BBC’s Enid Blyton is a Girl Power pioneer
Malory Towers adaptation aims to dispel some of the ‘sexist’ myths about one of Britain’s best-loved writers
THE BBC is billing its latest children’s drama as a modern story of female empowerment, a slice of Girl Power perfect for today’s generation. And the unlikely creator of this feminist utopia? Enid Blyton.
The children’s author has been unfairly branded as sexist and out-oftouch, according to the screenwriters behind a new adaptation of Blyton’s beloved Malory Towers series.
In fact, her tales of an all-girls boarding school in Cornwall are a beacon of feminism, say the writers, Sasha Hails and Rachel Flowerday.
The adaptation retains the books’
Forties setting, complete with midnight feasts and lacrosse, but the BBC says it feels up-to-date because Blyton addressed universal experiences including “FOMO” (fear of missing out), crushes and peer pressure. New topics, such as dyslexia, have been added.
It begins on CBBC on April 6 but has been brought forward to tomorrow on iPlayer for children missing school due to the coronavirus crisis. The producers have likened the tone of the show to “Downton Abbey for children”.
Last year, it emerged that Royal Mint had blocked a commemorative 50p Enid Blyton coin because the advisory committee deemed her a “racist, sexist, homophobe and not a very well-regarded writer”.
But Flowerday and Hails said there is “a brilliant, quiet feminism” about the Malory Towers books. “The heroine is Darrell Rivers, who is an old-fashioned tomboy and has a terrible temper and actually lashes out physically.
“That’s a wonderful thing to explore in a female character and very unusual, particularly today when we’ve feminised our girls so much and there is this idea that girls have to be pretty and quiet and well-behaved. Darrell feels really exciting and strangely modern.”
Ella Bright, who plays Darrell, said her character was “quite a feminist role model”, which is “a good message for
‘For today’s children, making their own decisions and being free of parents feels exotic and exciting’
young children, especially young girls”. Of the idea that Blyton was not a good writer, Flowerday said: “I do sometimes ask myself if people put it down who haven’t even read it because they assume it’s unintelligent and somehow inferior, perhaps because Enid Blyton was a woman and so popular.
“There is a nasty undercurrent to some of those accusations. The books don’t have complex vocabulary but Enid had huge emotional and social intelligence.” As for the accusations that Blyton’s books were too white and middle class, the writers drew from
Terms and Conditions, a history of girls’ boarding schools by Ysenda Maxtone Graham, and established that boarding schools would have drawn their girls from diverse backgrounds including Commonwealth countries.
“In fact it was far more interesting and rich and diverse. There are clues in the writing. We took those clues and made them authentic.”
The makers hope the show will encourage children that life can be fun without modern distractions, and provide an escape into a simpler world.
Flowerday said: “Part of what is so aspirational is that this is a world where kids have so much more independence. In the Forties they could be left to go off and do their own thing. Decisions are in their own hands. They’re free of parents and, for today’s children, that feels exotic and exciting.”
One of the most memorable settings is the giant rock pool where swimming lessons take place. The action was filmed at Trevone in Cornwall in a chilly late September. Although the girls sport period bathing costumes, beneath the water they wore wetsuits to protect against the cold.