BBC to bring the famous five to TV

I liked Malcom Saville, and also Arthur Ransome. And each had the tomboy character. Peter in the Lone Pine managed to do it with long plaits. Both writers also used real backgrounds. And there was the obligatory tomboy in Little Women, Jo was much more interesting than Meg.
But I remember on parents' evening when one family were desperate to avoid their daughter becoming a tomboy. Didn't read the right books. I read the room and didn't push Nancy and Jo and George, but I was worried.

George was rebelling against the restrictive social role assigned to girls, so if the remake portays her as not a girl because she doesn't subscribe to stereotypes - that's as reactionary as you can get.

I'm a maths grad, so take this with a disclaimer, but I vaguely remember someone talking about books that use stock characters and why they can be so popular and it's too do with the reader being able to place themselves very easily in the shoes of the character. Basically EB's books (and Harry Potter, and many others) appeal, particularly to children, because they don't need to do much mental effort to imagine themselves as one of the characters, because the characters are broadly drawn. George is a tomboy who likes dogs, Anne is a girly girl who likes cooking, Dick is - actually I'm not sure I can remember a single actual feature of Dick's character - he likes food, maybe? And so on.

I've also heard it said that EB's books weren't worth much as literature but very useful to get children reading. I'm pretty sure librarians of the fifties were a bit sniffy about them.

I think EB was a similar kind of writer to JKR, actually. Not literature, but fun and readable and imaginative in certain ways that are appealing. The HP series took as much from Mallory Towers as any fantasy type fiction.

It's not even as if the STORIES of FF were very good. I mean, Blyton had about four or five storylines and about a dozen stock archive characters, and just recycled them endlessly.

I meant to comment on this before. I agree that EB was obviously not 'high literature', but nevertheless, there must have been something to the stories that makes them still popular now, over 50 years after her death.

I'm not convinced that the storylines themselves are necessarily the important factor; I think it's often the settings, the context, the vibe, the familiarity, characters that children can relate to or wish they could have been like in whatever ways.

Look at soap operas nowadays. Many adults who watch one or two (but not all) of them don't usually flip back and forth between their regular one(s) and the one(s) they don't usually watch, depending on the storylines. They also don't look at what the storylines will be before deciding whether to watch any individual episode in isolation; for the vast majority, when it's the regular time for Coronation Street or Eastenders, they tune in and watch it - as they habitually do.

I think this was even more evident in some of Blyton's other works, such as the Adventure series (with Jack, Lucy-Ann, Philip and Dinah) - where large parts of it were just about the sense of having an adventure, being together, irrespective of what particular dramatic incidents occurred.

Was it the Lone Pine books by Malcolm Saville? I used to like those.

One of the great things about a story set in a different time is it helps us put our own ideas and lifestyle into a wider perspective.

Fr Brown is supposed to be a rather light., positive show, which is great, there is a time and place for that. But in the end it uses the setting for charm, but clearly has no respect for anyone who lived at that time, or for anyone with any kind of serious attachment to Catholicism. I think it actually borders on being a little offensive to Catholics, and I don't say that lightly.

But it's like they are writing a show about a Rabbi sleuth, meant to be very atmospheric and using the religious and cultural setting to appeal, but at the same time they feel the need to change or gloss over most of his actual Jewishness to make it acceptable to viewers. It's a bit yuck.

Why not just write a show about a modern CoE vicar who is believes everything the viewers do?

heaven knows I don’t love revisionism

But it is revisionism. In the 1950s the UK was more than 99% white. Today the UK is 82% white. Portraying rural villages in the 1950s as mixed presents a false narrative and history to the UK.

That's interesting. Might have to go and but a F5 book for a refresher.

Another hard agree from me. It’s lazy and patronising - and a missed opportunity.

There undoubtedly is a gap in the market for traditional children’s adventure yarns with a diverse cast, which would be just as entertaining as the FF, but Enid Blyton’s stories don’t fit the brief!
If you try and modernise them, they will become different stories with different characters, so why bother? Use a contemporary author instead.

It’s just like the Father Brown series, where the 1950/60s village of Kembleford was apparently way more diverse then, than many little Cotswold villages are now! It’s the historical innacuracy which jars, not seeing people of different races. Stories set in a city in the same era could be realistically more diverse, but not in the depths of the country, in those days.

Life in the 50s was different. It’s also very unlikely, for instance, that a group of children nowadays would be going on long bike rides in the country, camping unsupervised, whereabouts unknown, interacting with many random adults. Children were left to their own devices so much more in those days, and that is reflected in the stories.

I loved the diverse casting in Bridgerton (cough Rege-Jean Page cough) and thought it absolutely captured the idea that this was bodice ripper that people were watching for fun. It’s frivolous. So take the opportunity to get a diverse cast (of very beautiful people!)

Can your children genuinely not empathize with a character of a different race?

can’t yours?

heaven knows I don’t love revisionism, but it’s not unreasonable for people to want to see people who look a bit like them on the telly. It’s only a Sunday night TV series, it’s for fun. I really can’t see the harm in some kids who don’t look just like Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Bloody Watson getting to play the main character once in a while

DD(16) is on a post exam slump after over-partying so asked whether we could get hold of "Sherlock" (all back on iPlayer). It's a great 93) series, but there isn't much similarity to Conan Doyle.

I wonder whether the FF adaptation is going to be just a hint of what the original books described. I just hope that the kids can act.

I've not seen any hint about the cast (which is quite an achievement if they are out filming).

Can I just say as someone who actually had her childlhood in the FF era FatherJack nailed it as in "I want to be a boy" was the only way George could express her frustrations. It is difficult for anyone whose childhood was after the 40s/50s to really appreciate the whole little housewife/delicate creature shit we had to put up with.

Surprising really, considering the tough lives that women led in the war - although evidence does show that it was a backlash with a back to the heart and home philosophy so men could get back the jobs women did in the war. Strange times - but for me still a heck of lot more fun and freedom than children have today, as long as you were prepared to push back against the system.

But there are already plenty of books and films featuring children of all races. Loads and loads and loads of them. Seriously. I mean, is it literally not OK now to have the four main characters in a TV series be all white, EVER, even in one single TV series and even when it's set in the 1950s in a country that was overwhelmingly white at that time and they're all siblings/cousins so making them different races might get awkward? Can your children genuinely not empathize with a character of a different race?

George wanted to be a boy so she could do ‘boy things’. But she was always happy to share rooms with girls. She never suggested she should be in the boys bedroom or tent.

Exactly. George wanted the stereotypes of what a boy 'should' or 'can' do to be available to her as well - as indeed they should; she wasn't expecting 'being biologically male' - or even using male pronouns - to be available to her.

It's just that, as a child and living in the time she did, saying "I want to be a boy" was the best way she could express her frustration at what she was told was her narrow lot in life as a girl.

George wanted to be a boy so she could do ‘boy things’. But she was always happy to share rooms with girls. She never suggested she should be in the boys bedroom or tent.

Interesting tweet about George from someone has read the books as an adult.

I’m going to have to reread them

They aren't represented even remotely properly if it's completely anachronistic. And the end result is that while most people roll their eyes, some still watch and others switch off. A minority of people get quite angry and it's very likely that in the mid-term aggressive racism will increase as a result. I can already see the beginnings of it, tbh. In the same way that there are genuine fears about a backlash against LGB people due to 'queer' activism. Constant race swapping of ethnically European characters and real historical figures is one of a number of current day race issues that could lead to a backlash.

British society has been just about the least racist society, possibly to ever exist, for the last decade or two. With most of the more recent large scale victims of institutionalised racism being Irish, especially Northern Irish Catholics, ie white, as a result of the civil war in Northern Ireland. But that has improved so much since the 90s. Britain isn't perfect but the vast majority of people, especially in major cities, which is where most of the ethnic diversity is, are more than happy to get along and share the best of each others cultures. And if anything is going to destroy that it's taking people's cultures.

Enid Blyton's books are something quintessentially English. A slice of a particular type of culture at a particular point in history. For example, the constant long descriptions of the food the children eat, is a result of the books being written during rationing. Eating tongue sandwiches, with a salad of fresh lettuce and juicy tomatoes and following that up with a thick slice of victorian sponge filled with lashings of cream and homemade jam, all washed down with a bottle of ginger beer, was a complete fantasy to children reading the books. Even for the middle class readers, just the idea of being able to eat simple but delicious foods on a regular basis was a distant memory for the oldest and something the younger children wouldn't remember. The adventure elements and the fact that children are so often alone without an adult, was especially in the earlier books, a reflection of the fact that many of the readers would have fathers at war and many would be away from their mothers due to evacuation from the cities. The books were both a simple escape from the realities of living through a war while also a reflection of children dealing with that stress.

As a non-British, non-middle class child who had never had to deal with rationing or the types of sexism that so influenced George and Anne's personalities, those books gave me an insight into a particular time and place. They let me identify with children who were nothing like me. And it's actually really, really fucking important that we all learn to identify with people despite our obvious differences. Only being able to identify with people who look like us and live lives like us, is exactly where problems start. Whereas being able to see people who are on the surface very different to us yet recognising our common humanity and identifying and empathising with them, is how we make humanity better and move forward as a species.

It annoys me when the BBC in particular, mess with popular books and change everything. They should get writers to come up with new ideas. We currently watch very little BBC it mostly seems to be quizzes and 24 hours of Glastonbury!

For my children and many children of colour they find it very positive to see themselves represented properly in books of all types. It would make no difference ti the story line and would broaden the appeal of some.veey fine children's books.

I'm glad a few people have spoken up for Anne. I actually think it's wonderful to see that both extremes of girlhood can be recognised as having value and working together to achieve something.

I understand that Julian can be very patronising to Anne (but she is his little sister, so that's part of it too) but she's still involved and uses her unique likes and skills to contribute to the whole story.

Surely there are some naturally feminine girls who read the books and saw a role model for themselves in Anne who, let's face it, was still an integral part of the little microcosm of society represented by the FF.

TLDR: George and Anne are both important as they show there are multiple valid ways to be a girl and make a valuable contribution to society. (Or to solving a mystery about smugglers!)

Really hope they retain this message in the adaptation, but not holding my breath.

Don't hold your breath...

i heard a trailer on BBC R4 earlier and fear the worst. Nothing on the Beeb's website when I looked.

Thank you. That was the point I was trying to make. I wish that girls realised they are still girls even if they like Lego and climbing trees. I was sad thinking about what it's actually like for Tom boy teen girls these days- they are persuaded that the were born in the wrong body. It's sad.

I was trying to say that if George was a real girl in 2023, she would be likely to be caught up in it all. That makes me sad.