Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

What Hacker News says

1. PhasmaFelisDec 2022
   Interestingly, Dahl himself addressed the idea that he was only anti-Israel, not anti-Semitic: he said “I am certainly anti-Israel, and I have become anti-Semitic.”

   It's not at all uncommon, in fact it's a cliche, for racists to carve out exceptions for "the good ones" that they know personally. That doesn't mean they're not racist.

   Dahl wrote some amazing books, many of which still stand up today. (I rolled my eyes at the article trying to claim that the wild wackiness of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator was somehow bad and uncreative.) You can acknowledge that and still acknowledge that he was also very racist.

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2. PhasmaFelisDec 2022
   The article certainly has its problems. (Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator was great, and criticizing a beloved children's book for being too wacky is just absurd.) But you're saying that "Hitler didn’t just pick on the Jews for no reason" is not sufficient, on its own, to accuse someone of racism. And I don't believe that's true, even without the context of the full quote.

   Now, the article might reasonably make one suspect that the quote was taken out of context. This would lead to a few minutes of research, ending in the same context I found, and the conclusion that, no, he really was quite unashamedly racist.

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3. shmdeMar 2022
   Charlie and the great glass elevator. Changed my life in a way where I actually started reading not just for education but for fun. The book which kindled my love for reading. That books don't need to be academic or a hill to be climbed.
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4. eesmithMar 2023
   Then you need to stop reading Dahl, because he rewrote his own books as part of the culture war.

   In his original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Oompa-Loompas were African Pygmies. The NAACP complained, and Dahl rewrote them in 1973 to be white-skinned. In the 1971 movie they were portrayed as orange-skinned, and in the 2005 movie as brown.

   Each of those falsifies the original literature.

   And you're right - these changes affect the interpretation of the original story!

   As "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator" more clearly shows, the books are also commentary about then-current society. Post-war England opened the labor market and granted British citizenship to the New Commonwealth. Black-skinned Anglo-Caribbean and brown-skinned people from the Indian subcontinent moved to England, causing English people to protest how "white" English jobs were being stolen. It's not hard to draw a parallel between that and how the workers in Wonka's chocolate factory were kicked out, replaced by Oompa-Loompas who were illegally smuggled in to the country.

   Rewriting the books and movies to avoid possible associations with African slavery obscures this interpretation.

   Also, don't read Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None". Even though it's the world's best-selling mystery, it's also been rewritten, including even the title.

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5. gsinclairFeb 2023
   No mention of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. Why would that be?
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6. paulmdFeb 2023
   Forget picking on one particular line and let's talk about the pages of racist caricatures in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator…

   https://www.resetera.com/threads/so%E2%80%A6-willy-wonka-and...

   like the oompa loompas aren't just a whoopsie, didn't realize that was racist thing. dude said some racist grandpa shit, there's no beating around the bush on that one lol... and boy he had some thoughts on the jews too... in 1983.

   https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20160912-the-dark-side...

   (stolen from down-thread:) https://groovyhistory.com/oompa-loompas-the-original-ones/2

   so like yeah this is basically the "difficult literature from 50 years ago" question. Dude was kind of a racist and wrote some shit that would be pretty offensive to write today. On the other hand it's also good entertaining literature that's beloved by a lot of kids, minus some offensive pages and occasional themes. what do you do with that? answers vary - don't teach it, edit it to tone down a few things, or just teach it unfiltered with some flavor of "yeah, product of its time"?

   I guess I personally fall into the "teach it as a product of its time" camp but I'm also not the one personally affected either, and over time it may fall more and more out of favor as sentiments on casual racism change, I'm sure there was a "teach it as a product of its time" for huck finn too and nowadays ehhhhhhh maybe we just find a better example for english lit. And that's really the danger if you don't want to tone it down (which, I'm not saying that's a good idea either), that it just falls into obscurity over time as people decide "nah african pygmies are a little too racist for 2050".

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