I feel so frustrated by nearly any degree of censorship. "Should we censor fairy tales? Should we censor Roald Dahl? Should we censor the speeches of Confederate generals?" No! Why do the pro-censor groups think that an uninformed populace with incorrect understandings of what people in the past said and did is better for the future?
Even the Grimms themselves seem to have toned down the gore in their stories to appeal to larger audiences. It seems like many people at the time didn't think the original editions were suitable for children, so they brought out more family-friendly editions once they realized there was a demand for it.
> "Zipes describes the changes made as “immense”, with around 40 or 50 tales in the first edition deleted or drastically changed by the time the seventh edition was published. “The original edition was not published for children or general readers. Nor were these tales told primarily for children. It was only after the Grimms published two editions primarily for adults that they changed their attitude and decided to produce a shorter edition for middle-class families. This led to Wilhelm’s editing and censoring many of the tales,” he told the Guardian."
Well, if the authors believe it, the authors have all the rights to change their books.
But not the rest of us.
EDIT: if the Grimms edited their books, it was in their rights. If we decide to edit Rolad Dahl (or the Grimms) and still call them Roald Dahl/Grimm's brothers we have no right to do it.
It's as simple as that, regardless who the original author of the story was, the author(s) of the books are very well known, it's the Grimms (in this particular case) and we should not edit them and call them "Grimm's brothers works" but "The X works (based on the Grimm's brothers works)" and see how many copies it sells (I bet not many as exploiting the Grimms' name).
Imagine Tolkien being rewritten based on "The rings of power" and still attributed to Tolkien or if Dune is republished as it is in the movies, with all the scenes removed, but it's still called Frank Herbert's Dune.
Wouldn't it be disappointing?
It is also about cultural heritage.
These works are from different cultures, they are not native of the US, where the debate is taking place about them.
Some time ago I read about rewriting Pinocchio. The majority of people think it is a Disney's story, they do not know or imagine that it is one of the most important piece of the Italian culture, written by Carlo Collodi and it's as important to us as Sherlock Holmes is for UK.
They're fairy tales. They don't have singular authors. They were transmitted orally and almost certainly adjusted based on whoever the audience was at the time. Just because the Grimms fixed them in print (more or less) doesn't make us beholden to them: they're still fairy tales. Fairy tales have always changed. There is no canonical version of a fairy tale, and no ownership. Disney's Snow White is as valid a telling as anyone's.
The original stories weren't even meant to be read to children. They got adjusted to be more child friendly even in the 19th century. It's very weird to insist that we must read children the original Cinderella even though 1) Grimm's story isn't the "original" Cinderella because there is no original, and 2) even the Grimms didn't think these stories child-friendly.
True, but that is true for everything before the press was invented, it's also true for music, before music notation was invented or for kitchen recipes...
What we are talking about here is publishing the Grimm's fairy tales, that are the most popular adaption ever of German folklore (we know they are mostly not original, but we can almost say they saved them from oblivion) and republish a sanitized version using the original title and the original authors names.
We still adapt fairy tales when we tell them in front of a campfire, that doesn't change the fact that for some of them the author exists and we know who that is.
Charlie and the chocolate factory, for example, is partly inspired by the author's real life experience with confectionery manufacturing plant Cadbury, it also contains more than one timeless archetype, inspired by a long tradition of orally transmitted tales, but at the same time it's also a completely original story, written by a man named Roald Dahl.
Disney chose those fairy tales exactly because there were no copyright fees involved, ironically today they refuse to let mickey mouse go...
EDIT
> the Grimms didn't think these stories child-friendly
AFAIK this is not what happened, the book was criticized for its content not deemed suitable for kids, given that the title "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" made people think otherwise.
They decided to change them and made a specific version for kids, that had an immense success and was re-published many times (I believe it was 10 editions).
We know that, we can refer to the original stories, tha doesn't mean Disney's Cinderella is not a Cinderella story, it means it is based on the Grimm's story, but it's not a faithful adaptation.
I don't see what difference it makes for the sake of the argument if the Grimms decided to edit their books.
The argument is that we don't use Dahl's books as cautionary tales. They're entertainment. The concern is that kids may instinctively pick up some harmful stereotypes from that.
Personally, I don't like it and I think we are so obsessed with sanitizing the language mostly because it's easy. You can search-and-replace all "blacklists" in the codebase and pat yourself on the back and feel like a good ally. Fixing real issues is a lot less convenient, and it's a lot harder to agree on the approach.
This wasn’t exactly my reading of the article, in this case, sanitization seems more about capitalism and appealing to the lowest common denominator (I.e. a happy version of the Little Mermaid) than censorship.
I’m conflicted because do we live in a free society where people are free to choose the type of material they popularize or should we force legacy versions of fairy tales on them in a paternalistic sense it’s good for them.
we should absolutely make the originals available, next to the "sanitized" versions that are clearly labeled as "not original" or "loosely based on the original story"
Even "The Shining" is labeled as "based on the original novel from Stephen King" and not as a "faithful adaption of ..."
Any other way of presenting the redacted material it's bad, as in "universally bad".
“we should absolutely make the originals available, next to the "sanitized" versions that are clearly labeled as "not original" or "loosely based on the original story"”
My point was definitely not to imply otherwise and I’m sorry if I did. I don’t think it’s wrong to create a new work that happens to eclipse the old work in popularity, I do think it’s wrong to eliminate or censor the old work entirely.
The thing is that the original fairy tales are surely not "sanitized" versions of the ones we know.
So if the idea is that we should clean-up the original stories so that they can replace the ones we know now in the future, we're doing a disservice to future people, because we have the oldest ones that have been printed at disposal and should not deprive them of the possibility of reading them, if they want to.
The fact that before the press there was no book of fairy tales is irrelevant.
The Grimm's are the Grimm's and we should keep printing and reading them as they were intended by the authors.
Which edition? The first edition wasn't even available in English until relatively recently, and they went through continuous change. The first editions weren't even meant to be suitable for children at the time, so it's kind of weird to insist that that's the version that kids need today.
This recent translation means English readers probably have better access to the original Grimm tales than they ever had before! Which is of course a good thing. Obviously the originals are in the public domain and aren't going anywhere, and so are lots of older 19th century English translations, presumably with varying degrees of fidelity. Nothing's being hidden from anyone; "actually the original Grimms' stories were pretty dark" is a factoid that is pretty widely known these days, I think?
But anyway, the article supposes that specifically kids should be exposed to the earliest, least expurgated versions of the story possible, which is very odd. Even in the 19th century people thought these stories were too dark for kids, which is why there was commercial success in selling shorter, lighter, more family-friendly versions, which the Grimms did. I don't think these stories would be awful for a bright 12 year old to read or anything, but the implication throughout is that these were considered kid-friendly in the past, which they weren't, at least in their original versions.
> The first edition wasn't even available in English
Does it even matter?
The Grimm brothers were German, the books in German do exist.
Pinocchio is an Italian work, in Italy it's always been available and a huge success, does it matter if the english version came out much later?
To me the fact that they have become available, shows that the interest among the English readers has grown.
> "actually the original Grimms' stories were pretty dark"
> kids should be exposed to the earliest, least expurgated versions of the story possible, which is very odd.
I read "The Hobbit" as a kid, it's pretty dark too, but I loved it. Read it again as an adult, didn't like it that much.
People are different, kids are not a monolith, they come from different backgrounds, especially different parents' backgrounds and opinions and values.
People I know don't let their kids watch Peppa Pig or the Winx, others don't want them to be schooled about religious stuff, they should be exposed doesn't mean they should be forced to read them, but that we should not pretend that we know better than them what it's good for them
I think kids should definitely be allowed to read the old stories! I'm just objecting to the article's handwringing about adaptations being "sanitized." It's good to adapt things, it's also good to read the stuff that's being adapted. If a bright 12 year old wants to read the gory Grimm versions of the stories then by all means, have at it.
Indeed, today's issues of censorship and "sanitization" isn't caused by the government, or bands of overzealous activists, but the Free Market and capitalism working as intended - appeal to the greatest possible audience by removing anything that could be seen as questionable/objectionable to capture the largest possible market share & thus derive the most profit. The free market has created a kind of crisis of creativity where all the movies, TV shows and books kind of look and feel the same, where nobody's feelings get hurt and nobody's ideas are challenged, because that kind of media is objectively the most profitable.
That's not entirely true. Media corporations (or, to be more precise, the managers running them) often impose their own preferences and agendas even when doing so is contrary to audience preferences. This is a classic example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_purge
I’d like to be more charitable to your response so please correct me here:
Wouldn’t it be more censorship to say that people are not to create such media where “nobody’s feelings get hurt and nobody’s ideas are challenged.” Like who would decide what media is sufficiently challenging?
I feel like this is always the problem with the complaint about popular culture is it seems like the only solution is something that doesn’t look like freedom.
His estate decided to modify the property they own to exclude words they found offensive. Do the owners of a book with the rights to its publication not have the right to publish whatever they like?
The only thing I don't like about this is copyright keeps his books from being republished by anyone but his estate. Copyright lasts far too long.
They had legal rights, sure. But moral rights? No. Any author would turn in their grave at the mere thought of a publishing house bowdlerizing their work after they're no longer around to defend it.
