James Bond Books Undergo Adjustment To Be ‘Less Offensive’
Almost 70 years after Ian Fleming’s first book about British spy James Bond was published, the entire catalog of the iconic novels is being rewritten to exclude a number of references considered racist and offensive.
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The books will be reissued in April to mark the 70th anniversary of Casino Royale. The new books will not only have some terms like the N-word removed from them, but they will also come with a disclaimer that they might contain terms of attitudes modern readers might consider “offensive.”
According to The Telegraph, the reissued book will read, “This book was written at a time when terms and attitudes which might be considered offensive by modern readers were commonplace. A number of updates have been made in this edition, while keeping as close as possible to the original text and the period in which it is set.”
The edits of the reissued books will focus mainly on terminologies deemed racially insensitive and stereotypes geared toward the Black characters in the books. Descriptions of Black characters will either be reworked or removed completely. The n-word will be removed and mostly replaced with “black person” or “black man.”
For example, Bond’s comment in “Live and Let Die” that some would-be African criminals are “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought, except when they’ve drunk too much” will be replaced with “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought.”
The sensitivity reader-approved version will also see a change in the scene where Bond witnesses a strip tease during a visit to a nightclub in Harlem. The original version reads, “Bond could hear the audience panting and grunting like pigs at the trough. He felt his own hands gripping the tablecloth. His mouth was dry.” In the edited version, that reference is switched to “Bond could sense the electric tension in the room.”
While racial slurs that diminish Black people will be removed from the new editions, insensitive references to other races, such as east Asians, will not be removed.
Controversial languages such as “man’s work,” “blithering women,” “sweet tang of rape,” and those referring to homosexuality as a “stubborn disability” will not be removed.
Speaking on the edited 007 novels written between the 1950s and 1960s, Ian Fleming Publications explained in a statement that the sensitivity reader-approved version of the 007 books resulted from its decision to “follow Ian’s lead.”
The decision to censor the Bond books has been accepted differently by different groups. While the move is welcomed by the class of the “woke,” others think that censoring books written as far back as the 1950s is a pointless tampering of the original classics, which is typically a book about violence.
The book, some say, could serve as a reference to how society should not be to the younger generation.
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For some users, the revision is only a ploy by the publishers to gain mass appeal and, in turn, make more money by selling to the younger and “woke” audience.
The publishers did encourage “encourage people to read the books for themselves when the new paperbacks are published in April.”
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