ChatterBank36 mins ago
Political correctness in literature
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!
Answers
No best answer has yet been selected by charlotte86. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.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.
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.
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.