Beard Liberation Front
25th February
Beard Hatred in Roald Dahl’s The Twits remains entirely unaddressed
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has expressed serious concern that in the culture war over the language used in Roald Dahl’s children’s book, nothing at all has been said about the beard hatred- pogonophobia- used in The Twits.
In The Twits, beard wearers are portrayed as people who take no care of their facial hair and have remains of their previous meals in their beard. These are common anti-beard sentiments, and Dahl was a noted beard hater.
While the Times (Editorial 25th February) along with Rishi Sunak has come out in favour of keeping Dahl’s words in the original, Beard of the Year Michael Rosen has noted that texts are not stable (Times 25th February) and can change in detail over various editions and iterations.
The BLF says that while concern has been expressed about sexist and racist words and imagery that Dahl used there has been complete silence about his beard hatred.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, while the hirsute have generally found The Twits to be humorous because its beard hatred is so exaggerated its concerning that in the debate over Dahl’s books not a word has been written about his pogonophobia. The words used to describe Mrs Twit by contrast were, rightly, slightly altered.
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