03-02-2021, 19:14:05 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-02-2021, 19:15:17 PM by wingedcatgirl.)
Catchign up on the Seuss story...
The books getting their runs ended seem to all be because of racial stereotypes, none of which look like they were intended maliciously but are definitely super fuckign embarrassing nowadays, so of course the publishers might want to disassociate with them
"Mulberry Street" centers around a stereotypical image of a "Rajah".
"If I Ran the Zoo" is definitely pretty bad, with:
* the Asian caricature of "helpers who all wear their eyes at a slant"
* some Middle-Eastern "chieftain" caricature that I'm not quite sure what it's even supposed to be but suggests putting him in the zoo too which is like wtf
* the "African island of Yerka" African caricature
* something about "eight Persian princes"
* a Russian stereotype? is that problematic or is it okay to make fun of Russia
"McElligot's Pool" has brief depictions of "Eskimo fish" (the word "Eskimo" is highly contentious) and a random depiction of someone from Tibet; I kinda feel like these are small enough issues to be edited instead of deleting the book for good
"On Beyond Zebra" has whatever this Nazzim of Bazzim bit is supposed to be
"Scrambled Eggs Super" has a few racial stereotypes in the illustrations, which again I feel like could've been edited instead of ending the book entirely
"The Cat's Quizzer" has "how old do you have to be to be a Japanese", which could've just been edited it's literally a one-letter word?
But that's just what I spotted on a quick skim of the books, any of them could have more issues I missed.
If Dr. Seuss were still alive today, he could probably easily edit all the books to be fine and not racist, but he's not, so the publisher's choice is basically "get someone else to edit Dr. Seuss's work for sensitivity, possibly writing substantial segments of all new stuff from scratch", "leave it as-is, publishing books known to contain offensive depictions", or "remove them entirely", all of which could be a PR nightmare from one direction or another.
The books getting their runs ended seem to all be because of racial stereotypes, none of which look like they were intended maliciously but are definitely super fuckign embarrassing nowadays, so of course the publishers might want to disassociate with them
"Mulberry Street" centers around a stereotypical image of a "Rajah".
"If I Ran the Zoo" is definitely pretty bad, with:
* the Asian caricature of "helpers who all wear their eyes at a slant"
* some Middle-Eastern "chieftain" caricature that I'm not quite sure what it's even supposed to be but suggests putting him in the zoo too which is like wtf
* the "African island of Yerka" African caricature
* something about "eight Persian princes"
* a Russian stereotype? is that problematic or is it okay to make fun of Russia
"McElligot's Pool" has brief depictions of "Eskimo fish" (the word "Eskimo" is highly contentious) and a random depiction of someone from Tibet; I kinda feel like these are small enough issues to be edited instead of deleting the book for good
"On Beyond Zebra" has whatever this Nazzim of Bazzim bit is supposed to be
"Scrambled Eggs Super" has a few racial stereotypes in the illustrations, which again I feel like could've been edited instead of ending the book entirely
"The Cat's Quizzer" has "how old do you have to be to be a Japanese", which could've just been edited it's literally a one-letter word?
But that's just what I spotted on a quick skim of the books, any of them could have more issues I missed.
If Dr. Seuss were still alive today, he could probably easily edit all the books to be fine and not racist, but he's not, so the publisher's choice is basically "get someone else to edit Dr. Seuss's work for sensitivity, possibly writing substantial segments of all new stuff from scratch", "leave it as-is, publishing books known to contain offensive depictions", or "remove them entirely", all of which could be a PR nightmare from one direction or another.
nya