Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1493590
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 FEBRUARY 2023 OPINION 10 OPINION Roald Dahl, censorship, and the 'Frankenstein Effect' AS you might have guessed from some of my other articles, over the years: censor- ship is not one of those things that I gen- erally find 'amusing'. Quite the contrary: it usually makes my blood boil (especially, when the stated aim of the censors is to impose their own precepts of morality onto everyone else: thus appointing themselves – in all hu- mility, of course - as 'sole arbiters of the common good'). On this occasion, however – and I'm specifically referring to the recent deci- sion, by Puffin Books, to re-edit the works of Roald Dahl, so as to make them less 'offensive' to sensitive readers - I have to admit I found the whole affair hilarious, from start to finish. Because there IS a funny side to censor- ship, after all. Actually… there are two. The first is that censorship, by defini- tion, will invariably have consequences that go beyond the censors' actual in- tentions (and in many cases, those con- sequences will turn out to be the clean opposite of the desired effect). The second is that: as a rule, the very last people who will ever be aware of those unintended consequences (until, of course, they actually occur) are – as you may have already guessed – the censors themselves. And while the recent Roald Dahl case is very good example: it is by no means the only one. In fact… let's start with another (perhaps more 'archetypal') example in- stead: the 'Frankenstein Effect', alluded to in the headline. In case you were wondering: that's a ref- erence to the classic 1931 Universal hor- ror film (directed by James Whale, star- ring Boris Karloff, etc.).… and NOT the 1818 novel by Mary Shelley, upon which the movie is supposedly based (but let's face it: it isn't, really…) Not, mind you, that the original novel didn't face its own fair share of 'censor- ship issues', back in its day: but it was the 1931 Hollywood screen version that in- directly contributed to popular demands for censorship, in the United States; with the result that – by the mid-1930s – all movies had to be vetted by the 'Produc- tion Code of America' (aka 'Hays Code'), before release. So when Universal Studios decided to re-release 'Frankenstein', in 1937: the censors insisted on a number of cuts being made (to the 'master-shot', please note: which also resulted in the censored version becoming the ONLY existing ver- sion of that film… all the way until the 1980s: when an original, unedited copy was discovered.) Effectively, then: for more than 50 years, the only available version of 'Frank- enstein' was actually a censored, 'wa- tered-down' cut… that was supposed to have 'removed' all the parts that were considered (by 1930s standards, anyway) 'offensive to public morality'. And among the many scenes deemed objectionable, was one where Boris Kar- loff's Monster accidentally 'murders' a little girl, by throwing her into a lake (un- der the illusion that she would float: just like those flowers they were both happily playing with, a moment before…) Ironically, however, that same act of censorship is also the reason why so many people who watched 'Frankenstein' – be- tween 1937 and the 1980s - describe the experience as among the most terrifying they'd ever had, in their entire lives. To fully appreciate why, you'll have to watch the unedited clip for yourselves (it's freely available on Youtube). For now: let's just say that, in the original version, there was never any question that the 'murder' itself was purely unintentional… and that Frankenstein's Monster (having only re- cently been brought into the world: and having been promptly abandoned by its Creator) was entirely innocent of the hor- rific consequences of his actions. Not only that: but Karloff's performance also makes it abundantly clear that the Monster was genuinely distressed – if not downright horrified – by the belated real- isation that he had unwittingly 'drowned' that child. And this also reinforces a the- matic point that is entirely consistent with Mary Shelley's novel (even if there is no direct correlation for this scene, any- where in the book). The bottom line is that Dr Franken- stein's creation – in the film, perhaps more than the novel – is actually a 'mis- understood victim': and NOT a villain (still less, a 'Monster') at all. In the censored version, however: the same scene fades ominously into black, at the precise instant when Boris Karloff physically lunges towards the little girl…. only to 'fade back in', at a point where the girl's father is already carrying her lifeless body towards the Burgermaster's office: to demand justice for her callous, cold-blooded 'murder'… I need hardly add, of course, that the impact is not only 'different' from the original version… but the complete op- posite. Suddenly, it appears as though the Monster – far from the 'innocent, child- like victim' of the original – is not just a terrifying villain, by any standard… but a child-murderer, no less! And who knows? Possibly a 'child-molester', too! (After all: if you cut the scene at the critical mo- ment… there's no telling what Karloff might have actually DONE to that child, before 'throwing her into the lake')… And hey presto: an act of censorship that was intended to 'tone down' the ghoulish violence of the original… only succeed- ed in making 'Frankenstein' an infinitely scarier, lewder, and more macabre movie, than even James Whale himself had orig- inally intended… With the result, naturally, that the 1937 re-release proved to be so spectacularly successful – among a general public that evidently WANTED to see precisely that sort of thing, in horror movies – that the queues outside movie theatres report- edly extended for miles… and miles… and miles (and the 'Frankenstein' reruns themselves kept running for years… and years… and years….) On all counts, then, the 'Frankenstein Effect' illustrates just how counter-pro- ductive censorship always ends up being, in practice. Not only did the Production Code of America result in much more (suggestively) frightening/disturbing films, than the ones it tried to censor; but it also ensured that more people – IN- FINITELY more people – would actual- ly watch all those 'lurid' movies, to begin with. Right: at this point, you might be won- dering where Roald Dahl even comes into any of this, at all. So let's fast-forward to (roughly) last week: when The Daily Mail carried a story about how Puffin Books decided to employ 'sensitivity readers', to… well, 'do to Roald Dahl, what the Production Code had done to American cinema in the 1930s'. The idea was to sanitize Dahl's (glo- riously 'un-PC') works, so that they no longer offend the squeamish sensitivities of any reader who might object to such 'immoral' adjectives as: 'fat'; 'ugly'; 'short'; 'stupid'; 'male'; 'female', etc., etc. etc. That, at any rate, was the censors' in-