A massive can of worms was opened last week when it was revealed the back catalogue of Roald Dahl novels were being re-edited to remove content deemed as offensive before going back into print, so you can only imagine how both literature and cinema fans reacted upon discovering that Ian Fleming’s James Bond was being given the same treatment.
While Dahl may have been a widely-beloved author who penned a litany of children’s classics, his personal opinions and beliefs left a bad taste in a lot of mouths, so you can see both sides of the argument. On one hand, introducing less controversial takes on his established works could get a new generation of kids reading, whereas making such artistic compromises bristles the purists, especially when it’s easy to simply leave them out of print.
However, as one of pop culture’s most defining icons for the last 60 years, 007 is an altogether different matter. Ahead of the Casino Royale book’s 70th anniversary, Ian Fleming Publications Ltd have issued a review by sensitivity readers to remove any racist, sexist, or altogether inflammatory passages from any Bond stories that don’t hold up through a modern lens.
Needless to say, the floodgates of online fury have been well and truly opened as the debate encompassed social media.
Even the early Sean Connery adventures don’t play particularly well through the eyes of a 2023 audience, but it’s not as if rights-holders Amazon and MGM are going to go through the live-action back catalogue to re-edit the films. It’s a touchy subject without a doubt, but you get the feeling that this is going to be far from the last example.