P.G. Wodehouse’s ‘Jeeves And Wooster’ Books Changed For ‘Unacceptable Prose’

Deadline ^ | April 16, 2023 | Bruce Haring

[Cronos]

Since it was Thank you, Jeeves, that was censored, it is probably the phrase “negro gentleman”.

The silly part is that the black folks referred to are wonderful people, and helpful and kind. No negative qualities

[Cronos]

That episode with Chuffy is poking fun AT blackface. It isn’t mocking black people.

The only people that Plum mocks in his books are tyrannical aunts. And we all know Aunts aren’t gentlemen.

Especially Aunt Agatha, who eats broken bottles.

[Cronos]

I think the biggest protest will come from Indians. Jeeves is probably considered an incarnation of Ganesh, the god of wisdom.

I’m joking about the latter, however Plums works are revered in India

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

4. Next, these British wimps will rewrite the Magna Carta!!!

Now Britain, with a few honorable members of the military and Parliament, has been reduced to a Fish and Chips shop.

[FreedomForce]

I don’t think intent matters much to today’s woke taliban. Blackface of any kind triggers them.

[Cronos]

ah, I got it - on page 16

"I had much to think of. Chuffy's news that there was a troupe of n!gger minstrels performing on the Chuffnell Regis sands had definitely weighed the scale down on the side of the advantages of the place. The fact that I would be in a position to foregather with these experts and possibly pick up a hint or two from their banjoist on fingering and execution enabled me to bear with fortitude the prospect of being in a spot where I would probably have to meet the Dowager Lady Chuffnell and her son Seabury pretty frequently"

or page 105

Jeeves coughed "If you will permit me to explain sir. The entertainers are just concluding their performance. In a short time they will be leaving the boat"

...."I have a small tin of boot polish here, sir. I brought it with me in anticipation of this move. It would be a simple task to apply it to your face and hands in such a manner as to create teh illusion, should you encounter Mr Stoker, that you were a member of this troupe of negroid entertainers"

Then Sir Roderick Glossop does the same - but this is also not blackface to mock black people - rather that his fiancé's son is expecting negroid performers and would not want a pale faced substitute

In both cases there is no mocking black people for being black, no exaggeration of facial features to mock. Rather it is a mask to cover up - and at worst it says that the black people are great artistes

[Cronos]

you mean black SAMbo.

It was about a southern Indian boy. The American editions had an erroneous front cover with a black Negroid boy, but had the original inner drawings of a southern Indian boy facing off a tiger

[Jimmy Valentine]

Penguin has lost its mind. Wodehouse wrote beautiful prose. His stories were extremely funny. Who else could use phrases like, “He was of that crookedness, that he could hide behind a spiral staircase at will.”

[Verginius Rufus]

Yes, little black Sambo was definitely set in India, not Africa. My mother loved that book as a child.

The Sambo restaurants were so named because they were founded by two men named Sam and Bob. When they started to get attacked as having a racist name, they shut down. I don't know why they didn't just renamed it "Sam and Bob's Restaurant."

[Verginius Rufus]

It's easier to just entirely ban Huckleberry Finn than re-write it.

But think of how a rewritten version can depict Southern whites as ignorant, bigoted drunks, while showing the oppressed POCs as vastly their superiors in every way (except book learning maybe). In the original version, Huck thinks of running off to the Indian Territory. In the revised version he does so to become a berdache (Indian male who took on a woman's role). After all, he does indulge in cross-dressing in the original novel so that shows his inclinations.

[OldGoatCPO]

Yes I did, I will blame spell check and my inattention.