The disabled villain: why sensitivity reading can’t kill off this ugly trope
I know we've discussed this trope before, its more prevalent in Fleming than in the films, his villains always had some visible deformity that made them bizarre and Outside the norm, and seemed to motivate their journey into Evil. And that's part of a long established literary shorthand, especially in the comics. Dick Tracy's villains all had strangely shaped skulls. and Batman's rogues gallery, think especially of the origin stories of the Joker or TwoFace. and the Universal horror monsters. Fleming liked that sort of pulp-ish stuff, so I'm not surprised he imagined similar looking villains. but I can also imagine a real life reader with prosthetic hands might read Dr No and think "waitaminnit! I'm not conspiring to deflect US test rockets, why is this author asserting such cause-and-effect?"
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HG1940 said:
I am from Latin America. I haven't found anything that bothers me in the 5 or 6 book from Ian Fleming that I've read so far.
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thanks for pointing this out HG. I might have thought you were paranoid, but South America has had many oppressive dictatorial regimes both right and left, so I'm sure you've experienced some real life government censorship.
In this case, as in most similar cases that come up, its market driven. Blame the freemarket, no government intervention required. Someone threatens a boycott of Disney films (and it just has to be one loud voice), so instead Disney withdraws Song of the South from circulation. The companies that own these works of art dont think of them as works of art, they think of them as valuable properties, and they want to continue selling as many as possible into the future. Disney has a vast catalog, so one film that no longer gets seen doesn't hurt them, its withdrawl may even gain positive publicity. IFP only own 17 books so their choices are more limited, so instead of withdrawing one book they change a chapter title and drop a few paragraphs that don't even affect the plot. and so far's I know, nobody threatened to boycott IFP, so this was a voluntary preemptive measure.
by the way, upthread I mentioned Fleming's books are in the public domain in Canada. Indigo, our largest bookchain, has been been publishing their own editions of Fleming for a few years now. I was in an indigo store this weekend, and can confirm their edition of Live and Let Diedoes have the offensive chapter title and paragraphs of dialect. Just in case anyone gets desperate and wants to make a road trip to find an uncensored edition.
The covers however are just white text on black background, the most generic I've ever seen. Much easier just to find a nice old PAN or Signet edition.
Public domain to the rescue! Bless Canada, and may it become a model for the rest of the world. Your next mission Caractacus, should you choose to accept it, is to track down that Canada-only annotated edition of Casino Royale!
As we said on the previous page, annotated editions would be good as a way of IFP finding more print, I'd like to see that.
That Canadian edition looks like it has a die cut cover, like the old Pan (?) FRWL I think it was. Still not sure how they can sell those as I would have thought James Bond is still trademarked there, even if the books themselves are public domain.
I notice that the trademarked phrase "James Bond" is never used on the front covers. That might be how Indigo can sell the books without infringing on the trademark.
Something similar went on with Felix the Cat. Many of Felix's silent cartoons are in public domain, but the character is trademarked by Dreamworks. So when Tommy Stathes, the world's foremost champion of silent cartoons, released his Blu-Ray of Felix cartoons, he titled it Otto Messmer's Feline Folliesand useda vintage poster with an early version of Felix as the cover. Not once did he use the phrase "Felix the Cat."
@emtiem I dont know the legalities, I just know Indigo is publishing their own editions of the Fleming books, and there is also a Canada only short story collection called Licence Expired.
Here is the publication notes page from that edition of LaLD, from the abebooks link above. note the fourth paragraph, where they assert their own rights reserved! I'm probably not even allowed to link to this screenshot according to that wording, uh-oh (can you even see the screenshot outside of Canada? if not, I'll abuse image uploading priveleges one more time in the name of Bondian scholarship)
I read an article the other day about an upcoming lo-budget horror movie with Winnie the Pooh as a horror movie monster. allowable because A A Milne's first book has fallen in the public domain (Tigger, who was introduced in the sequel, is still copywrited) . I've often seen it stated Disney keeps forcing copyright periods to be extended for ever longer periods of time so that they never lose ownership of Mickey Mouse, but the same article said that specifically the Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse shall also fall into public domain soon. Not later images of Mickey Mouse, but that very first version is somehow its own thing. again, I don't understand the legalities.
@Revelator I havent forgotten youre looking for that edition of Casino Royale. classic Mission Impossible quotes are good incentive though, I'll work harder to find it I promise
speaking of early animation, isnt your avatar Oswald the Lucky Rabbit? if you ever run out of Fleming rarities to talk about, you should start an early animation thread! My favourites are the early Fleisher cartoons, but you seem to like cartoons even earlier than that.
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,690MI6 Agent
As a Law graduate it never ceases to amaze me how lawyers and those in the know can exploit loopholes in the law to their own benefit. I suppose it's the old saying about necessity being the mother of invention. It seems that there's nearly always a sneaky way around things if you know the law and are creative enough in exploiting its in-built weaknesses.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
It's a puzzle. Obviously anyone can write the words 'James Bond 007' in a book, just like anyone can write a book naming Coca-Cola without having to own the trademark, but I'd have thought there would be some protection over using that trademark in the situation of a book starring that literary character. These things seem to have many ins and outs.
The current books here all have credits in the front for Danjaq owning 'James Bond' and '007' (so not sure how Indigo are using 007 on their covers) which IFP use under licence (not the publishers, incidentally; which seems kind of surprising), can that really just because they put it on the cover?
That fourth paragraph must be boilerplate legalese dropped into every book Indigo publishes. It's only legal standing would be to prohibit literal reproduction of the Indigo edition rather than its text, which presumably has been unaltered by the company. Now if Indigo had added stuff to Fleming, it could copyright those editions and slap on stickers: "Now with EXTRA Sex, Snobbery, and Sadism!"
The Steamboat Willie version of Mickey will indeed fall into public domain soon, so any animators hoping to appropriate him must make sure he conforms exactly to the that film's portrayal. No eyes with pupils or cute Disney speaking voice, or the lawyers will feast. But if Mickey utters random grunts and spends his time abusing farm animals, you'll be fine.
My avatar is indeed Oswald the Lucky Rabbit! He appeared in lots of shorts but my favorites are the 1929-32 Oswald cartoons directed by Bill Nolan at the Walter Lantz studio. An early animation thread would be a good idea, especially since so much is on YouTube. The early '30s Fleischer cartoons are wonderfully crazy--no Halloween is complete without a screening of Bimbo's Initiation and Swing You Sinners!
I reported on the Indigo editions at the MI6 board and received a response from NickTwentyTwo:
"I worked at Indigo when these editions came out. The colour circle on the front is a hole in the cover, that when opened, reveals a map of where the story largely takes place, fairly cool. I actually had no idea if these were censored or not but I’m glad they don’t appear to be (I’ll check later today for sure). I’ve only got Goldfinger in this edition."
I have the complete Indigo set and find them to be a nice uniform series, if unspectacular. However, the set does not include "The Man With the Golden Gun." Canadian copyright law at the time was limited to 50 years after the creator's death, but unpublished works by creators who died after 1948 but before 1999 retained their copyright until 2049. As Fleming died in 1964 and TMWTGG was only published in April 1965, that title falls into that category (as does "Octopussy and the Living Daylights" which Indigo also didn't publish). For no apparent reason other than a possible aversion to short stories, the series is also missing "For Your Eyes Only." So for completionists, it's not even a complete set of what they could have published. Incidentally, Canadian copyright law changed last December and it's now 70 years after the death of the creator. However, it's not retroactive and therefore Fleming remains in the public domain here (with the exception of TMWTGG and OATLD).
So as an aside.... the prices of these are skyrocketing... I had picked up the complete set of the Penguin press editions with the pulp style art a few years back despite having everything Folio has done so far.. And as they were cheap and I liked the cover art I snagged them..... However after I saw the prices online recently I just dumped them for $500 I may go browse the used bookstores myself this week.
Although rather generic it does at least recall the classic painted Pan paperbacks cover for Moonraker which I first picked up second hand in 1996. It was also the first Bond novel I ever read in the summer of 1997 so it has a special place in my heart and remains my favourite Bond novel to this day:
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I have the Dr. No one of those and possibly another. I like how they take the golden gun from the 1974 film version of TMWTGG even though it was a gold plated Colt revolver in the original novel!
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I don’t know how many of the series were actually done, I can’t remember having many pass through my hands, TMWTGG and GF certainly, but I don’t remember having DN, if you still have the book @Silhouette Man I’d love to see the cover or any other cover that anyone has!
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
On various google searches, I have seen the Target LALD, GF and OHMSS covers, but not realised what they were, even though the Target symbol is clearly on every cover corner. I just assumed they were English language editions for foreign climes.
The Longman TB cover is also familiar.
I recognise the OUP Alpha Thriller trio but not the Hong Kong paperbacks.
The MacMillans are also often found in online searches.
However, I have never come across any of these books in second hand book shops, charity, and TBH I have not looked for them online.
I can only remember selling TMWTGG and GF - I don’t remember having any of the other Target editions - I obviously sold them too cheaply as I would imagine they would get very high prices nowadays.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,690MI6 Agent
Comments
The fire on the cover of LALD seems particularly appropriate.
Decent looking covers, but not good enough to make me buy these even if the text hadn’t been altered.
good article boss!
The disabled villain: why sensitivity reading can’t kill off this ugly trope
I know we've discussed this trope before, its more prevalent in Fleming than in the films, his villains always had some visible deformity that made them bizarre and Outside the norm, and seemed to motivate their journey into Evil. And that's part of a long established literary shorthand, especially in the comics. Dick Tracy's villains all had strangely shaped skulls. and Batman's rogues gallery, think especially of the origin stories of the Joker or TwoFace. and the Universal horror monsters. Fleming liked that sort of pulp-ish stuff, so I'm not surprised he imagined similar looking villains. but I can also imagine a real life reader with prosthetic hands might read Dr No and think "waitaminnit! I'm not conspiring to deflect US test rockets, why is this author asserting such cause-and-effect?"
_________________
HG1940 said:
I am from Latin America. I haven't found anything that bothers me in the 5 or 6 book from Ian Fleming that I've read so far.
_________________
thanks for pointing this out HG. I might have thought you were paranoid, but South America has had many oppressive dictatorial regimes both right and left, so I'm sure you've experienced some real life government censorship.
In this case, as in most similar cases that come up, its market driven. Blame the freemarket, no government intervention required. Someone threatens a boycott of Disney films (and it just has to be one loud voice), so instead Disney withdraws Song of the South from circulation. The companies that own these works of art dont think of them as works of art, they think of them as valuable properties, and they want to continue selling as many as possible into the future. Disney has a vast catalog, so one film that no longer gets seen doesn't hurt them, its withdrawl may even gain positive publicity. IFP only own 17 books so their choices are more limited, so instead of withdrawing one book they change a chapter title and drop a few paragraphs that don't even affect the plot. and so far's I know, nobody threatened to boycott IFP, so this was a voluntary preemptive measure.
by the way, upthread I mentioned Fleming's books are in the public domain in Canada. Indigo, our largest bookchain, has been been publishing their own editions of Fleming for a few years now. I was in an indigo store this weekend, and can confirm their edition of Live and Let Die does have the offensive chapter title and paragraphs of dialect. Just in case anyone gets desperate and wants to make a road trip to find an uncensored edition.
The covers however are just white text on black background, the most generic I've ever seen. Much easier just to find a nice old PAN or Signet edition.
dont know if anybody can see this online order page outside Canada?
EDIT: heres another link for someone selling the indigo edition on abebooks, it includes a screenshot of the page where they claim public domain
Public domain to the rescue! Bless Canada, and may it become a model for the rest of the world. Your next mission Caractacus, should you choose to accept it, is to track down that Canada-only annotated edition of Casino Royale!
As we said on the previous page, annotated editions would be good as a way of IFP finding more print, I'd like to see that.
That Canadian edition looks like it has a die cut cover, like the old Pan (?) FRWL I think it was. Still not sure how they can sell those as I would have thought James Bond is still trademarked there, even if the books themselves are public domain.
I notice that the trademarked phrase "James Bond" is never used on the front covers. That might be how Indigo can sell the books without infringing on the trademark.
Something similar went on with Felix the Cat. Many of Felix's silent cartoons are in public domain, but the character is trademarked by Dreamworks. So when Tommy Stathes, the world's foremost champion of silent cartoons, released his Blu-Ray of Felix cartoons, he titled it Otto Messmer's Feline Follies and used a vintage poster with an early version of Felix as the cover. Not once did he use the phrase "Felix the Cat."
@emtiem I dont know the legalities, I just know Indigo is publishing their own editions of the Fleming books, and there is also a Canada only short story collection called Licence Expired.
Here is the publication notes page from that edition of LaLD, from the abebooks link above. note the fourth paragraph, where they assert their own rights reserved! I'm probably not even allowed to link to this screenshot according to that wording, uh-oh (can you even see the screenshot outside of Canada? if not, I'll abuse image uploading priveleges one more time in the name of Bondian scholarship)
I read an article the other day about an upcoming lo-budget horror movie with Winnie the Pooh as a horror movie monster. allowable because A A Milne's first book has fallen in the public domain (Tigger, who was introduced in the sequel, is still copywrited) . I've often seen it stated Disney keeps forcing copyright periods to be extended for ever longer periods of time so that they never lose ownership of Mickey Mouse, but the same article said that specifically the Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse shall also fall into public domain soon. Not later images of Mickey Mouse, but that very first version is somehow its own thing. again, I don't understand the legalities.
@Revelator I havent forgotten youre looking for that edition of Casino Royale. classic Mission Impossible quotes are good incentive though, I'll work harder to find it I promise
speaking of early animation, isnt your avatar Oswald the Lucky Rabbit? if you ever run out of Fleming rarities to talk about, you should start an early animation thread! My favourites are the early Fleisher cartoons, but you seem to like cartoons even earlier than that.
As a Law graduate it never ceases to amaze me how lawyers and those in the know can exploit loopholes in the law to their own benefit. I suppose it's the old saying about necessity being the mother of invention. It seems that there's nearly always a sneaky way around things if you know the law and are creative enough in exploiting its in-built weaknesses.
It's a puzzle. Obviously anyone can write the words 'James Bond 007' in a book, just like anyone can write a book naming Coca-Cola without having to own the trademark, but I'd have thought there would be some protection over using that trademark in the situation of a book starring that literary character. These things seem to have many ins and outs.
The current books here all have credits in the front for Danjaq owning 'James Bond' and '007' (so not sure how Indigo are using 007 on their covers) which IFP use under licence (not the publishers, incidentally; which seems kind of surprising), can that really just because they put it on the cover?
That fourth paragraph must be boilerplate legalese dropped into every book Indigo publishes. It's only legal standing would be to prohibit literal reproduction of the Indigo edition rather than its text, which presumably has been unaltered by the company. Now if Indigo had added stuff to Fleming, it could copyright those editions and slap on stickers: "Now with EXTRA Sex, Snobbery, and Sadism!"
The Steamboat Willie version of Mickey will indeed fall into public domain soon, so any animators hoping to appropriate him must make sure he conforms exactly to the that film's portrayal. No eyes with pupils or cute Disney speaking voice, or the lawyers will feast. But if Mickey utters random grunts and spends his time abusing farm animals, you'll be fine.
My avatar is indeed Oswald the Lucky Rabbit! He appeared in lots of shorts but my favorites are the 1929-32 Oswald cartoons directed by Bill Nolan at the Walter Lantz studio. An early animation thread would be a good idea, especially since so much is on YouTube. The early '30s Fleischer cartoons are wonderfully crazy--no Halloween is complete without a screening of Bimbo's Initiation and Swing You Sinners!
Thank you, @Revelator! Imaginary Conversations - Page 83 — ajb007
I quite like those Indigo covers, with the small gunsight on the map location where a majority of the action takes place.
I reported on the Indigo editions at the MI6 board and received a response from NickTwentyTwo:
"I worked at Indigo when these editions came out. The colour circle on the front is a hole in the cover, that when opened, reveals a map of where the story largely takes place, fairly cool. I actually had no idea if these were censored or not but I’m glad they don’t appear to be (I’ll check later today for sure). I’ve only got Goldfinger in this edition."
As Red Kind said, yes. I wonder how they deal with Royale-les-Eaux! 😊
I have the complete Indigo set and find them to be a nice uniform series, if unspectacular. However, the set does not include "The Man With the Golden Gun." Canadian copyright law at the time was limited to 50 years after the creator's death, but unpublished works by creators who died after 1948 but before 1999 retained their copyright until 2049. As Fleming died in 1964 and TMWTGG was only published in April 1965, that title falls into that category (as does "Octopussy and the Living Daylights" which Indigo also didn't publish). For no apparent reason other than a possible aversion to short stories, the series is also missing "For Your Eyes Only." So for completionists, it's not even a complete set of what they could have published. Incidentally, Canadian copyright law changed last December and it's now 70 years after the death of the creator. However, it's not retroactive and therefore Fleming remains in the public domain here (with the exception of TMWTGG and OATLD).
So as an aside.... the prices of these are skyrocketing... I had picked up the complete set of the Penguin press editions with the pulp style art a few years back despite having everything Folio has done so far.. And as they were cheap and I liked the cover art I snagged them..... However after I saw the prices online recently I just dumped them for $500 I may go browse the used bookstores myself this week.
I'm looking forward to picking up my favourite Fleming Bond when it comes out here in July. I rather like the simplicity of the cover.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
Although rather generic it does at least recall the classic painted Pan paperbacks cover for Moonraker which I first picked up second hand in 1996. It was also the first Bond novel I ever read in the summer of 1997 so it has a special place in my heart and remains my favourite Bond novel to this day:
Now there is also talk about trigger warnings to JB movies... here is one take on the subject. https://youtu.be/Pyu8avq4-z8?si=b77SWsXKse4_hxRr
-Mr Arlington Beech
Hi SM. Personally speaking I have no interest in reading revised copies of Fleming's work. The books were of their time, warts and all.
Author of 'An Ungentlemanly Act' and 'Execution of Duty'. The WW2 espionage series starring Harry Flynn.
Here is an early sanitised version of TMWTGG - edited for the children’s market by Target.
I have the Dr. No one of those and possibly another. I like how they take the golden gun from the 1974 film version of TMWTGG even though it was a gold plated Colt revolver in the original novel!
I have the edition of GF in that series, but I don't have ready access to it at the moment to show you (it's in the attic).
I never knew about these - how did I miss them ???
They're not terribly famous I guess and they are from the 1970s. I only know about them because I found the Dr. No one years ago second hand.
I don’t know how many of the series were actually done, I can’t remember having many pass through my hands, TMWTGG and GF certainly, but I don’t remember having DN, if you still have the book @Silhouette Man I’d love to see the cover or any other cover that anyone has!
I found some information at the 007 Magazine website about these childrens versions
Thank you that @caractacus potts so many covers that I’ve never seen before - wonderful !!
On various google searches, I have seen the Target LALD, GF and OHMSS covers, but not realised what they were, even though the Target symbol is clearly on every cover corner. I just assumed they were English language editions for foreign climes.
The Longman TB cover is also familiar.
I recognise the OUP Alpha Thriller trio but not the Hong Kong paperbacks.
The MacMillans are also often found in online searches.
However, I have never come across any of these books in second hand book shops, charity, and TBH I have not looked for them online.
I can only remember selling TMWTGG and GF - I don’t remember having any of the other Target editions - I obviously sold them too cheaply as I would imagine they would get very high prices nowadays.
Yes, I'd imagine you could make a pretty penny if you had a full set of these books in good condition for sale on eBay and the like.