BBC to bring the famous five to TV

If they make George trans, it will go further than the original in dictating what girls can and can't be.

I will be very surprised if "diverse" and "progressive" involves any changes to the social class of the famous quintet.

As soon as I see "progressive", my heart sinks. I was of the Famous Five's time i.e. a 50s childhood. There were a lot of girls like me in my school - short-haired, sporty, so-called tomboys with a fuck-you attitude to the stifling roles we were expected to play. Nor did it mean we would grow up to be lesbians either. Most among my group became career women, got married and had children.

We just had a damn good childhood, with loads more freedom than children today and carried our fuck-you attitude through to our teenage years - none of this fretting over male expectations of girls that is all too common today.

As for what we thought of the Famous Five - Julian was an arsehole, Dick was the boy you wanted as a friend, George was the girl you wanted to be and Anne was a pathetic wimp.

Hands off the Famous Five I say and shove your "progressive" bollox where the sun doesn't shine.

If I had to predict how they will handle George, it will be to make it clear that she should be trans, but isn't allowed to be by the unreasonable constraints of the time. There will be a sympathetic adult who "gets it" and accepts her as a boy, and we will all be directed to conclude that people should always be allowed to "be themselves". They obviously won't use the words trans or non binary, but it will be obvious what they mean.

Perhaps the BBC could take a stand and reclaim the word tomboy by showing girls that it’s perfectly possible to have short hair and like sports without it meaning that you’re trans and therefore need to pump your body full of hormones or worse.

I have no idea what the BBC plan, but I can guess. I don't need any more 'progressive' garbage shoved down my throat.

Call me a cynic, but I can't really see why they would be considering remaking it if they weren't planning on making it 'progressive' - quite possibly centring George as a key trans/NB figure. The productions in the 70s and 90s were great; yes they were dated, but they were set when the stories were, so that's always going to be the case. What would they have to add now, if not to make them 'progressive'?

It's so lazy, really, riding on the coat-tails of a well-known story and then completely transforming it for your own agenda. If you want to make a programme about children in 2023, go ahead and write one and make it; if you want to cash in on the name of pay tribute to the work of Enid Blyton, respect that she never set any of her stories in the 21st century.

I agree with you completely, but I thought the point the PP was making was that it’s not in the least unlikely that an early teens tomboy in 2023 would either be affected by the social contagion in which many girls claim NB identities, or would have been persuaded by others that she must be a boy. Not that they were saying it was a good or desirable thing, just a likely thing.

we really need to be moving away from the bigoted prevailing ideas that simply being the girl or boy that you are is not 'special' enough. Your sex is a fact; but your individual character and preferences are entirely up to you

Couldn’t agree more.

I won't bother to click on the link. And I sure as hell won't be watching it. I have no idea what the BBC plan, but I can guess. I don't need any more 'progressive' garbage shoved down my throat. The BBC is morphing into a propaganda unit.

When I read the books to my sons we often end up on a little digression about what a prick Julian is

I always loathed Julian.

I am not arguing that George would actually be a boy if she was a real life person in 2023. I'm saying that she would absolutely be using they/them or he/him pronouns and arguing that she was actually a boy.

I disagree. Why wouldn't being a girl be enough for her - anybody can be (and is!) a girl if they are female and under 18.

Most girls who would have identified as tomboys as children are now content to be female/women - but how they dress, act and live their lives covers the whole enormous gamut of what women/people can do and be.

I know it is the current Zeitgeist, but we really need to be moving away from the bigoted prevailing ideas that simply being the girl or boy that you are is not 'special' enough. Your sex is a fact; but your individual character and preferences are entirely up to you.

I agree. I don't think a black Anne Boleyn is appropriate and I'd love to see original programmes about African or Chinese women for instance.

I often love stories set in entirely different places.

However, I think from the POV of a risk adverse production, where they are scared to death of being called out, it is risky. Because almost no matter what you do someone will say they are getting the politics wrong, or if there are Europeans in the story they are npt being as awful as they should be, or there isn't enough context of some kind.

And realistically, when you are creating story for westerners that is set in a really different place, it does sometimes have to be done in a way that means they can understand it. I sometimes like to watch Indian tv shows, and one of the things I find is that i can tell sometimes that there is something going on that I am missing, or some interaction or event has significance that I am missing. Occasionally dialogue I can see is important but I don't understand what they are talking about really.

Which I expect in stories from other cultures, in other languages, but it's not really what you want when writing a story about a place like India to show in the UK, at least not too much of it.

So they always run the risk of being accused of pandering to a white, by which they mean western English speaking, audience.

I don't think any adaptations of old books or shows being made now are any good. They are largely shockingly bad.

Yes, that's right. He was called "Sooty" because of his Lenoir surname and because he had black hair. His real name was Pierre.

The kid in Five Go Off in a Caravan was called Nobby. Hopefully not quite as literal a nickname as for old Sooty... 😉

I thought progressives hate Blyton anyway. Surely she’s a Nazi / fascist / racist / cis-hetero-normative author who would probably also have been a TERF if she was still alive today. I can’t work out how they will get away with using her stories even when they have been diversified beyond all recognition.

I'm pretty sure in some of the books there was a friend character whose nickname because of his darker skin was "Sooty". I doubt he'll make an appearance in the progressive version.

In Five Go To Smuggler's Top, wasn't it? I thought he was just called Sooty as a nickname because his surname was Lenoir (i.e. 'the black one')?

I'm pretty sure in some of the books there was a friend character whose nickname because of his darker skin was "Sooty". I doubt he'll make an appearance in the progressive version.

So if the FF was set in 2023, it would be normal to have George being non binary or trans and very unrealistic if George considered herself a girl. Because that is what has happened to all the girls who would have been tomboys in 1970s

I’m not sure that’s strictly true - the girls that my teenage and young adult DC’s know who are declaring themselves as teams have struggled with mental health problems for many years, rather than being tomboys.

Yes, but George if she was a real girl living these days would be labelling herself as trans or non binary. She would obviously still be a girl, but there is no way she would be labelling herself as one.

Every little girl like George who I knew when they were little have now renamed themselves and come out as non binary and then trans as teens.

I am not arguing that George would actually be a boy if she was a real life person in 2023. I'm saying that she would absolutely be using they/them or he/him pronouns and arguing that she was actually a boy.

So if the FF was set in 2023, it would be normal to have George being non binary or trans and very unrealistic if George considered herself a girl. Because that is what has happened to all the girls who would have been tomboys in 1970s.

If they really want to do period pieces with a lot of diversity, maybe they should adapt the Magic Faraway Tree.

A woman with two children and an alcoholic husband with PTSD found the time to write over 600 books, set up charities and have a hobby of nude tennis, while having a series of affairs with people of both sexes. I know there are reports of her being an asshole but she honestly sounds fascinating.

I completely agree. Whether or not she was a paragon of virtue is irrelevant; she was a truly remarkable and unique woman.

Blyton has stated that George was modelled on herself and how she felt as a child. So George is very much just a tomboy who would one day grow up to be a somewhat gender non-conforming (for her era), reportedly bisexual woman. The thing about Blyton is, no matter what else she was, she was a grafter. When I realised that many of the books I read as children were written by consortiums or a string of ghost writers. Ie, Carolyn Keene, writer of Nancy Drew never existed, nor did Kate William who supposedly wrote the Sweet Valley books for the real Francine Pascal. I assumed that most Blyton books were also ghostwritten. But no, all the books published under her name during her life, were written by her.

A woman with two children and an alcoholic husband with PTSD found the time to write over 600 books, set up charities and have a hobby of nude tennis, while having a series of affairs with people of both sexes. I know there are reports of her being an asshole but she honestly sounds fascinating.

If it’s modern day, Uncke Quentin and Aunt Fanny will be arrested for child neglect. Fancy letting children sleep on a moor then sail to an island unsupervised!

I adored the 1970s series. I grew up with that.
It was a different world when they filmed there in the New Forest, in the late 70s.
Sometimes I watch the episodes on YouTube.
It was so long ago when it was filmed and that makes me sad.

To add, it's crystal clear from how she is written - and the time in which the stories are set - that George never rejected being female; she just rejected the very narrow constraints that the time she lived in dictated were what a 'girl' was.

But if George was a real girl today, she probably would be non binary or trans. There aren't many tom boys anymore. So making a modern day version of the Famous Five, it would be unrealistic for George not to be non binary or trans.

No, she would still be 100% a girl. She would be George Kirrin - an individual girl with her own unique personality, character, skills, likes and dislikes - not just some generic stereotypical girl who can be stuffed into a tiny box labelled 'girl'.