Cancel drama erupts over Dr Seuss books
>>In the summer of 1936, Theodor Geisel was on a ship from Europe to New York when he started scribbling silly rhymes on the ship’s stationery to entertain himself during a storm: “And this is a story that no one can beat. I saw it all happen on Mulberry Street.”
The rhymes morphed into his first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, about a boy who witnesses increasingly outlandish things. First published in 1937, the book started Geisel’s career as Dr Seuss. He went on to publish more than 60 books that have sold some 700 million copies globally, making him one of the world’s most enduringly popular children’s book authors.
But some aspects of Seuss’ work have not aged well, including his debut, which features a crude racial stereotype of an Asian man with slanted lines for eyes. Mulberry Street was one of six of his books that the Seuss estate said it would stop selling last week, after concluding that the egregious racial and ethnic stereotypes in the works “are hurtful and wrong.”
The announcement seemed to drive a surge of support for Seuss classics. Dozens of his books shot to the top of Amazon’s print best-seller list; on Thursday morning, nine of the site’s top 10 bestsellers were Seuss books.
The estate’s decision — which prompted breathless headlines on cable news and complaints about “cancel culture” from prominent conservatives — represents a dramatic step to update and curate Seuss’ body of work, acknowledging and rejecting some of his views while seeking to protect his brand and appeal. It also raises questions about whether and how an author’s works should be posthumously curated to reflect evolving social attitudes, and what should be preserved as part of the cultural record.
“It will cause people to re-evaluate the legacy of Dr Seuss, and I think that’s a good thing,” said Philip Nel, a children’s literature scholar at Kansas State University and the author of Dr Seuss: American Icon. “There are parts of his legacy one should honour, and parts of his legacy that one should not.
“They may be motivated by the fact that racism is bad for the brand, or they may be motivated by a deeper sense of racial justice.”
Classic children’s books are perennial bestsellers and an important revenue stream for publishers. Last year, more than 338,000 copies of Green Eggs
and Ham were sold across the United States, according to NPD BookScan, which tracks the sale of physical books at most retailers. One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish sold more than 311,000 copies, and Oh, the Places You’ll Go! — always popular as a high school graduation gift — sold more than 513,000 copies.
Mulberry Street, one of the six books pulled by the estate, sold about 5,000 copies last year, according to BookScan. Dr Seuss is perhaps the most beloved children’s book author to come under criticism for outdated and insensitive depictions of racial, ethnic, cultural and
gender differences.
In recent decades, librarians and scholars have led a push to re-evaluate children’s classics that contain stereotypes and caricatures. Editions of illustrated series like Tintin and Babar, long accused of promoting colonialist and imperialist viewpoints, have been withdrawn from some libraries following criticism that their European authors depicted nonwhite characters as savages.
Children’s publishers and literary estates are trying to walk a delicate line by preserving an author’s legacy, while recognising and rejecting aspects of a writer’s work that are out of step with current social and cultural values.
Some authors self-edited their work in response to criticism. In the 1970s, Roald Dahl revised Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which originally depicted the factory workers as darkskinned pygmies from Africa. After facing charges of racism from the NAACP, Dahl made the workers Oompa Loompas from a fictional country called Loompaland.
The revision failed to appease those who contend that the Oompa Loompas are essentially indentured servants, and other critiques of some of Dahl’s works, like The Witches, which many regard as anti-Semitic, have endured.
Many were stunned by the Seuss estate’s decision, however, which was announced on Tuesday to coincide with Dr Seuss’ birthday. Dr Seuss Enterprises said it decided to discontinue those six titles last year, after consulting a panel of experts to review its catalogue.
Geisel, who died in 1991, is best known for whimsical picture books like Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat.
Scholars have long noted racism in his wartime political cartoons, which he later offered a half-hearted apology for, saying they were the result of “snap judgments that every political cartoonist has to make.”
Regardless of the content, books go out of print every day if they don’t sell. Valerie Lewis, a co-owner of Hicklebee’s bookstore in San Jose, California, said that sort of attrition is perfectly sensible, but pulling a book altogether for political reasons makes her uncomfortable.
“I think when there is something in a book that you find offensive, what a great teaching opportunity,” Ms Lewis said. “We all have a choice as to whether we buy it or not,” she added, “but removing it kind of makes me want to shake my head.”