Don't hate me but....... I'm not a massive Roald Dahl fan
Being a child of the 80s who didn’t like Roald Dahl was like being a total freak, but I stand by my opinions now. I think his adult writing is absolutely brilliant, particularly the short stories, but his children’s books are full of made-up words, mad loopy tangents, and are unforgivably, gratingly moralistic, often about the most ludicrously petty things (don’t watch television EVER or your brain will explode, blah blah blah). So, I didn’t like them anywhere near as much as I said I did to fit in, but I read every single one, and found them all at least vaguely entertaining.

There was one aspect of one of his books however that I found really disturbing, even as a seven-year-old, and as an adult I find it positively revolting - the treatment of the Oompa Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Think about it. They are:

* Trafficked into the country
* Kept prisoner inside a dangerous factory
* Forced to work in return for beans
* Coerced into acting as guinea pigs for dangerous experiments

For anyone who’s forgotten the details, Willy Wonka travels to Loompaland and observes the natives living in difficult conditions. He cuts a deal with them knowing that they have very little bargaining power, smuggles them into the country and sets them to work in his factory, where they are paid only in cocoa beans and never allowed to leave. This isn’t a wholesome idea to sell to kids. This is trafficking and slavery.

I wonder if the Oompa Loompas have been allowed to keep their passports. I wonder if they have a union, or if they have insurance for the disturbingly large number of industrial accidents that seem to happen in that factory. Are they informed of the risks and adequately compensated when testing Wonka’s dangerous products? Wonka is clearly quite patronising and racist towards his staff. He talks about them as if they’re all the same, and treats them like a pack of obedient dogs - with affection, sure, but little to no respect.

What’s really disturbing is the smug, self-satisfied prose in which this arrangement is introduced. It’s presented as if it’s actually a great opportunity for these savages to work for a few beans, and of course they‘re all ever so grateful to the benevolent Mr Wonka. Nobody at any point in the book questions the moral ramifications of treating human beings like this. It is essentially no more or less than a romanticised depiction of slavery.

And for this reason, I will not be reading this book to my future children without a full and frank discussion about this issue, underpinned by a potted history of the slave trade. Sorry, future Little Fluffles.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Sat 7 Jan 2012, 0:23, 9 replies)

I'd like to add the blatant benefit fraud/exploitation within that book.
Charley, we learn, lives with his mother and no less than four bedridden Grandparents.

Mother appears to work but also acts as a carer for the Grandparents. Father? There is passing reference to his premature death although this may be a contrived fiction to spare Charley from the truth that he absconded, thoroughly dismayed about a continual diet of cabbage soup.

Upon the introduction of a material inducement into the household, in the form of a "Golden Ticket", one of the hitherto bedridden grandparents - viz Grandpa Joe - miraculously regains ambulatary ability.

Quite clearly Grandpa Joe is actually a bone-idle scrounger who has spent the previous 20 years lying about in bed.

There are two possible options here:-

1 - Charley's Mother has been claiming benefits for this clearly physically able individual in collusion with him, but without the knowledge of her child.

2 - Grandpa Joe has been exploiting this poor woman by shamming his disability.

I think, in either event, Grandpa Joe is not an individual to be trusted with a small bag of rusty screws. Once his apparently unremarked Lazarus-esque reinvention occurs, however, he willingly undertakes a physically demanding tour of the premises of a confectionary manufacturer.

At the conclusion of this tour he suggests, without the presence of any responsible adult, that Charley ought to become the ward of the clearly unstable William Wonka. As above, William Wonka is an exploitative individual and I must question his intentions towards Charley.

There is more than one villain here, but I rather think that the so called "Grandpa Joe" may have some questions to answer.

We don't even know his surname for fuck's sake!
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Sat 7 Jan 2012, 0:49, closed)

Bucket?
Shirley?
( jakedamusss I understand, and dont care., Sat 7 Jan 2012, 2:28, closed)

Dead father?
You must have a different version of the book to me. in mine, Mr Bucket is alive and well and working for a pittance screwing lids on toothpaste at a factory...
(The Apeface Cherub is not a cunty-uber-cunt, Sat 7 Jan 2012, 9:00, closed)

On the other hand, if you plan to send your kids into higher education and thus have them spend their adult lives working in call centres, you might want to get them used to that mentality.

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Sat 7 Jan 2012, 0:53, closed)

In the original book
the Oompa Loompas were specifically black Africans. They then changed them to fantasy creatures for basically the reason you stated.

Also the chocolate industry in real life was known for the near-slave conditions suffered by its African workers.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 7 Jan 2012, 5:06, closed)

You have to promise me...
... that when your future children bring this up at school when they "do" Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, that you come back and tell us the results.

I'm prepared to bet that if they handle it skilfully they can push their teacher into a breakdown.
(gordonjcp, Sat 7 Jan 2012, 11:19, closed)

This^^
Almost makes me want to have children
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Sun 8 Jan 2012, 13:03, closed)

!
Its supposed to be all a bit creepy though isn't it? Roald Dahl wrote a short story about someone who throws himself into a meat grinder and as he dies he tells his friend its brilliant. Then his friend does it and the story describes in detail how much pain he goes through. And another one about a Doctor who sews his girlfiend's mouth shut. Torture porn really.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Mon 9 Jan 2012, 15:57, closed)

My favourite
is the one where the woman murders her husband by bludgeoning him to death with a frozen leg of lamb, then puts the lamb in the oven, legs it to the shops to get herself an alibi, comes home, "finds" her husband dead on the floor, calls the cops, and feeds them the murder weapon whilst they're searching the house for it.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Mon 9 Jan 2012, 17:22, closed)