01/12/2025

Re-assess/ Re-brand

My thinking has been leaning toward the above words, as I have been researching Roald Dahl and the controversy surrounding language he used in his works. In 2023, Puffin Publishers released censored versions of Roald Dahl’s stories, removing offensive language used commonly to describe people.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20160912-the-dark-side-of-roald-dahl

As a child when I read/ heard some of his children’s stories, certain language was overlooked by me. I think that this was quite common for the time, being that the late 90s/ early 00s were, at least, controversial in hindsight, and a lot of dated views were still being shared and broadcast widely. Another pop-culture example of this that I often consider is the television sitcom Only Fools and Horses, which is, or was, hailed as a British Treasure, despite the prominent use of offensive and bigoted language.

Going back to my ideas based more on some options held and furthermore, shared publicly before his death, by Roald Dahl himself – I decided to look up the portrait of him by Sir Matthew Smith, at the National Portrait Gallery, on their website. I could see that Dahl is listed as a sitter in six portraits, which are all available to view on the website.

My first instinct is to paint these portraits which are, in five cases, photographs and the aforementioned portrait by Sir Matthew Smith, whom Dahl sought out himself and requested the painting, prior to his successful writing career.

Ahead of my possible re-versioning of Roald Dahl’s portraits, I will take a closer look at more of his ‘classic’ works for children, and compare with newer, edited versions. I have also visited my local library and borrowed a collection of Dahl’s short stories for adults. Within these I plan to search for descriptions of people, and see what type of language is used under what context. These descriptive terms may inform how I choose to portray the author himself, in light of antisemitic views he held and discussed openly in interview.

Other ideas I have at present include somehow portraying/ displaying other controversial icons or “National Treasures” from popular culture, in more of a constraining aesthetic to that which they’re commonly known by. For this idea I am leaning toward a personal context of ways in which things I experienced as a child have changed in the eyes of society – such as s Roald Dahl’s stories, television programs such as Only Fools and Horses, Friends (which often used derogatory and homophobic language), films from production companies such as Disney that have previously promoted questionable values and stereotyped females as weak and/ or vulnerable; as well as at times having exhibited racist stereotyping – perhaps even some brands that were widely popular in the 90s and 00s that have sparked controversy or negative implications in more recent years.