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they edited "Charlie and the Chocolate factory". As the Umpa-Loompas where... something else. Of course that was done to the book before the movie was made.

they edited "Charlie and the Chocolate factory". As the Umpa-Loompas where... something else. Of course that was done to the book before the movie was made. https://www.roalddahlfans.com/dahls-work/books/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory/politically-correct-oompa-loompa-evolution/ https://www.roalddahlfans.com/dahls-work/books/charlie-and-t...

devindotcom 3y ago
Yes, Roald Dahl made that change, among others.
- bdowling 3y ago
  From the linked article, "Dahl’s publishers decided that 'to those growing up in a racially mixed society, the Oompa-Loompas were no longer acceptable as originally written.'" (emphasis added).
eesmith 3y ago
FWIW, the link mentions Cameron's "wide-ranging attack on the book" in 1973, but leaves out that people complained about the book's racism before then. From West's "Roald Dahl" at https://archive.org/details/roalddahl00mark_0/page/70/mode/2up?q=bouchard https://archive.org/details/roalddahl00mark_0/page/70/mode/2... : > The controversy started when Lois Kalb Bouchard and some other critics charged that the book was racist. In 1970 Bouchard published an article entitled “A New Look at Old Favorites: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was reprinted a few years later in a book called The Black American in Books for Children: Readings in Racism. That 1972 reprint is available at https://archive.org/details/blackamericaninb0000macc/page/112/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/blackamericaninb0000macc/page/11... . West continues: > Bouchard did not accuse Dahl of “being deliberately racist,” but she argued that he perpetuated racist stereotypes through his portrayal of the Oompa-Loompas. She criticized these characters’ “childishness and dependency upon whites.”12 She also disliked the relationship between Wonka and the Oompa-Loompas. “As workers in the factory,” Bouchard wrote, “the Black characters are exploited. The owner clicks his fingers sharply when he wants a worker to appear. The Oompa-Loompas are made to test various kinds of candies, sometimes with unfortunate effects” (Bouchard, 113). After the 1971 announcement about the movie, the NAACP threatened to boycott the movie. Dahl "found the NAACP to be unreasonable, telling Knopf editor Bob Bernstein he was unable to understand why the perceived his story as a ‘terrible dastardly anti-negro book,’ and described their attitude as ‘real Nazi stuff.’” - https://daily.jstor.org/roald-dahls-anti-black-racism/ https://daily.jstor.org/roald-dahls-anti-black-racism/ The NAACP protest is why the Oompa-Loompas in the movie are orange - https://screenrant.com/gene-wilder-willy-wonka-and-the-chocolate-factory-trivia-facts/ https://screenrant.com/gene-wilder-willy-wonka-and-the-choco... . Only after Cameron's "wide-ranging attack" in 1973 did Dahl agree to change the book, in 1974, several years after the movie came out.

devindotcom 3y ago

Yes, Roald Dahl made that change, among others.

bdowling 3y ago
From the linked article, "Dahl’s publishers decided that 'to those growing up in a racially mixed society, the Oompa-Loompas were no longer acceptable as originally written.'" (emphasis added).

eesmith 3y ago

FWIW, the link mentions Cameron's "wide-ranging attack on the book" in 1973, but leaves out that people complained about the book's racism before then. From West's "Roald Dahl" at https://archive.org/details/roalddahl00mark_0/page/70/mode/2up?q=bouchard https://archive.org/details/roalddahl00mark_0/page/70/mode/2... : > The controversy started when Lois Kalb Bouchard and some other critics charged that the book was racist. In 1970 Bouchard published an article entitled “A New Look at Old Favorites: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was reprinted a few years later in a book called The Black American in Books for Children: Readings in Racism. That 1972 reprint is available at https://archive.org/details/blackamericaninb0000macc/page/112/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/blackamericaninb0000macc/page/11... . West continues: > Bouchard did not accuse Dahl of “being deliberately racist,” but she argued that he perpetuated racist stereotypes through his portrayal of the Oompa-Loompas. She criticized these characters’ “childishness and dependency upon whites.”12 She also disliked the relationship between Wonka and the Oompa-Loompas. “As workers in the factory,” Bouchard wrote, “the Black characters are exploited. The owner clicks his fingers sharply when he wants a worker to appear. The Oompa-Loompas are made to test various kinds of candies, sometimes with unfortunate effects” (Bouchard, 113). After the 1971 announcement about the movie, the NAACP threatened to boycott the movie. Dahl "found the NAACP to be unreasonable, telling Knopf editor Bob Bernstein he was unable to understand why the perceived his story as a ‘terrible dastardly anti-negro book,’ and described their attitude as ‘real Nazi stuff.’” - https://daily.jstor.org/roald-dahls-anti-black-racism/ https://daily.jstor.org/roald-dahls-anti-black-racism/ The NAACP protest is why the Oompa-Loompas in the movie are orange - https://screenrant.com/gene-wilder-willy-wonka-and-the-chocolate-factory-trivia-facts/ https://screenrant.com/gene-wilder-willy-wonka-and-the-choco... . Only after Cameron's "wide-ranging attack" in 1973 did Dahl agree to change the book, in 1974, several years after the movie came out.