James Bond Is Being Censored To Not Offend Modern Audiences, Here’s What Is Being Deleted
The 70th-anniversary edition of the James Bond books will be edited for sensitivity, updating and omitting offensive terms used in the original publications.
Following the example led by Puffin Books and the company’s censorship of children’s author Roald Dahl, the James Bond books by Ian Fleming are being revised to avoid offending modern readers. According to Deadline, In an effort to redact offensive language and terms used in the books that were first published in the 1950s, Ian Fleming Publishing (the company that owns the rights to the 007 novels) has hired sensitivity readers to edit the older editions.
Casino Royale was the first James Bond book, published in 1953, 10 years before the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, was released in theaters. Since then, Ian Fleming’s work has exploded into a series containing 14 novels and a movie franchise of 27 films featuring seven different James Bond actors. And though James Bond has become a beloved franchise, thrilling generations of readers and movie watchers, there is no doubt that some of the original content from the books doesn’t exactly hold up to today’s standards for political correctness.
To celebrate the James Bond book series’ 70th anniversary, Ian Fleming Publishing is releasing a new edition of the Bond collection with updated text. The main changes being made to the novel revolve around the pejorative racial language used to describe people of color in the original books. The new edition will replace any derogatory terms for Black people with “Black person” or “Black man.”
These changes are not made without Ian Flemings’s consent. Although the James Bond author died in 1964, he had already spearheaded the idea of updating the 007 novels to be more inclusive. The author himself authorized changes to Live and Let Die, and Ian Fleming Publishing has taken the author’s approval for that project and extended it to the remaining Bond books.
The new edition of the James Bond books will come with a disclaimer, warning readers that the edition is an updated version with minor changes made from the original text and an explanation for why the copy was revised.
The news for the re-publishing of the James Bond novels comes after Puffin Books announced that they would be re-releasing the classic children’s books written by Roald Dahl after the books had gone through a sensitivity edit. This news created an uproar on social media and sparked a heated debate, with people arguing that censorship was an infringement on First Amendment rights and trying to find the balance between preserving classic work and being respectful of modern-day sensitivities. In the end, Puffin Books made a statement that they had listened to both sides of the debate and decided to release two versions of the new edition—one that had the original text and one that was updated—so that readers could make the choice of which version to read on their own.
For many years, there has been a call for both the James Bond movie and book franchises to be updated. In response, James Bond movie franchise producer Barbara Broccoli has said that while, at this time, she is not open to having a female James Bond in upcoming movies, she is open to casting a British male actor of any ethnicity as the next 007.
