Banksy strikes again

Livvy Mason-Myhill, Deputy Editor

Manon Martini, Online Arts and Lit Editor, explores the recent artwork by Banksy

YOU might have heard about a new Banksy piece that appeared in Margate on Valentine’s Day. The artwork depicted a battered 1950s housewife throwing her murdered husband into a real-life chest freezer. Less than 24 hours after its appearance, workers were called on site to remove the freezer as it was deemed ‘unsafe’ by Thanet council. As ever with high profile installations, it seems that the real art commences after the painting has taken place. Like a wellrehearsed performance piece, an appearance of Banksy’s work will undoubtably be followed first and foremost by a box, or perhaps some

UV stabilised polycarbonate to ensure preservation. Next comes the unironic production of hundreds of thousands of Banksy mugs, coasters and tea towels — sometimes the piece will even get excavated and sent to a gallery if the council is feeling extra elitist. The unfailing corporate activity and capitalist corruption that ensures no work of Banksy’s can ever be left alone would be highly entertaining if it wasn’t so awfully sad.

“But it’s good for community tourism!” I hear you shout, “It inscribes an important message about domestic abuse’” you type angrily. “No!”, I say — it won’t, and it doesn’t. The piece will no longer represent what it once did, it will become a hashtag opportunity and a money-making scheme until it is entirely shorn of any meaning or morality. £100,000 is being spent on engineers to remove the mural and put it in a gallery, perhaps with the original freezer, which seems to have disappeared altogether, and maybe even with some pretend rubbish to bring a real sense of poverty to the exhibition. The irony of minimum wage contractors hauling the freezer away at their boss’s command becomes ever more apparent anytime someone argues for the ‘preservation’ of a nuanced comment on class.

Often, the ‘point’ of art is to distill someone else’s world. To offer insight into something that we would have otherwise never known about. Perhaps in this case — we could have learnt about the feminine experience of domestic violence. But alas — here we are again. Banksy’s in a box, the freezer is in a gallery warehouse — and we’ve all learnt nothing.

Should books be re-written?

Arts and Lit writers discuss the recent proposed changes to Roald Dahl’s books

WHAT is considered acceptable to say and the language we use changes with the times constantly, therefore it is necessary to alter our media to fit the everchanging standards of what is considered ‘politically correct’. We can see these alterations in the changes being made to Roald Dahl’s books by Puffin Publishers. The publishing company has rightly hired ‘sensitivity readers’ who are combing through books, looking for language which is derogatory/offensive to certain communities. For example, Roald Dahl’s descriptions of his ‘bad’ characters are always described as “fat” or “ugly” in books such as The Twits and James and the Giant Peach. These descriptions paired with the illustrations included in his books are shaping what physical features children will consider to be bad in their adult life. A further instance we see physical descriptions being an issue, is the description of the witches being bald in The Witches. After the recent 2020 film adaptation caused controversy as it was considered ‘insensitive’ to communities that struggle with alopecia, it is best to alter the language used in the original text as well, to prevent a similar scandal reoccurring and its backlash. Editing the content of books is not a new concept that the ‘woke’ community has created to establish an overly politically correct world. There have been many edits and alterations done by publishers to remove harmful comments by authors. Throughout the decades since their publication, publishing companies have removed antisemitic comments and harmful representations made by Roald Dahl before his death in 1990. The sensitivity readers of Inclusive Minds that have been combing through Roald Dahl’s novels only wish for communities to not feel targeted and instead help communities feel included in magical stories that have helped children learn to love reading for decades.

Josie Sharp

WITH the recent re-writings of Roald Dahl’s books by publisher Puffin through the hiring of ‘sensitivity readers’ (for example, all uses of “fat” or “ugly” have been cut, and Oompa Loompas are now “small people” instead of “small men”) questions have arisen surrounding the removal of offensive language in books.

While I can see the appeal, especially for children’s books, to change the language so that children don’t learn prejudiced or offensive language, in general I would argue against removing offensive language from books, as it provides a good learning opportunity.

Books are (as any English student can tell you) products of their times. To look at the language used allows you to understand the values and attitudes held by the author and the society in which it was published. It is more important that we, and children in particular, read the original language in order to understand old societal stereotypes and prejudices, and so we can learn from past mistakes and think more carefully about the language used in the future.

One example that shows this is Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which is set in Missouri in roughly the 1830s, and frequently uses the n-word, so is often dismissed as racist. In the 90s it was the fifth most frequently challenged book in the US, according to the American Library Association. However, anyone who has read the book can tell you it is about a boy unlearning the racism that pervades his culture, through his friendship with the slave Jim (although it must also be admitted that the book isn’t without faults in terms of racial stereotyping). Attempts have been made to‘sanitise’the book, for example, by using the word “slave”, as the original apparently made students uncomfortable, but arguably, we need to feel uncomfortable and confront this aspect of history and society in order to learn from it. I would argue for keeping the original language but including trigger warnings to prepare readers for the contents of the book.

Lauren Walsh, Admin Executive