I suppose at my age, I am a member of the eye-rolling generation that tuts and splutters at certain media stories in this super fast-changing world. Some change is good. Some change is not so hot.
A piece (written by Ben Ellery) in The Times today caught my eye. It was headed:
Writers 'self-censoring to avoid trouble
The article begins: "Authors and publishers have warned that 'sensitivity readers' who check books for potentially offensive content are destroying the art of writing."
Award-winning author Kate Clanchy was informed she could not refer to the Taliban as terrorists because they now govern Afghanistan. Her publisher asked her to send her 2020 Orwell-prize-winning book Some Kinds I Taught and What They Taught Me to three sensitivity readers - years after it was published. Clancy said they came back with hundreds of changes, which she refused. She left her publisher and found an independent company. The co-founder of the independent reckoned mainstream publishers had lost their backbone, fearing Twitter storms if a 'wrong' word of phrase is judged to be too sensitive.
Author Anthony Horowitch was asked to remove the word "scalpel" as it might offend Native Americans due to its similarity to the word scalp. The piece notes the word scalpel comes from the Latin scalpellum, meaning a surgical knife.
Just two examples (I'm sure there are tons of others) but enough to make me think. In my life, I cannot recall reading anything in a book that offended me personally either at a fairly trivial level or to the point of apoplexy.
As an Irish person, I have always been aware of jokes and jibes, insults and stereotyping, but I can't remember ever being sent into a spiral of emotional turmoil. I suppose on a subconscious level I reckoned I was big enough to swat away the taunts.
There are many things that make my eyes roll, some of which I would not say out loud or write about. (Anti)social media has stifled considerably any notion of unshackled free speech.
It might be happening already, but if books read by sensitivity readers could have a warning sticker attached, it would help me enormously to decide not to buy any of those books.
I prefer to read what the writer wrote!
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