Enid Blyton- The Racist, Sexist, Homophobe! Question.

crashcris

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APPARENTLY, THIS IS WHAT "BOSSES" AT THE ROYAL MINT HAVE BRANDED THE MOST SUCCESSFUL CHILDREN'S WRITER OF THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY, AND THEY FEAR A BACKLASH FROM THE PUBLIC WERE THEY TO ISSUE A COMMEMORATIVE 50 PENCE COIN.

MY QUESTION TO THE FORUM MEMBERS... JUST WHAT SORT OF BACKLASH (OTHER THAN A HANDFUL OF TWEETS) DO YOU THINK THEY FEAR? HOW WOULD THIS IN ANY WAY DAMAGE THE BUSINESS OF MINTING COINS?


Royal Mint blocks Enid Blyton commemorative coin after bosses brand her 'racist and anti-gay' | Daily Mail Online
 
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And without looking at the link, you could tell it was a Daily Mail article
 
fudge Blyton, we should have had Dalek and Tardis 50p coins in 2013!

DM must have put in FoI requests all over the place for really very important stories like this. They really hold TPTB to account.
 
Absolutely fudgeing rediculous!
Any "racism" would've been a cultural sign of the times (as in not intended to be racist in the way racism is viewed and measured today) and homophobic?
There was George (Georgina) the tomboy (crossdresser) and Julian who always wore pastel and a handkerchief tied round his neck...

If anything I'd say she was ahead of her time!
 
Absolutely fudgeing rediculous!
Any "racism" would've been a cultural sign of the times (as in not intended to be racist in the way racism is viewed and measured today) and homophobic?
There was George (Georgina) the tomboy (crossdresser) and Julian who always wore pastel and a handkerchief tied round his neck...

If anything I'd say she was ahead of her time!

I agree. I used to laugh when listening to Simon Mayo's Confessions and he'd read out something a bit cheeky by todays standards and justify it tongue-in-cheek by saying 'Different times...', it became a sort of catchprase. But it's very true though, we do live in different times.
I can't get onboard with people that think we need to take things that happened decades (or even hundreds of years) ago and either paint people as terrible, or even apologise for the apalling behaviour (by todays standards) of people that lived their lives quite normally by the standards and beliefs of the time. It mentioned Golliwogs in the article as being racist and terrible. By today's standards I'm led to believe they were/ are and as such, they have no place in the modern world, but they were on jam jars when I was a child. They were normal to me - fwiw, I never ever believed there was anything malicious about them, they were just a character on a jam jar, no different to any other character on packaging.
 
Anything in isolation can look terrible, context is everything.

But the DM love a good sh*t-stirring story like this, gives them a chance to do some Liberal kicking.
 
Absolutely fudgeing rediculous!
Any "racism" would've been a cultural sign of the times (as in not intended to be racist in the way racism is viewed and measured today) and homophobic?
There was George (Georgina) the tomboy (crossdresser) and Julian who always wore pastel and a handkerchief tied round his neck...

If anything I'd say she was ahead of her time!
I totally agree with you on that. Her works have been updated over the years to reflect modern mores. Examples of these re-workings I found on Wikipedia and are in this
Revisions to later editions
To address criticisms levelled at Blyton's work some later editions have been altered to reflect more liberal attitudes towards issues such as race, gender and the treatment of children; modern reprints of the Noddy series substitute teddy bears or goblins for golliwogs, for instance.[151] The golliwogs who steal Noddy's car and dump him naked in the Dark Wood in Here Comes Noddy Again are replaced by goblins in the 1986 revision, who strip Noddy only of his shoes and hat and return at the end of the story to apologise.[152]

The Faraway Tree's Dame Slap, who made regular use of corporal punishment, was changed to Dame Snap who no longer did so, and the names of Dick and Fanny in the same series were changed to Rick and Frannie.[153] Characters in the Malory Towers and St. Clare's series are no longer spanked or threatened with a spanking, but are instead scolded. References to George's short hair making her look like a boy were removed in revisions to Five on a Hike Together, reflecting the idea that girls need not have long hair to be considered feminine or normal.[154] Anne of The Famous Five stating that boys cannot wear pretty dresses or like girl's dolls was removed.[155] In The Adventurous Four, the names of the young twin girls were changed from Jill and Mary to Pippa and Zoe.[156]

In 2010 Hodder, the publisher of the Famous Five series, announced its intention to update the language used in the books, of which it sold more than half a million copies a year. The changes, which Hodder described as "subtle", mainly affect the dialogue rather than the narrative. For instance, "school tunic" becomes "uniform", "mother and father", and "mother and daddy" (this latter one used by young female characters and deemed sexist) becomes "mum and dad",[157] "bathing" is replaced by "swimming", and "jersey" by "jumper".[153] Some commentators see the changes as necessary to encourage modern readers,[157] whereas others regard them as unnecessary and patronising.[153] In 2016 Hodder's parent company Hachette announced that they would abandon the revisions as, based on feedback, they had not been a success.[158]
link. I hope I'm not breaking forum rules by copying from Wiki. If I am I'll remove it and post the link instead. Thanks.
 
I hope I'm not breaking forum rules by copying from Wiki. If I am, I'll remove it and post the link instead. Thanks.

I don't think you are if you credit the source of your information, which you did.

I c+p'd some information about the 2007 financial crisis from Wikipedia in another Thread and it's not been removed.
 
Homophobic Blyton?
She had two of her most popular characters, Noddy and Big Ears, sharing a bed FCOL.
 
Noddy didn't have big ears (not through lack of trying)
Jasper Carrot
 
Golliwogs in the article as being racist and terrible. By today's standards I'm led to believe they were/ are and as such, they have no place in the modern world, but they were on jam jars when I was a child. They were normal to me - fwiw, I never ever believed there was anything malicious about them, they were just a character on a jam jar, no different to any other character on packaging.
I guarantee most non-whites always thought the gollywog was racist, but there were bigger battles to be fought before getting to the toys.
 
Bit stupid if you ask me, why Enid and not Shakespeare or Chaucer, Agatha has been hacked around as well.
 
I guarantee most non-whites always thought the gollywog was racist, but there were bigger battles to be fought before getting to the toys.
As a child of the 60s, I had a golliwog doll in my collection of toys, and looking back to that time, he was a much loved toy in my childhood add to that the Robertson's jam and golliwog badge I used to wear, I only ever had positive associations with the character.
 
As a child of the 60s, I had a golliwog doll in my collection of toys, and looking back to that time, he was a much loved toy in my childhood add to that the Robertson's jam and golliwog badge I used to wear, I only ever had positive associations with the character.
I think the keyword is “Child” :)
 
As a child of the 60s, I had a golliwog doll in my collection of toys, and looking back to that time, he was a much loved toy in my childhood add to that the Robertson's jam and golliwog badge I used to wear, I only ever had positive associations with the character.
As a child of the 70s/80s I'd occasionally be told to ...
"fudge off golliwog"
I only ever had negative associations with what was clearly a racist caricature
 
...There was George (Georgina) the tomboy (crossdresser)...
Also 'FATTY' (the plump Frederick Algernon Trotteville) whose disguises included crossdressing - Five Find-Outers series.
 

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