Posted in: Comics | Tagged: beano, daily mail, private eye

When The Daily Mail Gets "Woke" Over The Beano Comic

The Daily Mail loves a story about how "woke" the British weekly kids comic The Beano that has been running almost as long as Action Comics, is getting, Woke might actually mean being aware of injustice around you, especially racial injustice, but The Daily Mail has decided, as have many people, it's the hip replacement for "politically correct". Or for "something from my childhood is changing for reasons I don't understand". Here are a few recent headlines;

• The Beano will stop using the nickname Fatty for a character and call them Freddy instead to stop children using the term in a 'mean' way – 22nd of May 2021
• Don't take the fun out of being a Fatty! As The Beano renames its (very) big star to avoid offence, generously upholstered writer LEO McKINSTRY insists it's a load of trifle -= 25th of May 2021

Let's run an except from that one, "woke enthusiasms threaten to airbrush this type out of our national story. In the latest advance of political correctness, even the most innocent of childhood stories and images are now being turned into instruments of fashionable propaganda. It was reported recently that much-loved cartoon strip The Bash Street Kids — which has appeared in The Beano comic since 1954 — has given one of its most memorable kids, the rotund schoolboy known as Fatty, a makeover to bring him into line with the sensitivities of our age. From now on, Fatty is to be known as Freddy so that his name does not upset youngsters who might be struggling with weight issues. In effect, The Beano, long cherished for its outlandish characters and plots, is being turned into a 'safe space', free of 'triggers'."

• The Woke Street Kids! The Beano's Fatty has been renamed Freddy to avoid offence – so the Mail's had a bash at an alternative cartoon strip – 28th of May 2021
• CRAIG BROWN: Harrumph! The Beano has gone all PC… Eight things you didn't know about the comic – 28th October 2021
• Has the Beano joined the softies? Classic comic is changing pimpled Bash Street Kid Spotty's name to Scotty over fears it is 'upsetting modern readers' – 18th December 2021
• Gnasher's gone VEGAN! Dennis the Menace's sausage-chomping pet gets woke revamp in latest edition of Beano – even though dog owners could face £20,000 fine for feeding them dangerous diet – 17th January 2022

And more. You get the picture. But on the Mail+ subscription site of the website, one recent story about The Beano caused consternation of a different kind.

A story about a copy of the first issue from 1938 selling for three thousand pounds, but I wonder why the Daily Mail website felt the need to blur out the top bit of that comic? Let's check an actual copy.

Ah, yes. It was a different time, etc. But what is happening with this "woke" Daily Mail airbrushing over the past like that? Don't they know we won the war/bloody snowflake wokeflakes/this is political correctness gone mad, etc etc etc…

Hat-tip to Private Eye Magazine.

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