think that in general, kids are pretty good at spotting things that aren’t appropriate. Anyway, if you weren’t monitoring what your kids were reading, how else would you know that your kid was reading something “dangerous”? I’m not sure it’s appropriate to label historic books with now outdated attitudes in them “Dangerous”. As I’ve said before, I grew up in the 1980s reading a lot of stuff written In An Earlier Time and I didn’t turn into a Klansman or a Nazi. Wrapping kids in cotton wool and trying to pretend the world is a cuddly bunny place with rainbows and kittens and puppies and horsies for everyone is more “Dangerous”, IMHO, than acknowledging that people in the 19th Century had some now unacceptable views on people with different skin colours. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/107 "2009-08-15T02:05:48Z")
Heh. As a counterexample, when I was in kindergarten, I freaked out my teacher and mom by borrowing [A Child’s History of the World](http://www.amazon.com/Childs-History-World-V-M-Hillyer/dp/0899669387) from the library and reading it. I looked into it a couple of years ago, and it turns out that, were I to read it today, I’d find it pretty objectionable (it apparently tells history with a bias I’d today find very heavily Christian, for example). At the time I just thought it was awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/108 "2009-08-15T03:42:08Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Heh. As a counterexample, when I was in kindergarten, I freaked out my teacher and mom by borrowing [A Child’s History of the World](http://www.amazon.com/Childs-History-World-V-M-Hillyer/dp/0899669387) from the library and reading it. I looked into it a couple of years ago, and it turns out that, were I to read it today, I’d find it pretty objectionable (it apparently tells history with a bias I’d today find very heavily Christian, for example). At the time I just thought it was awesome. Oh wow, I loved _A Child’s Geography of the World_ when I was a kid (although it, too, is gloriously un-PC by modern standards). I didn’t realize there was a companion volume. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/109 "2009-08-15T03:50:43Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Wrapping kids in cotton wool and trying to pretend the world is a cuddly bunny place with rainbows and kittens and puppies and horsies for everyone is more “Dangerous”, IMHO, than acknowledging that people in the 19th Century had some now unacceptable views on people with different skin colours. I agree 100%, as you’ll see from my previous post. ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f08c70/32.png) [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Brother_Walker)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/110 "2009-08-15T04:51:34Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > In the Walter Matthau version of **The Bad News Bears** , Matthau’s character actually hits a kid on the baseball diamond, right in front of both teams, parents, god, and everybody. While the character was sort of marginalized for doing so, nothing was said to him about hitting kids. I think that was actually [Vic Morrow’s](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074174/goofs) character. In the Billy Bob Thornton version of the same movie, the confrontation scene is whitewashed so as not to include the child beat down. > [@](#): > > Personally, I prefer the Matthau version, simply because it more accurately reflects the childhood of the 70s that I remember so vividly. That’s more like what it was like growing up back then, than the sanitized version reflects _my_ childhood. If you grew up in the late 80s or 90s, then the Thornton version may speak to you more, personally. Agreed. I thought the “softball pitch” in the later version was baloney. I prefer the response to the smackdown to be utter passive behavior. So much more a ‘screw you’ to the one intended than a gift to the other team. I remember my friends and me getting beat in public by parents a lot. And people turned a deaf ear. Besides, showing kids that people used to beat their kids on a regular basis puts the fear into them, that (although you never actually would in this day and age), the parental units actually _might_ beat the hell out of them for misbehaving. Another card for the adults to use (especially those of us not in a mother or father role). ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/111 "2009-08-15T17:12:19Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > There aren’t any slaves in _Song of the South_. Not only that, but the kid to whom Uncle Remus is telling these stories is only there because his father, a journalist who published articles critical of the Klan, sent his wife and son to the country for their safety. Really! ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/112 "2009-08-15T18:09:22Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > First off, Hottentots is an ethnic slur (Dahl almost certainly didn’t use it that way, but it’s understood as such by the folks it’s directed at). Second, second-graders can be very literal-minded, and the distinction you’re drawing, while relevant, is one that would escape their notice most likely. It’s easier to skip these passages than to discuss the difference between stereotyping based on puns and stereotyping based on perceived ethnic traits. Just for the record, I’ve been among the most outspoken people on the board on the subject of “Hottentot” being considered insulting by the Cape Coloured (and the few surviving fullblood Khoikhoin) – but I grew up (in small town U.S.) being aware of their existence and that _that’s what they were called_. It was no more insulting than anything else. (Of course, my father used the term “Nigger” to refer to black people – and demanded I treat them with respect. His _language_ was far from P.C. – but his attitudes were very non-racist (except the Japanese, whom he’d faught in WWII, and cordially hated).) But the point remains – “Hottentot” was the standard term in English for Khoikhoi people, not an pejorative. So Dahl almost certainly was not being racist. ---
**Author:** ![alexandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@alexandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alexandra)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/113 "2009-08-15T18:34:05Z")
Am I the first one to mention Enid Blyton? I remember in the St Clare’s series there was a Spanish character called Carlotta who was hot tempered and unruly, and a French girl who had to learn about decent British morals and stop being so flighty. At one point Bobby says to Carotta “you look like a golliwog.” Not to mention all the sexism in the Famous Five. For someone who wrote about them a lot Enid kind of hated girls. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/114 "2009-08-15T22:51:18Z")
> [@alexandra](#): > > Am I the first one to mention Enid Blyton? > > I remember in the St Clare’s series there was a Spanish character called Carlotta who was hot tempered and unruly, and a French girl who had to learn about decent British morals and stop being so flighty. At one point Bobby says to Carotta “you look like a golliwog.” > > Not to mention all the sexism in the Famous Five. For someone who wrote about them a lot Enid kind of hated girls. Nope, I mentioned them upthread. > [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Well, to be fair, most kids probably aren’t going to come into contact with the really freaky stuff till they’re older. My parents, though, never controlled what I read or saw. I remember reading a lot of Enid Blyton stories that today are considered quite racist/sexist. (Actually, I don’t recall so much the racism as the sexism. Even when I was a kid, it always bothered me that the girls were so willing to cook and clean while the boys would be the first to do something fun or adventurous. Same with those damned Boxcar children.) I remember the French girl, but for some reason I never processed that as racist. The sexism really stood out. The girls always seemed so happy to cook and clean and make the lighthouse or wherever they were staying look nice while the boys would investigate. Or in the Secret Seven, most of the girls were portrayed as being rather silly or stupid when it came to mystery solving. I never blamed George for wanting to be a boy considering the treatment girls got in her books. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2009, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/115 "2009-08-15T23:26:24Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > So Dahl almost certainly was not being racist. That’s what I intended to say–sorry if I wasn’t clear. My elision of the paragraph and similar ones wasn’t based on a presumption of Dahl’s racism, but rather on not thinking that book was a good jumping-off point for a discussion of racial epithets, but that it was a fun, funny book, and that I could remove that paragraph or so without a significant impact on the book. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/116 "2009-08-16T01:40:15Z")
> [@alexandra](#): > > Am I the first one to mention Enid Blyton? > > I remember in the St Clare’s series there was a Spanish character called Carlotta who was hot tempered and unruly, and a French girl who had to learn about decent British morals and stop being so flighty. At one point Bobby says to Carotta “you look like a golliwog.” > > Not to mention all the sexism in the Famous Five. For someone who wrote about them a lot Enid kind of hated girls. I loved Enid Blyton’s books as a kid, and always noticed when they were being sexist or racist. This is growing up in a family that read red-tops, when they read at all, and never discussed race or sexism or whatever, so it wasn’t like my family were mitigating the Enid Blyton bigotry. I just knew that they were old and realised that’s how people used to be in those times, like the way that all the boys wore short trousers and ‘smashing’ was teenage slang. If anything, it was educational. I gave my daughter the unexpurgated versions because I’d rather she got a bit of social history along with her fun stories (and they are bloody good stories), in preference to pretending that such overt racism and sexism never happened. TBF, though, there was very little racism in Blyton’s stories and they were probably pretty enlightened for their times even WRT gender stereotypes. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887/117 "2009-08-16T03:43:19Z")
I confess I find myself puzzled as to why anyone would want to curtail or censor their kid’s reading. Just what is on your shelves at home that you would find so objectionable? What are you “shielding” them from? The nature of humans? The progress we’ve made in societal issues? I don’t get it. I read and loved Mary Poppins, Dr. Doolittle and Nesbitt’s books for children (British author) that contains some Victorian/Edwardian views on race. I also read Dick and Jane in school (which also have been called racist). As a kid, all that blew right past me (but I am white). I liked that in Nesbitt’s books, the girls got into as much trouble as the boys. I loved Dahl’s stuff as well and again, the African stuff (slurs?) just sailed right on by. That may not have been true for someone else of a different “race” reading it, but somehow I doubt kids of age 9-10 or so are on the lookout for stereotypes etc. Come to think of it, All of a Kind Family contains any number of Jewish stereotypes as well–and yet they are books loved by all kids, including Jewish ones. Where does one draw the line? I don’t think a line should be drawn for issues such as these. If anything, stumbling upon it provides a teachable moment–especially if you’re reading aloud to the children. I kept stopping when reading Little Women to my kids (especially my daughter) to say that women are capable of doing anything and that being a wife and mother, while laudable is not the be all and end all of a woman’s life etc. Daughter could have cared less–she just wanted to know what happened to Jo, Meg et al. IMO, concerning yourself with bigotry and racism in books aimed for the elementary set is forcing your own agenda onto the kids. School librarians deal with this quite a bit. A 3rd grade teacher in our district had this issue come up a few years ago concerning the book, War Comes To Willy Freeman\*. I think it’s sad when parents (or adults) can only see the surface story and take things out of context. Would we rather have books Bowdlerized and history rewritten? Former and current slaves were called niggers in Revolutionary War times–how does not allowing kids to read and learn about this help them? I come from a family where I could (and did) read anything and everything. Ironically, I found myself as a parent being extremely conflicted over a book lent to my oldest son when he was about 10–it was one of the Left Behind series. I no more wanted that book in my house than I want my kids to be prejudiced or bigoted. I had a real war going on inside myself about if I should say anything to #1 son. In the end, I did not, and (thankfully from my perspective) he found the book boring and not well written (his words). But I include this anecdote to show that the censorship bugaboo goes both ways… \*I think this was the book. I can’t find a link online and our local paper archives only go back 5 years online. This happened in the mid 90s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/childrens-lit-film-whatever-thats-just-too-dated-for-safety/505887.md?page=5)