Roald Dahl museum condemns author’s ‘undeniable’ racism
A museum dedicated to
Roald Dahl — and founded by his widow — is condemning the famous British children’s author’s “undeniable” racism, and antisemitic views about Jewish people, insisting that it is working hard to be more inclusive to visitors and open about his legacy.
The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Center, founded in 2001 by Dahl’s widow, Liccy, issued a statement this week that it embraces a 2020 apology made by Dahl’s family and the company that owns the publishing rights to his books — and is working to “explore how our organisation might make further contributions toward combating hate and prejudice.”
“Roald Dahl’s racism is undeniable and indelible but what we hope can also endure is the potential of Dahl’s creative legacy to do some good,” the Britain-based museum said.
More than a million people have visited the museum, including an average of 10,000 schoolchildren every year, it said. It houses part of his archive and is based in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, in southern England, where Dahl lived and famously wrote his whimsical stories in a garden hut.
The museum has put up a sign at its entrance condemning Dahl’s antisemitic views and said it has been engaging with several prominent organizations within the Jewish community to build more accessible and inclusive policies and train staff in the years since the Dahl family apology.
It is also working with schools on resources to “combat prejudice by championing universal children’s rights, explored through the experiences of characters in Roald Dahl’s stories,” it said. “We are working hard to do better and know we have more to do.”
While Dahl, author of “Matilda” and “The Witches,” is famous across the world — selling more than 300 million books that were translated into more than 60 languages — his personal legacy has been complicated.
In 1990, before his death, he called himself antisemitic after years of hostile public comments about Jewish people. The 2020 apology from Dahl’s family and the Roald Dahl Story Company said the antisemitic, “prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew.”
The museum’s statement comes a few months after
Dahl’s publisher said it would be revising hundreds of words in his books to make his works more inclusive for modern audiences, describing the tweaks as “small and carefully considered.” The move sparked a global debate about the value of changing famous works; it was criticized by some authors as “absurd censorship,” while others welcomed the changes as updates for a more modern era.
Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, an advocacy group that works with the museum, said in a statement Thursday that she welcomed its “acknowledgment of the author’s antisemitism,” calling the public statements an “important starting point with regard to providing the full story about a man whose works are enjoyed by millions.”
Danny Stone, chief executive of the Antisemitism Policy Trust, which works with British politicians and policymakers to combat antisemitism, praised the museum’s “detailed thinking” into appropriately addressing Dahl’s harmful anti-Jewish views.
“People will rightly continue to enjoy Dahl’s works and visit the Dahl museum but in researching the author it is important that they are able to establish the facts about who he was and what his views were,” Stone said in an email. “The work we have done with the Museum has been thought provoking and fruitful.”
Born to Norwegian parents, Dahl lived and traveled across parts of Africa, the Middle East and United States. He died in England at age 74, in 1990. He had a varied career working as a pilot, a medical inventor and famed children’s author.
Many of his literary works have spawned Broadway musicals, games and Hollywood movies — the latest “Wonka,” a prequel to “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” starring actors Timothée Chalamet and Hugh Grant, is due out later this year. Dahl also wrote darker, macabre novels for adults touching on themes such as war and betrayal.
“In his life, Roald Dahl was a contradictory person. He could be kind; he often helped people, donated to charity, and contributed to medical science. However, there are also recorded incidents of him being very unkind and worse, including writing and saying antisemitic things about Jewish people,” the museum’s website says.
In its latest comments, it notes: “We do not repeat Dahl’s antisemitic statements publicly, but we do keep a record of what he wrote and said in the Museum’s collection, so it is not forgotten.”
With all the hype around her movie debut, Barbie seems to have her plastic hands on everything. But when she debuted in 1959, Barbie was just a wasp-waisted fashion model with 22 outfits. Success happened fast, and she needed the wardrobe to match.
Carol Spencer was there to help. A former children’s wear designer, Spencer was hired by Mattel in 1963 and went on to work as a Barbie fashion designer for more than 35 years, transforming Barbie from model to doctor and so much more. Spencer helped Barbie change with the times. She now comes in shades other than lily-white, and some versions of her look like she eats three square meals a day.
What hasn’t changed? Her status as an American icon. In “Dressing Barbie,” just out in paperback, Spencer, 90, recalls her experience at Mattel working with legendary figures such as Ruth Handler, Barbie’s creator, and Charlotte Johnson, the original Barbie clothing designer. Filled with photos, the book is a treasure trove for the Barbie lovers who seem to be everywhere these days.
In a video interview from her home in Los Angeles, Spencer talked about her hopes and designs for Barbie.
Then she headed to — where else? — the National Barbie Doll Collectors Convention in Orlando. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Q: In the book’s introduction,
Q: you talk about your childhood and share that as a teenager, you knew that you wanted to do more than 1950s society was telling girls they could do. How did you tap into that power?
A: I lost both parents
A: before I graduated high school and I was on my own, you might say. When people wanted me to do something I didn’t want to, I kind of revolted. At the same time, I watched my grandmother, who was an expert seamstress, and learned so much.
I went to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and then to jobs in the fashion industry. After five years of experience, the minimum for working at Mattel, I went there.
Q: When you got to
Q:
Mattel, it was a time of change. Barbie went on to have many careers, and you were there to create the clothes. A: We made all kinds
A: of clothes for her to actually wear and for the child to play with in various situations. Each fashion had to have play value. The women’s movement came onboard in the ‘60s, and there was the Beatles, Elvis. We followed all of it. Then, in 1972, we wanted to test if children would buy fashions geared toward an occupation.
Q: You had a big role in
Q:
creating her doctor look. How did that come about?
A: I had just had
A: surgery, and all the doctors were men. I thought, why not have Barbie as a doctor. I gave her a combination pack of doctor and surgeon. I think we did blaze a trail with that, and we were all very quietly members of NOW [National Organization for Women]. We didn’t flaunt ourselves or march, but we were. And we found that children absolutely loved the careers.
Q: You also created an
Q:
accessory that Mattel nixed. It was Barbiesize pills modeled after amphetamines, right? A: I personally never
A: took drugs! But as I was thinking about the profession, it’s natural that doctors give prescriptions for pills. I found these wonderful little pink pills at a farmers’ market in L.A. They were amphetamines. Of course I didn’t know anything about them. Let me tell you, they took them out. Barbie got a prescription pad instead.
Q:
Q: Let’s talk about
Q:
walking. As in, it’s been said many times that Barbie’s proportions on a real woman would prohibit her from being able to walk. How did you feel about that with your background as a designer – and as a woman?
A: When Barbie was
A: designed, Mattel found that to get clothes on that fit like they would on a real person, the designers had to make space to allow for the seams. Barbie is onesixth the scale of a person with a threeinch waist. It had to be taken down from what they felt would be a “normal” person because when you got a seam at the waistline you ended up with four layers of fabric and she didn’t look right. They had to make the body to wear the clothes that would look right. As the years go by, our figures change, and Barbie’s does too. Hers is becoming more lifelike.
Q: When did you feel
Q:
that Barbie was becoming a pop culture icon?
A: In 1977, Sibyl
A:
DeWein and Joan Ashabraner wrote the first book on the doll, “The Collector’s Encyclopedia of Barbie Dolls and Collectibles.” Everyone involved with the doll started reading it, and through it found a whole group of adults who played with the doll when they were children. The Barbie movement really grew out of the book. People started advertising,
“Do you collect Barbie dolls? We want to get in touch with you.” These were ads in newspapers! In 1980, the first Barbie convention was held.
Today, adults collect them, and Mattel designs toys both for the collector and the child. I personally have cabinets of Barbies attached to the wall in my dining room. You never eat alone in my house. You’re always eating with at least 300 Barbies.