I am not a huge fan of celebrity chef and food campaigner Jamie Oliver, nor of children’s books whose main selling point is a sleb’s name on the cover, but this is just cruel:
The man once known as the Hammer of the Twizzlers has not merely apologised but professed himself “devastated” and pulled his book from sale worldwide. So how bad was it?
Billy and the Epic Escape, a humorous fantasy adventure novel, is set in England but involves a subplot where a wicked woman with supernatural powers teleports herself to Alice Springs to steal a child from a fictitiously named community called Borolama. She wants an Australian Indigenous child to join her press gang of kidnapped children who work her land because “First Nations children seem to be more connected with nature”. The adults responsible for Ruby, a young girl who lives in foster care and likes to eat desert bush food, are distracted by the woman’s promise of funding for their community projects. Once abducted, Ruby tells the English children who rescue and repatriate her that she can read people’s minds and communicate with animals and plants because “that’s the indigenous way”.
Ah, the Australian version of what TV Tropes calls the “Magical Negro”
She also tells them she is from Mparntwe (Alice Springs), yet uses words from the Gamilaraay people of New South Wales and Queensland when explaining her life in Australia.
OK, that is a research failure, or, more probably, a complete failure to realise that a quick browse of Wikipedia might be good. The (sadly almost extinct) Gamilaraay language is spoken in a region some 1,700 miles away from Alice Springs, where the unrelated Arrernte language is spoken. But given that this fictional character is already being portrayed as being able to read minds and talk to animals, surely the additional divergence from realism involved in depicting her as speaking the wrong language for her supposed place of origin does not make things much worse. It is like the way that the character Hikaru Sulu from Star Trek was meant to be Japanese but had a vaguely Filipino-sounding last name. Gene Rodenberry thought it symbolised intra-Asian peace or something. You could do that in the sixties and be praised for your progressive vision. These days the same behaviour gets your kids’ book placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, as if it were the junior version of Mein Kampf. There is no need for this. Though they did share an interest in healthy eating, Jamie Oliver is not Hitler. Give his silly book two stars on Amazon and move on.
First, Mr Oliver should be having a long hard conversation with his editors, some of that hot water was entirely predictable.
Australia (like Canada and NZ) is working through some of the unintended consequences of presumably well meant decisions made generations ago. In Canada is was the “Buried Children” thing where to date they have not been able to produce evidence of one, let alone 200 children who had allegedly died in care.
In Aus there is this saga of “stolen children”. Kids removed from their parents, put into state care etc. Aussie journalist Andrew Bolt (PBOH) put the challenge out years ago for the name of one child who was removed for no reason…..
Jamie Oliver was trying to be nice, creating a character who had a connection to nature, special abilities, and so on – and then apologised, because he was attacked.
There you have the decline of the West in two steps – the assumption that other peoples are better than us and have innate abilities we do not have (they are not – and they do not), and when attacked – not replying by saying “I was praising you”, but rather replying with a grovelling apology.
The West seems to want to be wiped out.
SkippyTony – what is actually happening is nothing to with the “unintended consequences” of X,Y,Z.
What is happening is that Westerners are being attacked, often by other Westerners (Westerners corrupted by “Critical Theory” Marxism – DEI, EDI and all that), and refuse to fight back.
Western culture seems to have developed a death wish – indeed Andrew Bolt in Australia was taken to court and punished, under demented laws put on the books by other Westerners.
It is much the same in Canada – and in other Western countries.
The establishment in Western countries (including the judges in many countries) do not even bother to hide their hatred of Western people – and, yes, they are Westerners themselves (so there is self hatred involved in this).
Winston Peters – the Maori leader of the New Zealand First Party, got sick and tired of this Critical Theory Marxism years ago.
“Do not tell me that Maori culture was feminist – women had less rights with us, not more”.
And “Do not tell me that Maori culture was peaceful – we were a warrior culture, killing each other long before you arrived here”.
Back when I was thinking about writing a book I read advice that authors must check details very very carefully because as soon as you get a technical issue wrong it immediately collapses the willing suspension of disbelief of those familiar with the subject.
Actual mistakes he made here:
1. Trying to make the book ‘inclusive’ – a complete waste of time and just opens up minefields as described. In my experience kids don’t want ‘inclusive’ literature.
2. Apologising and caving, especially as I’m sure he’s wealthy enough to have a good chance of being able to stand up against publishers and woke activists.
With my kid, when it comes to fiction we generally just stick to stuff published up to around 1990 as a cut off point, with only a few exceptions. Beatrix Potter, Enid Blyton, Michael Bond, Roald Dahl, Kenneth Graeme, Mark Twain, Aesop’s Fables, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jules Verne, Charles Dickens, Jonathan Swift etc are all in. Subversive woke rubbish we avoid. Unfortunately we can’t keep the woke entirely away from the boy in school and society but at least at home we do LOL
If you want to write anything about any non-white, non-male, non-conservative, or non-powerful people, it had better include themes of Wakanda and hidden kings.
DiscoveredJoys writes, “I read advice that authors must check details very very carefully because as soon as you get a technical issue wrong it immediately collapses the willing suspension of disbelief of those familiar with the subject.”
I think that depends on the genre. For a gritty thriller set in in the present or in a well-researched period of history, certainly. If I ever write my novel (don’t hold your breath) it will be science fiction for that very reason. Soft science fiction.
But in a children’s fantasy book, different conventions apply.
It’s moderately amusing that in an effort to be inclusive and “anti-racist” Oliver managed to write a stereotype of the 18th century romantic conception of the “Noble Savage.” How very typically progressive.
“Do not tell me that Maori culture was peaceful – we were a warrior culture, killing each other long before you arrived here”.
I have little doubt the descendants of the Chatham Island Moriori who survived the genuine 95% genocide courtesy of the Māori would agree. Mind you they would take issue with the “killing each other” bit as clearly the Māori weren’t averse to nearly wiping out overmatched and outnumbered races who were in their way.
Still at least it’s a start. A little similar candour by native Americans whose ancestors were merrily slaughtering each other throughout the last millennium or by Central Africans acknowledging their culturally systematic rounding up of victims to be sold to the transatlantic slavers would be welcome. I’m not holding my breath though.
John – the modern (Marxist Critical Theory – an Orwellian name as “Critical Theory” is totally uncritical and dogmatic) history of New Zealand is simple – the Maori arrived in a virgin land, no other people had ever lived there (and anyone who says different is a RACIST) – the Maori lived lives of wonderful Communism (Rousseau and Karl Marx) holding all goods in common and being entirely peaceful, and living in harmony with nature – but then evil white capitalists arrived and murdered everyone and stole everything.
This is the story according to the education system and the media.
And similar packs-of-lies are told about Canada, the United States, and so on.
Martin – yes.
Blunder one – trying to be “inclusive” (trying to follow the Critical Theory line without even understanding it is Marxist).
Blunder two – apologising. The left have no mercy, no pity – they take an apology as a sign of weakness, and attack even more savagely.
John the modern (Marxist Critical Theory – an Orwellian name as “Critical Theory” is totally uncritical and dogmatic) history of New Zealand is simple – the Maori arrived in a virgin land, no other people had ever lived there (and anyone who says different is a RACIST) – the Maori lived lives of wonderful Communism (Rousseau and Karl Marx) holding all goods in common and being entirely peaceful and respectful of the rights of women, and living in harmony with nature (Rousseau again) – but then evil white Capitalists arrived, murdered everyone and stole everything.
This is the story according to the education system and the media – including the entertainment media.
And similar packs-of-lies are told about Canada, the United States, and so on.
Martin – yes.
Blunder one – trying to be “inclusive” (trying to follow the Critical Theory line without even understanding it is Marxist).
Blunder two – apologising. The left have no mercy – they take an apology as a sign of weakness, and attack even more savagely.
’…Mr Oliver should be having a long hard conversation with his editors…’
Should he? Isn’t it by encouraging this sort of nonsense by having ‘cultural advisors’ entirely their fault in the first place? After all, would anyone else expect a Stone Age culture with no history of written language to be consulted on the writing of a children’s book?
What a pity Gordon Ramsey didn’t write it instead, I could imagine his response might be a bit more pithy.
I agree that is exactly what it was like 🙂 Of course it was. The whole “woke” view of “indigineous peoples” is stunningly patronising. It is “The Noble Savage” all over again with the woke’s projections onto whole other cultures. Yes, the same woke who accuse the rest of us of “colonialism”, “cultural appropriation” and all that, er… jazz.
I have a theory. We have, historically, an approximately constant level of prudery, taboo and similar. What changes is what and what isn’t allowed. We might laugh at an Edwardian for having a “fit of the vapours” over the glance of a well-turned female ankle but what would that terrible tweed-coated prude from 120 years ago think of our taboos?
Was the destruction of Oscar Wilde really that different from the trans cult? Is not Tavistock our Reading Jail?
OK, example… I recently watched “Zone of Interest” which was about the home-life of Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz. It had a “trigger warning”. Was this about genocide? No. It was that the movie contained “alcohol and tobacco use”. If Rudi’s only sin in life was the occasional cigar and glass of schnapps after dinner… Like the smoke of his cigar was the real evil. Not that of the crematoria…
Hitler was a non-smoking teetotal vegetarian, so he must have been the good guy.
NickM – Oscar Wilde destroyed himself, he sued a man for libel – when all that man had done is tell the truth. That opened the box – although, I agree, homosexual acts should NOT be illegal.
As for the attitude to Rudolf Hoess – well, according to the modern “Woke” Jews are “exploiters and oppressors” (as, according to them, all inequality is “injustice” – the “Palestinians” are poor because they are “exploited and oppressed” by the “capitalist Jews”), so it is natural for them to have some sympathy for the “final solution” of the National Socialists which was based on the “Social Justice” doctrine.
What is interesting is that some people from Jewish families go along with this. And not just the modern Frankfurt School types – Dr Karl Marx himself “What is the God of the Jew? Money! What is the religion of the Jew? Hucksterism!” – the charming Dr Marx also described a rival socialist as a “Jewish Nigger” and said it was apt that the area this man represented in the French Assembly included the Paris Zoo – as “he is nearer to the animal kingdom than the rest of us”. Fred Engels agreed with his pal Karl.
For some reason Karl Marx is never “cancelled” – and his followers go from strength to strength in the universities and all the cultural institutions.
Paul,
Wilde was perhaps a poor example but I do think there is value in my “feory”. There always has to be deplorables and who they are changes – sometimes rapid u-turns. For many of “the left” the single-mother on benefits turned supserstar author (and staunch Labourite) JK Rowling went almost overnight from a great heroine to a demoness. This is because the goalposts shifted. And weirdly. I can recall a time (not that long ago) when yes, JKR would have been seen odd for defining a woman as an adult human female with XX chromosomes. Back then it would have been seen as weird because it would have been a pronouncement of the obvious so why state it? A society, it would appear, always seems to need heroes and villians and a way of defining them and that seems arbitary. It has nothing to do with real heroism or villiany. It’s just what is and isn’t morally acceptable (or even to be celebrated) or unacceptable (or even abhorred) varies. If you take a long enough view this is absurd. But by then some other issue will be the cause.