The `woke mind virus' continues to ravage our culture
Censorship is bad enough, but now the censors imagine themselves to be writers.
Next they'll probably form an association and start giving themselves awards in an annual televised gala. Wait until you see the gowns on the red carpet, with every inch of skin covered up in flannel, from the turtleneck collar to the closed-toe shoes. The ratings will be terrible but no network would dare refuse to broadcast it.
They can call themselves the Grand Association of Word Demolishers, or GAWD for short. They can name their award the Figly, after the fig leaves that a 16th-century pope ordered painted over nudity in art.
The very first GAWD Figly must be awarded to Puffin Books, the children's publishing label of Penguin Random House in London, which proudly announced that it had hired “sensitive readers” to rewrite the beloved classics of the late author, Roald Dahl.
Dahl's books have sold more than 300 million copies, but nobody's going to win a GAWD Figly for that. No, the award goes to Puffin for infesting Dahl's books with the silken prose of an HR manual.
The London Telegraph compared the newly sensitive editions with the earlier published books and logged the changes.
In “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” the sensitivists objected to this phrase: “Like all extremely old people, he was delicate and weak.” They changed “all” to “most.”
“Fully grown women” became “fully grown people.”
“His face was like a monstrous ball of dough” was changed to “his face was like a ball of dough.”
So, no generalizing, no women, no monsters. Got it.
Here's another one: “Mike Teavee himself had no less than eighteen toy pistols of various sizes hanging from belts around his body, and every now and again he would leap up in the air and fire off half a dozen rounds from one or another of these weapons.” This passage was not rewritten. It was removed.
“Get all that mud off your pants!” is now “Get all that mud off your trousers!”
I have no idea.
The Oompa-Loompas, who once were “tiny men — no larger than medium-sized dolls,” became “the little people,” and most other descriptions of them were removed.
In the new “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” nothing is “crazy” (“bizarre” is preferred).