To find Matilda hard to watch?

[susiesuelou]

I know it's just a work of fiction for kids and that it all comes good in the end for Matilda, but I've been watching it this morning whilst toddler DD naps and it's struck me just how horrible it is (the start especially). Particularly the part where she begs to be allowed books to read and the Dad holds her head and forces her to watch TV instead. Not being acknowledged by her mum when she comes in from school and wants to tell her about her day. 🥹

And don't get me started on the abusive practices of Miss Trunchbull! Particularly force feeding chocolate cake to that boy! I actually skipped through that part.

I've watched it before but never really watched it, if that makes sense. And it's just left an uncomfortable feeling.

AIBU? Am I too sensitive? I know the answer is probably yes, as it's just a film after all. But has anyone else had similar discomfort watching it?

I don't need to because that's a strawman.
I just need to demonstrate that someone can read that and come to a conclusion that books are being cancelled, which shows that ridiculing people for it is unreasonable.
My own personal position on whether books are being cancelled or not has not been presented on this thread.
Hope that's clear.

i can't watch harry potter for the same reason. surely if he'd told someone at school that he was being locked in a cupboard then shit would have hit the fan.
but someone said to me "but it's okay because HP ends up winning at quidditch" (i know very little of HP) but i think the cupboard locking thing is bad.

also i can't watch goodfellas any more. the violence makes me ugh but i used to think the film was amazing.
james caan being controlled by annie wilks. horrible.
sally waiting around for harry to say let's crank it up a notch.
demi moore most likely getting back with rob lowe in about last night even though he was a knobface in the film.

sigh.

No, it isn't clear at all.

If it's my turn to be clear, then: no, I don't believe something is true just because it's been stated in public for others to read.

It's important to be able to assess what you read, too. Are books being 'cancelled'?

Well, if they were, we'd find laws prohibiting the publishing of books, and rules about who could or couldn't read books already published. We'd find books already printed being destroyed, and retracted from copyright libraries. We'd find university and school curriculums insisting students should not read or discuss certain books.

What we wouldn't need to find, would be universities changing their set texts from (say) Measure for Measure to Much Ado About Noting. We wouldn't need to find schools saying hey, you know, we used to teach Of Mice and Men but we've decided instead we'll do To Kill a Mockingbird. We wouldn't need to worry about colleagues noting that, since they've taught Jude the Obscure for ten years straight, they have now decided they might do Beloved for a change.

If we're looking for books being 'cancelled,' we'd also not expect to find trigger or content warnings, would we? Because those warnings are clearly issued on the assumption that students want and intend to read the books - otherwise, why issue them?

I don't see any evidence, in the UK, of books being 'cancelled'. The only book I can think of, recently, that was widely reported to have been pulped in large quantities, was Naomi Woolf's travesty of a history where she misunderstood the law relating to death sentences for sodomy, on account of not having done her research properly. Otherwise ... nope, not really happening much, and certainly not as a response to students' requests.

That's great and much better than sneering at someone for not being able to navigate what's written in the media, which many people struggle with.

Of course there's no accepted definition of "cancelled", hence why I put it in quotes. The removal of a book from a University curriculum may be considered "cancelled" by some such as right wing media who want to stir it up.

Thanks for the input.

*Are books being 'cancelled'?

Well, if they were, we'd find laws prohibiting the publishing of books, and rules about who could or couldn't read books already published. We'd find books already printed being destroyed, and retracted from copyright libraries. We'd find university and school curriculums insisting students should not read or discuss certain books.*

I don’t think any of the examples given above are what constitute being “cancelled”. Being cancelled is about social pressure. You wouldn't necessarily expect it to be reflected in law. I think you’re potentially defeating your own point here by not understanding how cancelling tends to work. Maybe they’re not being cancelled, but not based on these strange arguments.

It depends what you mean by "cancelled." There was a library that carried out a book burning recently (they called it a "flame purification ceremony") and other libraries havery taken books off shelves. Booksellers have refused to sell certain books by certain writers. Publishers have withdrawn contracts. Writers have even "cancelled" themselves! Schools have taken books off the curriculum. The Free Speech Union has had to set up a specific service for authors because the Society of Authors refused to help authors they disagreed with on ideological grounds. And there are writers who no publisher will work with for fear of the twitchfork mob.

You might not want to call any of that "cancellation" but clearly it's not unreasonable for others to use the word as a shorthand for how it all stacks up.

yabu.

So please, then, explain to me how 'being cancelled' is different from, erm, 'being treated according to social interests as booksellers etc. understand them'? Because, sorry, that is what has been happening with books for thousands of years.

You cannot make a huge fuss just because your personal taste in reading matter happens to differ from what publishers or librarians or teachers of English Lit think is most popular or most teachable.

Calling it 'cancelling' is utter nonsense.

It's like people saying the England Men's footie team has been 'cancelled' just because the women did better and so they're the ones on TV for the final.

So please, then, explain to me how 'being cancelled' is different from, erm, 'being treated according to social interests as booksellers etc. understand them'?

I’ve got a feeling you don’t actually want me to explain but I will have a go anyway. It might become cancelling when it happens under pressure from one group and where there would be potentially negative reputational repercussions from not acquiescing to this pressure. What’s especially interesting about the idea of cancel culture is that the very fear of this outcome can itself exert a chilling effect whereby the person/institution takes the decision to pre-emptively censor (in this case preemptively removing a book from the curriculum they fear could be controversial).

Whether this is or isn’t happening is another matter and it’s very difficult to know, especially with regard to chilling effects.

I really do want you to explain, but ... I still do not follow how this is any different from what has happened with all books, published anywhere, ever?

When Shakespeare was writing, a group of authors and educators instigated a publicity campaign against him, trying hard to discredit his work. There was pressure on him to stop writing, or to write very different types of plays. Since the people involved were well-connected, this was enormously important. It seems clear aspects of Shakespeare's work were pre-emptively censored and changed, multiple times.

When Milton was writing, same.

When Charles Dickens was writing, likewise, he had a public audience and he paid close attention to their demands, sometimes re-writing whole sections of his books to get a better response. Some parts of his work that had previously been published, were wholly changed.

Don't even get me started on the way mid-twentieth-century publishers actually came up with 'choose your own adventure books'.

It is not 'chilling' that people have responses to literature that are sometimes critical. It really isn't.

Ok so now my understanding of what you’re saying is that you in fact do think cancelling happens but in your opinion it’s not significant or worthy of discussion because some similar things happened in the past.

I think the idea is that it becomes “chilling” when you feel your reputation or livelihood is unjustly at risk, or you feel forced into a change you disagree with. It’s not simply that people are critical - it’s that they seek consequences of their choosing.

Anyway, I think I’ll leave it there and I’ll let you have the last word on it if you like as I’m going to sleep.

No.

No, I am not saying Shakespeare was 'cancelled' during his lifetime.

I think we would have noticed, right?

I am saying that it is perfectly normal for people to like or dislike works of literature, and for fashions and attitudes to change over time. It is perfectly normal for people's reputations and livelihoods to depend upon pleasing their audiences. It is not 'chilling'. You don't get to age 18, say 'I want to be an author' and then get to demand a regular income whether or not people enjoy your books, and whatever you choose to write.

I am really struggling to understand why you think my view here is controversial?

Gillian Phillip was definitely cancelled, by any reasonable use of the term. Book burning, I mentioned above - you wouldn't call that cancelling?

What's happening in publishing now has definitely happened before, totally agree. It happened in the reformation, in 1930s Germany, and in the Cultural Revolution, for a start.

Your kid would probably be a whole less sensitive if you didn't sheild him from everything. The whole point of kids literature is to teach them about the world, they need to learn there is darkness and horror and fear. The like of Roald Dahl teach them that and have the kids winning out against the aeful adults.
What a shame for your child that you won't let them learn these things properly. The people making these things are not insensitive, but you certainly are.

I agree if a 10 year old is getting upset over Matilda he needs to toughen up.

I'd be very concerned! It's not long till secondary school. But then I'm pretty ruthless by the looks of this thread!

Sorry, I read it as the actress who played the mother was dying.

Was there a library that carried out a book-burning flame purification ceremony recently? Or are you referring to the school board in Canada in 2021?

Libraries remove books from the shelves all the time. It's called weeding. It's a basic, standard and vital procedure carried out in every library worldwide on a regular basis. Because keeping books on the shelves that people are no longer interested in reading costs money and takes up valuable and expensive space. Money and space better spent on new material.

Do schools take books off the curriculum because they want to "cancel" them? Or do they take them off the curriculum because there is interesting new material they want to add but only the same number of teaching hours?

Without a doubt, some authors do get "cancelled" but you need to be a bit more careful with your examples. You have massively weakened your argument about what "cancelled" is by adding in a whole post of examples that are sloppy, inaccurate, incorrect, and poorly understood. And including references to the Free Speech Union weakens it further - of course a bunch of white middle-aged, generally right-wing journalists think they've been cancelled. The fact that Jeremy Clarkson was able to write what he did and get it published suggests that they very much haven't.

You seem way more angry that I confused a library with a schoolboard than the fact that a schoolboard was burning books. Why is that?

I'm a member if the FSU and I'm none of the things you describe with such vitriol. The FSU do not claim to be cancelled - it sounds like you are pretty ignorant avout them, too. I'm not sure what you think Clarkson's article has to do with them either?

thanks for reading @Whatwhatwhatnow :)