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So… Willy Wonka and the Great Glass Elevator is racist as hell…

StrangeADT

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,064
EDIT: whoops I really screwed up the title. It should read Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator - the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I was reading this to my son today. He is half Chinese but luckily too young to really grasp what I was reading. This is clearly nothing new, but I was a bit blown away a full page of straight up racist jokes.

Some excerpts:

The President threw the phone across the room at
the Postmaster General. It hit him in the stomach.
'What's the matter with this thing?' shouted the President.

'It is very difficult to phone people in China, Mr
President,' said the Postmaster General.
'The country's so full of Wings and Wongs, every time you wing you get the wong number.'

'You're not kidding,' said the President.
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The President again picked up the receiver.

'Gleetings, honourable Mr Plesident,' said a soft
faraway voice. 'Here is Assistant-Plemier Chu-On-Dat
speaking. How can I do for you?'

'Knock-Knock.' said the President.

'Who der?'

'Ginger.'

'Ginger who?'

'Ginger yourself much when you fell off the
Great Wall of China?' said the President. 'Okay, Chu-On-Dat. Let me speak to Premier How-Yu-Bin.'

'Much regret Plemier How-Yu-Bin not here just this second, Mr. Plesident.'

'Where is he?'

'He outside mending a puncture on his bicycle.'

'Oh no he isn't,' said the President. 'You can't fool me, you crafty old mandarin!'
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There is a bit more but like I said all of the above took place over effectively a single page. I had no idea but I suppose the Oompa Loompas should've been the dead giveaway in the first place.

PS - sorry for the hack job of pasting the text here. Came from my iPhone text-from-picture copy feature so it's a bit off.
 
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GDGF

GDGF

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,336
I didn't even know this existed til i Wiki'd it just now.

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

Yeah, that's pretty fucked up right there.
 
DanarchyReigns

DanarchyReigns

Member
Oct 25, 2017
34,820
I remember reading Glass Elevator when I was a kid. It wasn't as good as Chocolate Factory. It was rather boring, even though it was a space adventure.
I know the story is that Dahl forbade any adaptations of Glass Elevator in his last will & testament, but I think the book's poor quality is a better reason why it's never getting adapted.
 
Bor Gullet

Bor Gullet

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
12,399
Welcome to the works of Roald Dahl.

I also found out recently he wrote the James Bond movie "You Only Live Twice." Makes so much sense lol.
 
Watershed

Watershed

Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,836
The original is also super racist. The Oompa-Loompas in the book are not the same as in the movie.
 
sph3re

sph3re

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 28, 2017
8,412
DanarchyReigns said:
I remember reading Glass Elevator when I was a kid. It wasn't as good as Chocolate Factory. It was rather boring, even though it was a space adventure.
I know the story is that Dahl forbade any adaptations of Glass Elevator in his last will & testament, but I think the book's poor quality is a better reason why it's never getting adapted.
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I'm sorry, it was a what adventure
 
Mekanos

Mekanos

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 17, 2018
44,221
Really surprised that the guy who said "Hitler didn't kill the Jews for no reason" is a huge racist.

EDIT: Someone beat me to the punch but it's worth mentioning twice
 
Mezentine

Mezentine

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,980
sph3re said:
I'm sorry, it was a what adventure
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The book takes place largely on the Space Hotel USA, the world's first orbiting space hotel, where Wonka, Charlie and Grandpa Joe find themselves caught up in an invasion by Vermicious Knids, which are giant monsters from Saturn that are like if evil silly putty was all muscle

The climax of the book is back at the chocolate factory, where all four grandparents downing a lot of Wonka's de-aging pills causes some of them to become negative years old

I didn't make any of that up
 
I am a Bird

I am a Bird

Member
Oct 31, 2017
7,247
I'm shocked. The British author born in 1916 wrote some racist as hell shit?

I mean the Oompa Loompas are pretty glaringly racist as well. What with the fact that they are shipped to the factory on boats in cargo boxes.
 
Snagret

Snagret

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,808
I understood what you meant with the title, OP.

Also oofa doofa those quotes are insane. The wing wong joke made me actually gasp. It's always so disappointing to be reminded of Dahl's politics considering how much I enjoyed some of his books as a kid.
 
Aztechnology

Aztechnology

Community Resettler
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
14,148
This is so old timey racist humor. It's so dumb it makes you laugh at it. Not with it.
 
chrominance

chrominance

Sky Van Gogh
Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,666
I definitely wouldn't cast any shade at people who hate this part, because it's absolutely 100% offensive and would not fly at all now. But I am Chinese and I do remember reading this book; I'd forgotten the lines about the Chinese officials until reading the excerpts here but yeah, they're totally in there. I remember it being kind of fun/dumb wordplay and not much else. I was a dumb kid who didn't think about it that hard, and being a diaspora kid it was probably easier for me not to realize or gloss over that that kind of caricature was of people like me.

It's... definitely a weird book. I remember enjoying it more than the original but I think I just liked the idea of glass elevators flying in space filled with weird meatball-like aliens spelling SCRAM with their bodies to scare the shit out of some humans. Thinking about it, I remember way less about Great Glass Elevator than Chocolate Factory.
 
Dommo

Dommo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,688
Australia
Gentlemen said:
He also wrote what is probably the most racist Bond movie.

en.wikipedia.org

You Only Live Twice (film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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8b42839899ec4196-600x338.jpg
 
Aztechnology

Aztechnology

Community Resettler
Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
14,148
chrominance said:
I definitely wouldn't cast any shade at people who hate this part, because it's absolutely 100% offensive and would not fly at all now. But I am Chinese and I do remember reading this book; I'd forgotten the lines about the Chinese officials until reading the excerpts here but yeah, they're totally in there. I remember it being kind of fun/dumb wordplay and not much else. I was a dumb kid who didn't think about it that hard, and being a diaspora kid it was probably easier for me not to realize or gloss over that that kind of caricature was of people like me.

It's... definitely a weird book. I remember enjoying it more than the original but I think I just liked the idea of glass elevators flying in space filled with weird meatball-like aliens spelling SCRAM with their bodies to scare the shit out of some humans.
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It's very much the old school who's on first type comedy. Just with you know some racism sprinkled on top.
 
lvl 99 Pixel

lvl 99 Pixel

Member
Oct 25, 2017
44,740
Roald Dahl had a bunch of problems not limited to The Glass Elevator. "I'd rather be fried alive and eaten by Mexicans" is a line in James and the Giant Peach.
I think commonwealth parents probably knew he was like this, but its been a staple of childhood fiction for so long that it gets overlooked.

Mezentine said:
The book takes place largely on the Space Hotel USA, the world's first orbiting space hotel, where Wonka, Charlie and Grandpa Joe find themselves caught up in an invasion by Vermicious Knids, which are giant monsters from Saturn that are like if evil silly putty was all muscle

The climax of the book is back at the chocolate factory, where all four grandparents downing a lot of Wonka's de-aging pills causes some of them to become negative years old

I didn't make any of that up
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Eureka 7 sequel vibes
 
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Hilarious_Bearious

Hilarious_Bearious

Member
Nov 4, 2017
7,382
I only know about this book because a teacher read it to my class when I was a kid. What makes it even worse is that I went to school in Sunnybank...
 
Messofanego

Messofanego

Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,235
UK
Even as a big Roald Dahl fan as a kid, I didn't bother reading this. Not sure what the reason was. He's been a massive bigot forever, which was a disappointing realisation in my teens.
 
BLEEN

BLEEN

Member
Oct 27, 2017
21,894
Mezentine said:
The book takes place largely on the Space Hotel USA, the world's first orbiting space hotel, where Wonka, Charlie and Grandpa Joe find themselves caught up in an invasion by Vermicious Knids, which are giant monsters from Saturn that are like if evil silly putty was all muscle

The climax of the book is back at the chocolate factory, where all four grandparents downing a lot of Wonka's de-aging pills causes some of them to become negative years old

I didn't make any of that up
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This is amazing lol
 
sph3re

sph3re

One Winged Slayer
Avenger
Oct 28, 2017
8,412
Gaardus said:
that's what makes it a GREAT elevator
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Honestly, I'm finding it hard to disagree with this lmfao
Mezentine said:
The book takes place largely on the Space Hotel USA, the world's first orbiting space hotel, where Wonka, Charlie and Grandpa Joe find themselves caught up in an invasion by Vermicious Knids, which are giant monsters from Saturn that are like if evil silly putty was all muscle

The climax of the book is back at the chocolate factory, where all four grandparents downing a lot of Wonka's de-aging pills causes some of them to become negative years old

I didn't make any of that up
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

image.png
 
PHOENIXZERO

PHOENIXZERO

Member
Oct 29, 2017
12,110
It's been a really long time but yeah... the sequel was pretty forgettable and Dahl was a racist and admitted anti-semite.
 

Atom

Member
Jul 25, 2021
11,529
I loved a lot of his stories, especially his memoirs but yeah he's very much reflective of a lot of the prevailing trends at the time.

Michael Bond, the author of Paddington I think had a book (Tuesday in Paris? Or some such thing) which featured the line "How many wongs make a white?" On like the first page. Even as a kid I dropped the book right there, just felt grossed out that the person who could write heartwarming stories about a bear learning to acclimatize and integrate into a new environment and make new friends and have his adopted family step in to defend him could drop such horrible shit with nary a thought.

The good working assumption is that most british children's authors back in the day were probably not the most progressive at best, and horrifically bigoted at worst. Rowling inherits from a long legacy of children's authors in that sense.
 
peppermints

peppermints

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,658
I had been reading the original Charlie book with my 7 year old and it's got some problematic stuff too. It's a shame because the writing style is enjoyable and great for kids. But oh well there's tons of other great non POS authors out there. My daughter got sick in bed the other night (stupid stomach bug) and had fallen asleep reading the book in her bed.. maybe wasn't s huge loss that I ended up throwing it out because it had vomit all over it.

The movie still slaps.
 
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