Dr. Seuss had some casual racism in some of his books as well, at least before the more progressive post-WWII era: If I Ran The Zoo features a visit to Zomba-ma-Tant “with helpers who all wear their eyes in a slant,” and And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street depicted, among other sights, a yellow-skinned, pigtailed “Chinaman who eats with sticks.” (In later printings, the “Chinaman” became a “Chinese man,” and then a “Chinese boy” with the pigtail and yellow hue removed.)
The original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory explained that the Oompa-Loompas were originally African tribesmen whom Willy Wonka captured to work in his factory. After a complaint from author Eleanor Campbell published in the children’s literacy magazine The Horn Book, Dahl changed the Oompa-Loompa’s origin- rather than Africa, they were captured from the mythical Loompaland. (The follow-up, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, features a few “me so solly” depictions of Chinese speak which remain in the book to this day, in a scene where the American President attempts to reach the Chinese Premier, but fails- there are so many Wings and Wongs that you’re likely to wing the wong number.)
Ok, some cites. Google lists over 32,000,000 for “English only schools,” but here are three you can look at to see if you can sense the sentiment I referred to:
Shrug.
When I was a pre-teen, I routinely played war, cowboys and Indians and various other make-believe games that involved the idea of shooting people and blowing shit up.
Back in the day, we had this idea that it wasn’t the pretending you did that made you violent, it was the morality with which you were instilled in real life.
Of course, we were unenlightened then, which is why now, with all the violence and anything objectionable taken out of childrens’ entertainment, there is no problem whatsoever with violence among the nation’s youth…
Perhaps it’s true that the Little Match Girl’s story is supposed to be a Christian story about hope, but that’s a demented kind of setup to demonstrate hope, and Hans Christian Anderson’s story about the little girl with The Red Shoes is even worse.
To summarize- the little girl commits the sin of wearing beautiful red dancing shoes to church (instead of plain black shoes) which distracts the church people, and for that she is cursed by an angel of God to dance herself to death. Fortunately (or not depending on how you look at it) she is able to persuade a executioner to cut off her feet with his ax. Then she wants to go to church and can’t manage it, so finally the same angel magically transports her there and she dies in the sunlit pew, happy as can be.
It made me sick to my stomach when I first read it as a child, and it still sickens me.
A couple of weeks after I started as a bookseller the higher ups gave orders to move Tintin in the Congo from the Children’s section into Graphic Novels due to racial controversy (the Wikipedia page explains it in more detail).
> Wendell: I’ll spell it out for ya. C - A - F - E - S - O - C - I - E - T - Y.
Cite? Where does it say that we can make up anything we feel like in Cafe Society? We’re fighting ignorance at the SDMB, and that includes every forum.
CC writes:
> Ok, some cites.
This still isn’t a very good cite. It shows that there are some people who oppose bilingual education. That doesn’t indicate whether bilingual education is increasing or decreasing in popularity overall. Also, I didn’t understand what you meant when you wrote that “there is growing antipathy toward having children learn more than one language.” That could be interpreted as meaning that people are against anyone in any public school learning any foreign language. I didn’t realize that you meant bilingual education.
I remember the Dr. Dolittle books I got out from the library when I was a kid, with the unexpurgated character of Prince Bumpo. He had some stereotypical characteristics and was an overeducated twit but overall was a courageous and helpful man who later became a wise king back in Africa.
There’s one Grimm story about a mother bird who get caught and dyed a weird color by a boy, and when she’s set free the other birds chase and hit her until she reaches the safety of the her own nest. Wherein her own terrified chicks peck her to death. :eek:
Glad to see H.C. Andersen hasn’t been completely forgotten. Here’s from The Wicked Prince:
Many a poor mother, with her naked babe, hid away behind the smoking ruins, and the
soldiers sought her, and found her and the child, and then began their devilish sport:
Childrens’ lit should be weird; otherwise, they won’t read. They’ll play Grand Theft Auto. Which is weird, so they like it. And Google “Tinkerbell Images Disney” sometime for a feel of how ALL ages that movie is…
There are things I would not show a child. Prollem is, they’re the so-called “wholesome” things. Better the lil’ dears watch hardcore PRON than Barney the Lobotomizing Dinosaur.
That was my favorite book as a child until I discovered Charlotte’s Web, which I’d start reading again the moment I finished that last page, multiple times.
I didn’t find The Giving Tree disturbing at all as a child, it was actually comforting to know that the old man would return to the one that cared for him as he grew through life.
I did find Alice in Wonderland pretty disturbing though. Bad dreams, bad dreams!
Golden books reissued this a few years back as Little Rajani. He cleverly escapes being eaten by tigers, and removing the racist pictures, its a very good story. There is also an introduction that the original Little Black Sambo stories were written by an Englishwoman living in India.
He also changed their color from chocolate brown to white with green and orange hair (I think). He had to take out one of the best lines, when Charlie wondering about the Ooompa-Loompas origin says “I think Mr. Wonka carved them himself, out of chocolate.”
I am disappointed that Dahl caved in to the PC police like that.
I wouldn’t call the use of dialect overly broad. A similar dialect was still in use in rural Bladen County, NC as recently as 1985. Of course, it was only the old men who spoke like that. I imagine they’re all dead by now.
The new Oompa-Loompas have golden-brown hair and rosy-white skin. The 1971 Wolper Productions film depicts orange-skinned Oompa-Loompas with green hair, and the 2005 film depicts regular, human-looking Oompa-Loompas.
