Quote:
Originally Posted by CathyA
Lest anyone think this is some new trend ... I still remember when I found a first edition of an early Nancy Drew in a pile of old books and picked it up to reread. I was about 13 then (it was the mid-1970s) and I had grown up on the 1950s/60s editions of the books. The racism in the 1930s edition was completely unexpected and very shocking.
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The Nancy Drew revisions eliminated overt racism and socioeconomic stereotypes by eliminating characters who weren't white and middle class--what's worse, being represented by a negative stereotype, or being erased? They also fed gender stereotypes by eliminating Nancy's independent rebellious streak--turning her into a more feminine, obedient, rule-following teenager. And they sucked a lot of the flavor out of the stories, dumbed down the reading level, and shortened the stories.
Since Nancy was the product of a conglomerate, the conglomerate had the right to modify its own creation. It's much for offensive for an individual author's work to be changed to fit some new criteria.