AIBU to be upset by this cover for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

[farewellfigure]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28703254

Seriously? I know it's the 'adult cover' so it's not supposed to be for children, but it's so creepy and weird and downright horrible. I cannot imagine any adult wanting to buy this.

The blurb Penguin have spouted about 'relationships between adults and children' just sounds like a load of baloney to me. I think the designer came up with something shocking, and somehow it got through all the rounds of approval with no-one being brave enough to say, 'Hang on, that's a really weird image'. I think they've done it to be controversial and shocking.

It's awful. I am actually quite shocked by that.

You are probably taking it a boy far if you are actually upset, but it is an odd decision for a book cover. Not because it is sexualised, but because it's completely irrelevant to the story, especially if it's not supposed to be either of the girls in it.

Bit far.

Well it's using an 'iconic' photograph but I hate it. It's creepy and inappropriate

It's just weird. What on earth does it have to do with the plot of the book?

Maybe upset is the wrong word. I guess I'm feeling protective of such a well-loved story and don't like that they've used a totally irrelevant image. To me it seems like being all arty-farty and alternative for the sake of it.

I saw this and wondered what would have happened if it had been printed as a piece of 'art' in FHM or Loaded.
All hell would have broken loose and the editors would have been pilloried for it I would imagine.
Just because it's on the front of a Classic children's novel it would appear to be acceptable. I don't get it at all.
YANBU.

If part of the point of the cover is to entice its target audience to read it then it fails spectacularly imo. Looks more suitable for the front cover of Lolita.

Exactly Barbarian. If I went into a bookshop to buy the adult version of C+TCC I'd take one look at that, and head straight for the children's section to buy this instead.

If the story (or article) had been about the premature sexualisation of children, then I'd have no objection to the image - its disturbing, not obscene, and would illustrate the point.

But Charlie and The Chocolate Factory has nothing to do with this. Its darkness is all to do with spoiling children (in the parents who can't say no way) and spoilt children coming to a bad end, and dire poverty.

Maybe they are trying to reference Dahl's adult books, in which, apparently, he does make some odd references to snozzberies as penis's etc...

What an odd choice. It is completely irrelevant to the story.

Thats very weird and creepy. The little girl looks exactly like Catherine Deneuve in Belle d'Jour (1967) - a frustrated middle class french housewive who turns to escorting as her husband is disabled: the director 'wanted a doll like, perfect /pristine innocent yet sexual look'. Precisely how does that doll like image relate to the book?