Political correctness in literature

[charlotte86]

Does anybody know of any modern books that have been affected by political correctness, or any books which have been amended because of this? I am going to be doing an English presentation on how political correctness has affected literature, focusing particularly on books. I know of a few older novels like Huckleberry Finn and the Enid Blyton books but would like to find out if there are any modern books that have been affected.

Thank You!

[jno]

Don't think you'll find many. The whole point of turning the golliwogs in Noddy books into teddy bears is that tastes have changed and publishers fear the books won't sell unless they're brought into line with modern thinking. But modern books by definition are written according to modern standards; they may well be changed some day but it won't be for a while.

Still, you could consider the case of James Frey here. He marketed his book as if it were true and his public seem to have been pretty cross to find it wasn't. Not political correctness in the usual sense but many felt that by pretending to have had a lousy lfe he was belittling the experience of people who really had had a hard time. This is quite possibly something that wouldn't have happened 50 years ago because tastes have changed.

[andy-hughes]

The Billy Bunter series - which may be too old-fashioned to sell these days, have all been re-written from a PC point of view. The entire premise of the series was that Bunter was fat, and almost every other line referred to him in un-flattering fat-ist langauge, all of which has been re-written. In addition, the token Indian character was always called 'Inky', but has since be re-christened Singh.

[ludwig]

A book about the history of a popular beat combo 'Manfred Mann - A history' had to be renamed 'Personfred Person - A herstory'. They also had to include a black triangle player, and gay saxophonist that never existed in reality, as reality was deemed to be not culturally diverse enough.

Actually none of that is true. I apologise for hijacking your thread with nonsense.

[ludwig]

on a serious note, I agree with jno. I don't think you'll find any modern books that are affected or amended by PC because they've been written with modern sensibilities already built in.
It's only stuff from a certain age as mentioned above
(blyton, bunter, john buchan - anti semitic references) that contains unacceptable material to the modern reader.
Dennis the menace no longer gets whacked on the bum with a slipper by his dad. If the beano had first been published in 1995 he never would have been.
I find Ben Elton's novels to be self-conciously 'right on'.
Any character who's white, male and straight is usually portrayed as a villain or a complete loser, whereas anyone else is a positive role model for whatever group they've been shoehorned into the storyline to represent.

[joko]

there is book with rewritten fairy stories, called politcally correct bedtime stories, by james finn garner - could be a few interesting points.

[Sequin]

About 30 years ago, our set novel for English Literature O Level was by Joseph Conrad, and was called "The N**ger of the Narcissus" - I doubt very much if this would be used now, even though it is a classic

[mike b]

The was an adaptation of a W.S.Gilbert short story on BBC Radio4 yesterday in which there was an anachronistic and highly suspicious referencs to a 'Native American'! I suspect this was a Redskin or Red Indian in the original.

[jamesy boy]

How about Agatha Christie's "Ten Little N***ers", later changed to "Ten Little Indians", however my mother has a paperback copy with the original title, and it has a golliwog on the cover!

[gg106]

i am currently teaching to kill a mocking bird to my yr 0 gcse class and am having to explain why the words ****** and negro are being used

[gg106]

how wierd is that - i can read the word n*****r in a work of literature but i can't post it on the internet! I suppose it just goes to show....

[iraaef]

charlotte,I have just discovered that the subject of your presentation is very close to the subject of my scientific research! I know that it was almost 3 years ago when you made this presentation, but I hope that you visit this web site from time to time and will read my message.I would like to know more about what you have found about political correctness in modern literature.Do you think it will be possible? Thank you