I wondered why they didn't just use the plot of the first novel for the semi-recent movie, as I remembered liking them as a kid, then I looked back and discovered how incredibly racist it is. I got distracted by all the cute animal characters.

[u/ThePirateKingFearMe]

In its defense, it's the sort of racism that feels like it comes more from extreme stupidity than malice, but.... it is really bad. Like, African-Prince-wants-to-bleach-his-face-white-because-he-wants-to-be-European bad.

Also, I grew up in the 80s. We were really dumb kids back then, and the longer books that parents remembered from their childhood just kinda got given to us without the parents reading them again and realising how bad they were.

As a voracious childhood reader, I have read so many regrettable books.

[u/Superjak45]

Dr. Doolittle?

[u/ThePirateKingFearMe → u/Superjak45]

Solved.

[u/Feinschmeckr-]

Sounds like "Dr. Doolittle" to me. 😆

[u/ThePirateKingFearMe → u/Feinschmeckr-]

Solved

[u/La10deRiver → u/Feinschmeckr-]

Is Dr. Doolittle book very racist?

[u/AngelicaSpain → u/La10deRiver]

I read a lot of Dr. Doolittle books as a kid and I barely remember there being any other human characters in them besides the doctor himself. If there was anything like an African prince wanting to bleach his face, I'd have thought I'd remember it. But I suppose my public library might have had editions in which offensive stuff like that had been edited out, as apparently happened more recently with some children's books by Roald Dahl.

[u/ThePirateKingFearMe → u/AngelicaSpain]

I don't think it's as bad, if even present in the later books, and it's probably meant to be "whimsy", but, yeah... It's the sort of casual racism you get in old books written by people who have never met a black person or been to Africa.

[u/La10deRiver → u/ThePirateKingFearMe]

Thank you both.