It already happened with Roald Dahl and now… with
Ian Fleming
.
The James Bond books will be rewritten in their new April editions to "adapt" them to the current era.
What will they do?
They will pull out potentially offensive allusions, such as the appeal to "black" which is used to refer to slaves.
The modifications will be reflected just when the 70th anniversary of the appearance of the first book in the series, "
Casino Royale
", is fulfilled.
An image of Ian Fleming, writer and author of James Bond.
a risky decision
The decision to modify some adjectives came after the novels were read by a team of readers charged with deciding, based on the sensitivity of the time, whether the representation of any group of the population in a book could be uncomfortable.
The "specialists" recommended substituting some racial descriptions of black people so that they are not racist
, as well as other shocking words or descriptions.
In addition, in the versions for the United States,
the sex scenes were softened
.
Two copies of Agent 007's magazine, novelist Ian Fleming in 1953.
At the same time, a warning will be introduced to accompany the adventures of agent 007 that will remind that "this book was written at a time when terms and attitudes that could be considered offensive by modern readers were common".
"A number of updates have been made to this edition, while keeping it as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set," said the notice, revealed by the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
The newspaper cites as an example of the changes a passage in which Bond is visiting a strip club in Harlem, New York.
"Bond could hear the audience gasping and grunting like pigs in the trough. He felt his own hands grab the tablecloth. His mouth was dry," reads the original text, which was changed to "Bond could feel the electrical voltage in the room ".
'The Spy Who Loved Me' with Roger Moore as James Bond.
The word "
nigger
", considered highly offensive against black people, so much so that even newspapers currently mentioning it only describe it as the "n word" (the word with "n"), has been practically eliminated and replaced
by
" black person" or "black man".
There are recent precedents
At the end of last year, that same word had sparked a controversy with another famous work: "Ten little blacks", by the British writer
Agatha Christie
, which has since been renamed "And there were none left".
Under the argument that "words matter", a few days ago the Puffin publishing house decided to remove from the books of
Roald Dahl
, author of works like "Matilda" or "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", words like "fat" and " ugly" with the supposed purpose of making the works in question more inclusive and less offensive.
Daniel Craig, the last Bond in the cinema.
Photo: AP
With the Bond works, the same result is expected to be achieved in the new versions that will be released next April, the 70th anniversary of the publication of Fleming's first book, "Casino Royale".
In several of the books, such as "Thunderball" (1961), "For Your Eyes Only" (1960) and "Goldfinger" (1959) ethnic groups were suppressed.
Modifications to the American edition of "Live and Let Die" were authorized by Fleming himself, who died in 1964.
Ian Fleming Publications imprint told The Telegraph: "We reviewed the text of the original Bond books and decided the best we could do was follow the author's lead. We have made changes to 'Live and Let Die' that he authorized. Following his approach, we have examined the instances of various racial terms in the books and have either removed several words or substituted terms that are more accepted today but in keeping with the time the books were written."
Sean Connery also played 007 on the big screen.
The James Bond films are one of the most successful franchises of all time, with a combined gross of €7.4 billion.
Daniel Craig
, the last actor to play the British spy and who retires from the role after the 2021 film "No Time to Die" will take over from black actress Lashana Lynch.
Source: Telam
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Change James Bond: the woman who writes a new saga will make a choral, inclusive and contemporary story
