Wes Anderson speaks out against alterations of Roald Dahl’s books
"I don’t want even the artist to modify their work," the Henry Sugar director said at the Venice film Festival. "What's done is done."
Aux News Roald Dahl
Wes Anderson is no stranger to the whimsical, slightly cynical, and occasionally cruel worlds of British author Roald Dahl: The filmmaker is currently on the promotional beat for his second adaptation of Dahl’s work, the Benedict Cumberbatch-starring short(-ish) film The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar. (He previously adapted Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox in stop-motion back in 2009.)
At the moment, Anderson is in Venice, where he recently showed off the 37-minute film, which will be part of an anthology of short movies released by Netflix under the Henry Sugar name. (Only one of which, The Swan, comes from Dahl’s actual Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar And Six More short story anthology; the other two, Poison and The Ratcatcher, are pulled from other portions of Dahl’s short fiction career.)
Given his status as one of Hollywood’s foremost Dahl adapters, it’s not surprising to hear that Anderson was asked about the recent controversy surrounding the author’s books. (In case you missed it: Recent editions of Dahl’s works have had some of the more mean-spirited, or societally out-of-touch, bits of language edited out of them—generally, those related to either mental illness or negative descriptors of people’s appearances, or references to gender.) When asked about it at Venice, Anderson expressed his unhappiness about the changes in what were (for Wes Anderson) just about the harshest terms imaginable:
I don’t want even the artist to modify their work. I understand the motivation for it, but I sort of am in the school where, when the piece of work is done and the audience participates in it, we know it—I sort of think what’s done is done. And certainly, no one besides the author should be modifying the work—he’s dead.
Anderson also weighed in, albeit very briefly, on the ongoing strikes affecting the industry. (As a writer-director, Anderson is a member of the WGA.) “An equitable deal has got to be reached for anybody to go forward,” he said in response to a question about the strikes. “People are suffering.”
101 Comments
I’m fine with artists altering their own work and I believe they should have the fundamental right to do so. I might not like the changes they make, but as an audience member I have the freedom to express my dislike and choose to not engage with it.I am not as crazy about other people – whether it’s a soulless corporation or the artist’s family – altering dead people’s works. But if they’re dead, I’m not really worried about how they’ll feel.
Except George Lucas. He needs a court order telling him to leave well enough alone.
He sold it, so he legally can’t mess with them anymore.Honestly, as much as shit as he’s gotten for altering the OT, my only problem was him burying the unaltered versions. It never made sense, even from a business perspective.
I sort of respect him for that. He was like “this is MY vision and it’s the only one you can have!” You’re right, it’s a bad business decision, but it’s not like he needs the money.But I also get to disagree with him about which version is the best one.
I still own a DVD/VCR combo specifically because I have that final edition trilogy set. I wasn’t sure exactly what they meant with the voiceover that this was the last chance to own the original films. Weren’t kidding.
He’s gotta have a clause in the sale contract with Disney saying they won’t release the OT in their orginall form. I can’t see Disney letting that cash cow go by, unless maybe they’re waiting for the 50th anniversary. But given the state of physical media sales, I don’t know if that makes a whole lot of sense.
I was generally happy with the cosmetic changes — correcting the matte errors in Empire, for example — but dislike the story changes (Greedo shooting first). Some of the FX additions were unnecessary, but didn’t bother me.
They put out the originals on DVD as a bonus feature about 15 years ago which I snapped up. Also I’m sure when Lucas sold it he put in a provision it was only his editions
Seriously. They can put Britney in a conservatorship but Lucas has full reign to commit his egregious transgressions.
And to release the goddamn original versions already.
What are you talking about? If anything, we need more references to McClunky put into the original films.
The arts industry loves a dead artist: you do whatever the fuck you like with their work, and not have to worry about silly things like authorial intent! Ask Van Gogh, or Kafka! Ask Nietzsche’s sister- OK, he wasn’t an artist, but she was a rampant, piece of shit Nazi who co-opted his work, turned his philosophy on its head (he hated antisemitism, nationalism, and Pan-Germanic theories) in order to ingratiate herself to the Nazis.
I was under the impression Authorial Intent died along with the Author.
It isn’t about how those dead artists might “feel”, it’s about preserving their work against the cultural/moral biases of future generations.It’s not too difficult to see how normalizing altering historic works to fit present day sensibilities is a slippery slope into dystopia.
Given that Dahl did modify his work (he changed the Oompa-Loompas to match the 1971 movie instead of just straight up being African pygmies, in 1973) that sort of seems like a slight. I guess maybe Anderson didn’t know?
He probably did, and just didn’t have time to give his full explanation of Dahl’s history and his view of alteration in that context while being briefly asked by a reporter about it at a film festival.
Nah, it’s not a slight.
And even if it were, only a small one. A slight slight.
Wes has encyclopedic knowledges in movies. He surely already informed about the trivial stuff like the changing of Oompa-Loompas for years.
Not really; he offers his opinion that even authors shouldn’t be changing their work once it’s out in the world, but he doesn’t say that authors who do are stupid doodyheads or anything. It’s just his thoughts on the subject, not a personal attack on anyone who may think or act differently.
Yeah but the fact that Dahl himself made that modification but not these somewhat undercuts the argument that others should have free hand to change his works. My general opinion when it comes to things like this is that as a society we recognize without being told that certain terms are no longer acceptable. Calling a mentally impaired person the R word is fully recognized as out of bounds by the vast majority of people. We don’t need a legal disclaimer to alert us to this fact.
Straight up African, yo!
“An equitable deal has got to be reached for anybody to go forward,” he said in response to a question about the strikes. “People are suffering.”I hope he doesn’t face any backlash for these strong words. When you go balls to the wall and release a statement of support like that, people will stand and take notice of your confidence and bravery. Talk about a take-no-prisoners motherfucker, Wes is going to say what he thinks and he doesn’t care who gets burned!
I appreciate Anderson’s avoidance of becoming some anti-woke icon or edgelord. His answer is fine. There are perfectly valid reasons to alter work (especially under the direction of a writer’s family) or for leaving content alone. In the first case, the work can continue to be embraced without a bunch of asterisks and without needing to “help” children ingest ideas that reflect expired values/mindsets. In the second, the problematic work finds itself encased in contextual bubble wrap for the remainder of its existence (Gone with the Wind is the most famous example, I’m guessing). Which is also fine. As long as original texts continue to be available (and they forever shall be) there is no sacrifice.
Yeah, I used to be a purist on this (ie: no alterations ever), but as a teacher I’ve come to see the utility of approaching texts with an eye to careful editing. My go-to example here is Huck Finn. It’s a classic and one of the great American novels. But would I teach it in one of my college courses? Not in its original format with all of the racial slurs. From a purist’s standpoint, the text is the text and we should all deal with that. But I’m in the real world and I’m looking at a classroom community that I lead. That classroom will almost definitely include a few Black students who will have to tackle that text while in a classroom where white students are in the majority. I will not put them in a position where they must subject themselves to hundreds of racial slurs to read that book. I am a good teacher. If my only option is to teach the unaltered original text, will find other texts and other ways to teach the same concepts. But if I have the option to use an edition of Huck Finn that has replaced the racial slurs, then I might use that. But I won’t sacrifice the safe classroom environment that I work so hard to build over Huck Finn when there are many other perfectly viable options that don’t require my Black students to navigate that minefield.(The reality is that I will never have to make that choice re: Huck Finn because I teach Brit Lit, but there are any number of British texts that have the same problem—case in point Heart of Darkness).
You would not include Huck Finn in a college course because of the use of the N-Word? They are college students. I doubt any black person should be scandalized by the word’s use in a text. If so, then I may have to reconsider some of the things Bill Maher has said.
Yes, and I will defend that decision to the ground. It is a pedagogically sound decision. My role as a professor is to foster critical thinking and knowledge formation in all of my students. To do that, we need a classroom community where students feel free and safe. Too often, critiques like yours fail to truly take into account the experience of a black student in class where a text like Huck Finn is assigned. That text contains 219 instances of the n-word. That’s 219 times that a black student will read the most heinous racial slur in the English language. Many black students and teachers have written about how their experiences of reading the text left them feeling alienated from their classmates and instructor, how it made them feel less excited to study literature. You say you doubt that any black person would be scandalized but that’s not your assumption to make. Until you’ve done the work to understand the experiences that minority students bring into the predominantly white classrooms of higher education, you cannot know what you’re talking about. You cannot know what the experience is like for a black student reading and spending two weeks discussing a novel that includes the worst word you can be called on roughly every other page. So it’s not that black students are scandalized by the use of the word. My students are, generally speaking, bright and inquisitive thinkers who grapple with complexity. It’s that the word itself, combined with its oppressive frequency in the text, alienates black students, both from the text and from the classroom community. Often times, black students at predominantly white institutions (PWI) are the only black person in their class (or one of a few). As much as it shouldn’t matter, this creates a dynamic where black students are often looked to as the “representatives” of their race in the classroom. With a text like Huckleberry Finn, that places an onerous burden on the black student(s). For what purpose? Can I honestly say that my white students and my black students can approach this text and dig into it on equal footing? That black students can move past the pervasiveness of the slur and its baggage and into analysis of the novel’s themes with the same ease that white students will? I can’t. And so I find alternatives that do the job just as well. Those are my arguments in favor of excluding the text. The arguments in favor of including the text tend to be as follows (along with my perspective on each).“But it’s a canonical text of American literature.” So what? There are lots of those texts. Just because something has been canonical does not mean that it continues to be. In the 19th and 20th century, Herbert was taught as a main British poet, and in my experience he’s largely been supplanted on syllabi by Donne. Things change. We can and should always be questioning if the texts we assume as canonical are worthy of the label, and if broader representation better achieves our goals. One of the great projects of literary studies in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has been the re-evaluation and opening up of the canon. Perhaps Huck Finn’s time has come to fade into the background. “But it’s just a word!” Arguably, the editions of Huck Finn that edit Twain’s novel to replace the n-word with “slave” may be more representative of the tone at the time. The n-word then was not as offensive as it is now. It is the rare case of a slur whose power has grown, rather than dulled, with time. Given the word’s increased power and endurance, I think it is perfectly reasonable to say that the text either gets taught in an edited version or not at all. “But this text is crucial to teaching students about the evils of slavery.” Do we think our students, by the time they get to college, don’t understand that slavery was dehumanizing and evil? (Note: Florida and Texas are seriously making me reconsider this question, but I digress…). We do not need Huck Finn to make that point.Furthermore, if we’re going to make that argument, then any number of slave narratives would be a better choice as a teaching text. Plus, those narratives would have the advantage of re-centering the focus on black experiences told by black voices, without the lens of the white writer or white main character. In that regard, it’s a win-win. You swap out a deeply problematic text that alienates students for one that speaks to and about the cultural heritage of those very same students. Score.“But if we don’t teach Huck Finn because of the n-word, then that means we can’t teach any text that uses the n-word even once.” Not necessarily, although I think we should give great consideration to whether a text that contains racial slurs is truly essential or not. The prevalence of the word in Huck Finn makes it a special case, in my opinion. There are a handful of other books that I think toe this line (Heart of Darkness among them), but Huck Finn really is the most egregious example from the canon. As such, it can and should be treated as a special case. One or two instances of the term in the course of a novel you can probably work through without classroom disruption. But in cases like Twain and Conrad, where the term is so pervasive, it’s hard to argue that the positives outweigh the negatives. We’ve got to trust teachers to rely on their expertise and judgment to make these calls.“But everyone is too sensitive.” So be it. I know I can be an effective teacher and cover the concepts in a rich and engaging way without including this text. I would rather err on the side of inclusivity, and I think there’s nothing wrong with that. My classes are rigorous and demanding. I ask a lot of students. In return, they should expect a high degree of professional discernment from me. And in thinking through the logistics and the ethics of teaching Huck Finn, I have judged that the drawbacks are too significant and that the text requires far more contextualizing than I would be able to devote to it in a survey lit class.
With all sincerity, thank you for this. I previously thought I had a good argument and you thoroughly dismantled it. Not to be corny but your students are lucky to have you as a teacher.
Well, that’s very kind of you to say. Thank you.
Y0ur arguments are grounded in ideology not pedagogy.The role of a “good teacher” – especially in terms of post-secondary education – is not to provide a “safe” environment for students to learn. The role of a “good teacher” is to be able to challenge students – sometimes with uncomfortable ideas – to help them be able to be resilient enough to be able to handle ideas and thoughts that they have not been subjected to before, that could be offensive and/or objectionable.It’s pretty obvious you have a saviour complex and, as such, coddle your students to protect them from ideas that you have decided are too “problematic.”You are the problem, not the Adventures Huckleberry Finn in its original format.
His students will objectively be worse off for having a little bitch like this as a teacher.
I think my guidance would be to strongly encourage students to read the book outside of the assigned coursework – it is a part of the American literary fabric, but I understand fully that everyone in the class (black and white) is likely to feel uncomfortable with that elephant in the room. But I also think you’re underselling your students a bit with the suggestion that they have to feel “safe” in a classroom. Respected, yes. But I guarantee every black student in your class has heard the N word more than 200 times in non-racist scenarios and the fact that it exists in a 150 year-old book is not going to be emotionally damaging.
As a former student who was sometimes the only black person in that classroom, I don’t think you can ‘guarantee’ it won’t be emotionally damaging. Just because one has heard the word ‘more than 200 times’ doesn’t mean it can’t hold a power and still be damaging. Context matters in all cases.
I hear you, which is why I think encouraging students to read a book like Huck Finn while avoiding what could clearly be an uncomfortable classroom setting is the way to go. If you’ve read it, what was your reaction as you went through it? I would think the first few times you came across the word it would be somewhat jarring, but eventually become part of the scenery, but of course I’m not you so I’m honestly curious. From an academic perspective it is very much a window into the era.
Sooooo brave.Soooo important for people to not ever have to interact with something that might potentially hurt their feelings.
I don’t think of providing a safe classroom as coddling or as deferring to the students’ desire not to be challenged or to confront difficult things. I think of safety in the classroom as psychological safety: the kind of safety that makes it OK for you to take a risk with a particular argument. Or to step outside of your comfort zone. If I’m pushing kids to do that (and I think that I do), it’s going to make them uncomfortable in an intellectual sense. They’ll work through that discomfort if they feel like the classroom is a safe space to do that. But if they don’t feel that way, they’ll clam up and you’ll lose them. So it’s up to me to provide the environment where that discomfort can be dealt with so students can grow and learn. That is a space of psychological safety. And that’s what I think gets damaged when you force students to read a text with 200+ uses of the n-word. There’s a sort of social contract that happens in a classroom: I, the instructor am here to push you, and you are here to explore ideas. If you commit to exploring new and uncomfortable ideas, I commit to making this class a place where you can be supported as you do that. And I think it’s a mistake to presume that just because students have heard the word before, that its impact is lessened by repeated use or by use in academic contexts. If anything, it’s appearance in academic work can be even more jarring because its out of context for what many of the students might be expecting. And it’s not just one instance. Black students come up through an educational system steeped in systemic racial oppression. I think we owe it to them, where and when we can, to listen to their experiences and do our best to create spaces where those systemic structures can be questioned rather than reinforced.
“Black students come up through an educational system steeped in systemic racial oppression”Despite their schools being funded at 3x the rate of other schools and having admission preferences almost everywhere. It’s good to treat grown adults as fragile children because of reasons. People like you are the reason education in this country has declined so precipitously.
Of course students deserve to feel safe in a place of learning! You’re forgetting that these students generally are not safe or comfortable in the wilder world. The classroom is not their sole place of being challenged like it might be for people with more privilege.
And then what happens when they reenter that wider world after graduation? “Boss, I encountered a situation today that made me feel emotionally unsafe!”
I’m not entirely sure what point you’re trying to get at here, but this is wholly a conversation about avoiding the n-word. So if a black person goes into the workplace and someone there calls them by a heinous racial slur, they should 100% be going to their boss and bringing that up.
This discussion is starting to meander but I assure you I’m not talking about anyone being expected to endure racial slurs in the workplace (or anywhere else). You’ll see from my other comments that I don’t think it’s appropriate to assign works like Adventures of Huck Finn as mandatory reading. But I do think it’s selling students short to suggest that recommending it as independent reading of a seminal work in American fiction is going to damage their psyches. If they get 30 pages in and it’s too much, put it down. But don’t decide on their behalf.
How is “not requiring or recommending a text” the same as “deciding on their behalf that they shouldn’t read it”? Huck Finn is one of the most well-known books in American history. Nobody is being deprived of the choice to read it by leaving it off college reading lists. They can read whatever they choose.
Well yes, if someone is subjected to racial slurs or made to feel unsafe at work, they should let management know. But just because people might encounter bigotry in adulthood doesn’t mean they should be forced to grapple with it at school. “Someone might be mean to my students in the future. I guess there’s no point in being nice to them now.” That’s a wild justification for forcing black students to encounter 200+ instances of the N-word in a majority white classroom.
You sound like a great teacher, and I’m glad your students have you!
You’re very kind. Thanks.
Sooooooooo brave
You know, I see you a lot on here and av club, and sometimes, I agree with what your saying. Sometimes I don’t. When I don’t, I just leave you alone. I just think there’s no point in even trying. In this case, I was just trying to thank a good person for doing a good job, and you’re being a fucking dick.
In case your confusing this account with the original recognitions, who was earnest but a little insufferable, this is not them. “Recoegnitions” is nothing more than a troll account, who uses the kind of edgelord insults that would embarrass a 14 year old every time someone says anything remotely progressive.
Thank makes a lot of sense. Thanks!
It’s a good thing you and your dumb opinions don’t matter.
Aw, you’re adorable.
I don’t think he’s doing a “good job”. Attitudes like this are profoundly harmful to educational environments. He’s doing these kids a disservice by treating them like infants.
Man, can I appreciate you as a teacher/professor! I was often that lone black kid in the classroom of white kids, so I am very familiar with the struggle. I recall in Jr High hearing a white kid read the “N” word out loud from a text in class and feeling like every eye was on me to see my reaction. (I studiously had NO reaction!)But, speaking for myself and nobody else, I can appreciate what Twain was doing with the use of the word in the novel. Having had long discussions about it with instructors and students alike, I realize how sly he was to take a word that was (more) commonly spoken in that time to lull the reader into a sense of being ‘right’ and comfortable all along. Until he smacks the reader between the eyes with Huck’s realization that the word DOES NOT describe who Jim is and that Jim is more of a human being than the bastards he’s been dealing with all along! For me, its genius and well-earned in the book.However, I can easily see how people today are way more disturbed by the constant use of it in the novel. I myself can’t abide hearing it in music and movies. (I REALLY want to love Kendrick Lamar, but the CONSTANT fucking use of the word repulses me every time.) Its a word that was ONLY designed to denigrate and demean and I don’t have a use for it in my life. I don’t find ‘reclaiming’ it to be instructive for those who would still use it pejoratively against me and mine. It just endures, doesn’t it? And hearing/reading it multiple times is soul-deadening for me. (A perfect example for me would be Tarantino’s “Hateful Eight“. I made the mistake of seeing the slightly expanded version (with an intermission) in the theater. The CONSTANT use of the word made me feel like I was back in that Jr High class again! At intermission I looked around the entire theater and I was the ONLY black person there!! I really should have left, but I was eager to see if there was a ‘Huck Finn’ style comeuppance to be had. There was not. It was a uniquely demeaning experience and not one I ever want to experience again. Yes, I knew Tarantino throws that word around, but in this story it was fucking oppressive for NO reason. He says its a movie about race, but I really didn’t catch the drift at all.But, as you said, is getting into the depth of the use of the word in the novel worth it in a survey course? Maybe not. I can appreciate your conclusion based on the thoughts and reasons you listed.
Laura Ingalls Wilder was still alive when her books were starting to be updated. She felt horrible that children might be hurt by her original language referring to indigenous people and stated that her work could always be edited in the interest of not being hurtful. There are no good arguments against that, and no piece of literature matters more than real human lives.
How do you think this issue should be handled for writers of historical fiction? Clearly if someone is writing a Civil War drama or something similar the word is going to come up. And I suppose the author can only put the word in the mouths of Confederates but that seems like a cop out. There were certainly Union troops and Northerners who used that word and held substantially the same racist opinions. It’s always been a pet peeve of mine when a writer goes well out of their way to give their main or POV characters views that are more in line with modern sensibilities than what would be likely for their time and place. How does one balance the need for historical realism with the sensitivity of potential readers?
It’s probably a combination of factors. One, tailoring characters so that they less likely to be the sort of person who would us it (would say, an abolitionist be someone who would say it? Probably no). Two, tailoring the narrative so that it doesn’t get a chance (or as many chances) to come up. Three, cop out and just kind of use other words in places where it would come up.Overall it’s probably a tricky balancing act that authors have to navigate by feel, with the awareness that your not going to be able to make everyone happy, and you’re undoubtedly going to upset someone. I think that conveying historically realistic mindsets, attitudes and opinions is probably more important than making sure the dialogue is completely period appropriate. I’d point to Deadwood as an example of this, where a lot of the dialogue is written in a way to convey the feel/attitudes of the time and place even if a lot of it is not stuff you’d have found people saying. I’d also point to LA Confidential as an example of how losing the n-bomb doesn’t really hurt the work overall (the book was full of it, the movie used ‘negroes’ instead).
There were loads of abolitionists who absolutely WOULD say that word, because their argument against slavery was that American was given by God as a paradise for white people.
So, none of your proposed responses represent my belief, which is more like I believe you seriously underestimate your students. I sincerely do not believe black students will be traumatized by reading the word.
If you go back and look at my two lengthy posts about this topic closely, you’ll see that none of my arguments are based on avoiding the text to avoid traumatizing my students—that is an assumption that you’ve made about my reasoning. My argument is that the text itself has a chilling effect on the ability of the entire class (not just the black students) to grow as critical readers of literature. I am not avoiding the text out of fear that my students are fragile. I am avoiding the text because it hampers students’ ability to learn, and its literally my job to teach them, so I’m going to instead choose works that accomplish the same goals for all students in a better way than Huck Finn.
“ My argument is that the text itself has a chilling effect on the ability of the entire class (not just the black students) to grow as critical readers of literature.”And this argument is fucking stupid and not backed by anything reasonable. You should straight up not be in a position of power over anyone.
“I sincerely do not believe black students will be traumatized by reading the word.”So you’re just ignoring the many, many accounts of Black people telling stories of classroom experiences around the book that DID traumatize them? How do you square your evidence-free belief with the actual lived experiences of people?
Where are these many, many accounts?
Ah, you’re going with the time-tested “pretending they don’t exist.” I guess that’s one way to ineptly defend an evidence-free assertion.
No,I meant that quite literally. Otherwise, my assertion is no more evidence-free than yours is.
I had responded to this yesterday, but I do not see it. I apologize if this is a duplication. That was meant as a genuine request. I am not pretending anything does not exist. If you can provide a link that would be great.
There’s literally one in this comment thread.
In his mind.
Yeah this doesn’t exist. You’re a loser.
I agree with all of the reasoning you’ve got here, and it really sounds like your students are lucky to have such a thoughtful, engaged teacher. I used to teach “The Jazz Singer” in its entirety. It’s a fantastic example of so many different aspects of industrial and stylistic history relevant to the transition to sound film, and (somewhat more famously) it’s an invaluably messy example of all of its very visible cultural baggage. But it’s just not worth it anymore. At some point, I realized that teaching “the work” was less important than what aspects of the work could be used to teach, and now I’ve got about twenty minutes of (entirely blackface-free) clips from the film assigned alongside an explanatory guide filling in the context. It works, but then I think “The Jazz Singer” is a better exemplar than it is an actual work of art… I would have a harder time making this choice with something that I found actually, profoundly soul-shaking. A work of art that matters in ways that is distinct from context, politics, sociological footprint, etcetera. Ways that are related to stylistic decisions, but not in a quantifiable way.And I think that’s what gives me pause with your approach. It isn’t about canon, because you’re absolutely right that canons change, sometimes for good reasons. Obviously there’s more to teaching the arts than parading around like an ascot-wearing aesthete going on about its irreducible experiential whatever, and I certainly don’t presume or assume that my students should dig the same things I do. But let’s say Huck Finn matters to me, profoundly, deeply matters, and I’m teaching a class on 19th-century American literature: is the integrity of the course going to be tanked by ditching Huck? Nope. But there won’t be any chance that I will be able to convey why that book matters to me to my students, and in turn no chance that it might matter to them similarly. And as sound as all your reasoning is, I can’t help but regard that as a loss.The other problem I have isn’t with what you think about this issue, but what people who absorb this same way of thinking culturally downstream tend to transform it into… We’re making the choices we make as teachers, for good, empathetic teacherly reasons. But if the takeaway is, at the end of the day, reducible to an implicitly censorial attitude based on the potential avoidance of troubling content, I don’t think it is that farfetched to be concerned that this might be reflected back at us as teachers from our students (or, more likely, their parents) in ways that seem much more entitled, puritanical, anti-intellectual, and unwilling to engage with the nuances that, ironically, created the upstream version of these ideas to begin with.Anyway, you seem awesome. Please keep being awesome.
Teaching a version that replaces the N-word with “slave” is worse than not teaching it – characters call Jim that word whether they know he’s enslaved or not, and Twain has them do so for a reason.Anyway! Huck Finn should be taught in HS, not college.
You’re a fucking loser. The fact that they let someone like you teach grown adults is an inditement of whatever shit hole institution you work for.
There’s more N-words in the average rap song than in Huck Finn, and it was written in an era where calling someone ‘black’ would’ve been seen as more offensive.
It seems like your arguments don’t really engage with the fact that the students are not children. Do you think your points on this topic apply equally well across the board, whether you’re talking about a freshman-level literature course, a graduate-level seminar, or a conference of published Twain scholars? I assume you wouldn’t say so, but then I’m not sure how you would escape the charge that the policy in question treats adults like children.
Also, what about important literature that contains a great deal of blasphemy when certain students are religious? Or important literature that contains a great deal of vulgar language and frank depictions of sex when certain students are sheltered? Or (perhaps looming largest in the Western canon) important literature that contains a great deal of misogyny when many or most students are women? It’s not uncommon for important works of literature to contain upsetting language and upsetting ideas (often enough because they were written by terrible people with repellent views), and instructors are hardly in a position to dismiss the experience of students who are seriously hurt by such texts. So I’m not sure how to apply the policy in question consistently without becoming Liberty University.
Thanks for your questions. With regard to your first paragraph I would say this: I could see an argument for teaching Huck Finn at all levels of college courses.* I could not see a world in which I taught it at the high school level—it’s too much to ask students and teachers to grapple with given the constraints of their schedules, in my opinion. Me, personally, I would probably put Huck Finn in an upper level college courses and leave it out of a lit survey/100 level course. I think this for a couple of reasons: Students who get beyond the 100 level are in the major. They know what they’re signing up for. These courses also move at a more deliberate pace to allow you to more thoroughly contextualize the text and engage in deeper probing of the work Twain was trying to do. I just don’t think that HS classes and survey courses have the time to adequately address this. I don’t view this approach as infantilizing my students, btw, because I don’t think of the choice to not teach Huck Finn as refusing to engage with the topic or as giving them an easy out to spare their feelings. I don’t teach Huck Finn, but the texts that I choose instead to teach the same concepts are equally challenging. But they’re challenging in ways that I find more productive for students. With Huck Finn, there’s one monumental challenge that dominates the discourse—and it has a chilling effect on both black and white students’ engagement with the text. (It’s not just black students that clam up when so much racist language is part of the text. The white students don’t want to say anything wrong, so they clam up, too.) Furthermore, Huck Finn places a big burden on the instructor to get it right, and you expend a lot of capital with your students to get them through it. I think that’s a helpful metaphor in this situation. As a teacher you have only so much capital you can expend each semester pushing students out of their comfort zones to engage with difficult texts. If I’m in a semester-long class, I don’t want to blow all my capital on this one text. I’d like to spread it out by using other texts that challenge them in different (and I would argue more productive) ways to engage with ideas of race and history and class. So if I drop Huck Finn, I can maybe add 2-3 other texts that also ask a lot of students, but in a less loaded way. This is the complicated calculus that goes into scaffolding a course at the college level. It’s not just about building a reading list. We take into consideration what combination of texts work well together, which suit the kinds of discussions or assignments we want to do, and which will help you class develop the kind of rapport with each other that helps all students engage more deeply with the texts. If you only have the opportunity to read about 4 novels in a semester (and this really is about all you can squeeze in a lot of the time), then you can see how Huck Finn is difficult to fit into this matrix of decisions. It takes a lot of effort to work through the text, so you can’t move through it quickly. You have to read several supplemental texts as a class to contextualize it, which is always hard to get students to do. And then the end result is some of the most tepid discussion of the entire term, after which you’ve got to devote more time as a teacher to rebuilding the rapport that Huck Finn weakened, so students engage with confidence again. It’s just…a lot. And for not a lot of benefit in my opinion, particularly when there are outstanding slave narratives or other literary works that give voice to the Black experience much better.Regarding your second paragraph, and I don’t say this as a cop out, but: Huck Finn is a special case. In the pantheon of literature that I might teach, it really is the only text that stands out as so overwhelmingly problematic and damaging to classroom culture that it warrants being left off of the syllabus. In our culture, the n-word is unique in its power and extremity. What other word does all of polite society just wholesale agree not to say? There really isn’t anything. Maybe cunt, but I think we can all agree that is not the same. And Huck Finn uses the n-word 219 times. It is overwhelming. The other things you cite—misogyny, heresy, explicit passages—I struggle to think of a work that contains those to the equivalent degree as Huck Finn does the n-word. Its extremity renders is a special case. And I think it’s OK to say that, and I don’t think that necessarily means we’re heading toward some slippery slope where if we don’t teach Huck Finn, then we can’t teach anything with a slur in it or anything challenging. That’s a fallacy. Part of why I did a decade of post-graduate study is because I was learning to understand these dynamics and make these kinds of calls. My training has prepared me to balance out these factors and determine what stays and what doesn’t. And others are free to make different choices with their curriculum. Furthermore, just because I don’t teach one deeply problematic text doesn’t mean I can’t teach any problematic texts. Tons of what I assign my students is literature that is rooted in racism, colonialism, misogyny, and pushing the envelope. I love teaching that stuff, because it is productive intellectual work for me and for students. We talk about hard stuff all the time. So yeah, I’m sure that’s not a very satisfying answer for you, but that’s partly because I think the premise of the charge levied in the second paragraph—that this one call on Huck Finn means we’re destined to devolve into Liberty University—is a logical fallacy. There’s no slippery slope here because there’s just not. Because people like me and my colleagues are professionals and take great care with what we do. We work hard to balance our syllabus with rigorous texts that will engage students on and individual and group level. And because Huck Finn is a special case. I hope this helps explain to you how/why I approach Huck Finn the way I do. Thanks again for your questions. *The novel is still widely included in the major anthologies, but some (most?) do a really piss poor job of contextualizing it. For example, the Norton Anthology includes Huck Finn, all 200 pages. Then at the end puts 11 pages of excepts from 5 critical essays responding to Huck Finn. It only excerpts Toni Morrison’s response rather than including the whole thing. There’s something wrong with the proportion there. So yeah, Huck Finn is tough to get right, even if you’re the foremost publisher of literary anthologies.
Your thoughtful response shows how much you care about your students and their academic and emotional development. They are lucky to have you (and I feel lucky to have read your commentary here).
Thank you for writing such a thoughtful response. You sound like an excellent teacher!
“If so, then I may have to reconsider some of the things Bill Maher has said.”Good luck with that bullshit.
Question: are you white? If so you don’t get an opinion about it.
You’re trying to protect fucking college students?! At what age do you think people are old enough to read and evaluate works that don’t perfectly share our values, since apparently it’s older than 22.
Heart of darkness is a great book shame there was a never a proper adaptation of it.
It is great, and I agree that it’s a shame. I have taught it a couple of times in upper-level (not survey) courses where I felt like it could be carefully sequenced and contextualized. But it’s always tricky and a lot of work to get there. The text uses the n-word roughly a dozen times over the course of 200ish pages, so it’s not a huge, huge number. But it’s paired with some pretty racist characterizations of the Africans that Marlow encounters. If you can get students past the shock of the racism, you can get into a ton of really great conversations about whether the text critiques racism/colonialism/capitalism or participates in it (the answer: all of the above).
If you don’t already, you should have some kind of social media presence *strictly for your former students* so they may contact you later when they realize what a blessing you were to them.Your comments remind me of my favorite professors and ALL they did for me, while simply doing their job.
Well, that’s certainly very nice of you to say. Thank you. And it’s always nice to hear from former students! So if anyone reads this and things about a teacher that was formative for them, do a google and see if you can find that teacher. I’m sure they’d love an e-mail or a note from you!
There is no valid reason to alter work. Just because content has become “problematic” today doesn’t mean it will be viewed as such in the future.
In the first case, the work can continue to be embraced without a bunch of asterisks and without needing to “help” children ingest ideas that reflect expired values/mindsets.Yeah, we wouldn’t want to expose children to ideas that they aren’t already familiar with. That sort of thing could lead to critical thinking. And we can’t have that.
As a beloved capitalist job-creator, Willy Wonka should be allowed to drown as many fat children as he deems fit.
I’m sure they all had to sign waivers, so it’s perfectly fine.
Parents seem pretty chill as well. “Well I did sign the waver…”
Found on tumblr:To be totally fair to Willy Wonka, at least a couple of those candy factory casualties involved kids deliberately circumventing reasonable safeguards, sometimes aided and abetted by the parents who were supposed to be supervising them. What happened is at most 60% his fault.thecolossalennui Followoompa loompa doopity darethe court finds you breached your duty of careaka-maayan Followoompa loompa doopity diskthat’s what the courts call assumption of risktipofthescepter Followoompa loompa doopity doonly a partial judgment for youthes3natorOompa loompa doopity doubt,The rest of the class action lawsuit is hereby…(SLAM) (SLAM)THROWNITY OUT!
Well, as any adaptation almost certainly involves changes of some sort (unless you’re a fan of slavish page to screen 6-hour movies), it seems difficult to draw a hard line.
They’re not talking about adaptations for the screen but alterations of new editions of the books themselves.
I think a lot of the appeal of Dahl to kids is that he has a real mean streak, and that makes them different from saccharine kids’ books. Over time, adults tend to forget those parts, and some of the novelty wears off, since lots of adults books are willing to embrace unpleasantness. And they tend to look back and want the books to be more wholesome, even though that diminishes the very thing that makes the books unique and interesting.
I do agree with the aspect that if it’s finished it’s finished. Dumbledore being gay retroactively comes to mind.
Was he gay retroactively or retroactively gay? Because I think it makes a difference. But I could be overthinking this. I’m a spider FFS!
As with time travel, it’s all about the verb tenses. Dumbledore always will have had been gay.
Ah, time travel: fiction writing’s catch-all for “Oh dear, I seem to have written myself into a corner!”
Let´s all bow down to the great Snowflake king
Wes can actually fuck off with that strike answer. What both-sides bullshit.
Wes Anderson, seen here trying his darnedest to look like one of Dahl’s more weird and creepy characters.
Henry Sugar is not going to have Henry Sugar?
When other people are suffering -> make no changes….
When “his” people are suffering -> changes have to happen….