The extra ‘disgusting’ detail in this Greg James Roald Dahl adaptation is so misjudged it’s completely off the scale
The more we try to think how this can possibly have happened, the further away we get from an answer.
It’s a new ‘adapation’ of Roald Dahl’s The Twits by Radio 1 DJ Greg James and sidekick Chris Smith, but that’s not the half (or even a hundredth of it).
The publisher did a Twitter reveal on Friday, containing one particular feature of a character to make them even more ‘disgusting’. And it’s so misjudged it’s completely off the scale.
The video was subsequently taken down – so here’s a transcript – for reasons that are about to become jaw-droopingly obvious.
‘What do you think?
‘So nearly there.
‘She needs to be more revolting. Really gross. Horrible. What about him? This guy, great really good, love the flies around the head. More flies.
‘Beard. Beard needs to be bigger. Dirtier, bigger and dirtier. Flies, excellent, we’re nearly there. Love it.
‘And what about a glass eye?
‘A glass eye.
‘She needs. A glass eye. That’s it.
‘What a disgusting pair of twits!’
And we might very well be guilty of overusing the phrase ‘and the internet spoke as one’ but in this case, the internet really did speak as one.
guys, this video is a mistake. adding a disability into a book as a proof of why a character is horrible is a mistake. please consider taking this down and bringing a sensitivity reader onto this project, because treating disability this way is just not acceptable.
— hux | lizzie huxley-jones (@littlehux) April 5, 2024
In the words of @DrFrancesRyan
“That is the thing with true ugliness. It does not come in the shape of a wheelchair, a cleft lip, white cane or scars. It sits in prejudice, digging and clawing its way into our culture.” You have proved her words perfectly correct with this video.— Oscaaargh ️⚧️ (@SkeletonOscar) April 5, 2024
We’ve literally just had national news where disabled kids are being banned from school photos and you thought this was okay
— Rachel Charlton-Dailey (@RachelCDailey) April 5, 2024
Why would you want children to associate a glass eye, or any disability with being ‘horrible’?
What do you think children will learn from that?
What do you think that will feel like to disabled children?— Bela Lugosi’s bed (@nimbus_nought) April 5, 2024
This is a real mistake. I would take it down now. Having taught more than one child with a prosthetic eye – and with other eye conditions- I know that the very last thing they need is for a respected adult to be saying that their disability is ‘disgusting’.
— Ed Finch (@MrEFinch) April 5, 2024
Why stop at appearances? Maybe you should give the characters some really unlikeable personality traits like thinking people with a glass eye are disgusting.
— Sarah Clarke (@DamselDystopia) April 5, 2024
I’m a blind parent. How do I explain to my Little One that other people think Mummy is ‘disgusting’ because I have a visual impairment.
How many children will now receive the message that blindness & eye prosthesis is a ‘horrible’ quality that makes someone a bad person? https://t.co/0MtRMAc6Yo
— Dr Amy Kavanagh (@BlondeHistorian) April 5, 2024
I cannot comprehend how this got this far. I can imagine, however, the crushing, unnecessary shame it would heap on a child with a disability to read this, to hear this; to have their disability used as a reason they are ‘disgusting’. It’s out and out ableism. Appalling.
— Wendy Pratt (@wondykitten) April 5, 2024
Here is what the RNIB had to say.
When there’s positive representation of disabilities in children’s books, children with disabilities feel seen and heard, and their friends and classmates treat everyone the same. There is nothing at all revolting about prosthetic eyes, we think they’re brilliant (1/2)
— RNIB (@RNIB) April 5, 2024
If you’d like to talk to us about encouraging acceptance and understanding of disabilities, both visible and invisible, especially children with visual impairments, our DMs are always open (2/2)
— RNIB (@RNIB) April 5, 2024
100% that.
This is so depressing to see “a prosthetic eye” equated with revulsion. I know Greg James has always been attentive of these things and I so hope the whole team listens to the disabled people in the replies asking for a rethink. Disability is not a character flaw. https://t.co/DVuwmxr9Fy
— Frances Ryan (@DrFrancesRyan) April 5, 2024
a car crash unfolding in real time, yowzer. this will be taken down in the next hour or two, and a grovelling apology about doing better will be issued after the weekend. quote me. https://t.co/gjAGyXHxTH
— Dan Hett (@danhett) April 5, 2024
Respected children’s writers and illustrators and a whole organisation and a whole publishing team get together and agree, in this plague year 2024, that the most disgusting thing to add to The Twits is … a visible disability. Scrap this now @PuffinBooks and do so much better. https://t.co/6YhvWM9cJ0
— Polly Atkin (@pollyrowena) April 5, 2024
I’m a blind parent. How do I explain to my Little One that other people think Mummy is ‘disgusting’ because I have a visual impairment.
How many children will now receive the message that blindness & eye prosthesis is a ‘horrible’ quality that makes someone a bad person? https://t.co/0MtRMAc6Yo
— Dr Amy Kavanagh (@BlondeHistorian) April 5, 2024
UPDATE!
Here’s what Greg James had to say about it later on Friday.
Hello! Regarding our new Twits story announcement video from this morning:
We are so sorry to have caused offence with the launch video. It was absolutely not our intention. And we apologise unreservedly. It’s now gone. We understand that words matter and we pride ourselves on…
— Greg James (@gregjames) April 5, 2024
Source @PuffinBooks