France Cancels Beauty and the Beast Book; Artist Cites Racism
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French artist Julien “Jul“ Berjeaut was commissioned to illustrate an modernized version of Beauty and the Beast, but the French Education Ministry cancelled the order citing minor children characters using social media and Belle’s father depicted as inebriated and holding a bottle. However, Algerian born Jul, suggests that his depiction of Belle as “brown skin and black curly hair” might be too much of a change for traditional depictions of princesses for an government that has been flirting with far-right.
The AFP gives us the education minister’s description of the book contested content.
Beside the book recounting his business woes and him being “put on trial for his goods”, he draws a ship arriving from abroad and police officers with a sniffer dog inspecting boxes unloaded from his car.
“It’s a modern rewriting. We have a father coming from Algeria, who must have committed fraud and is stopped by police,” Education Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Thursday.
“Perhaps in a setting with teachers, we could explain this,” she told the CNews/Europe1 broadcaster. “But it’s a book that is supposed to be read on holiday with the family.
“It is certainly an interesting work, but not for this educational setting,” she added.
Jul speculates that racism was involved.
“The only explanation seems to lie in disgust at seeing a world of princes and princesses who looks a little more like that of schoolchildren today,” Jul said.
Alluding to far-right conspiracy theories about non-white immigration into Europe, he asked whether he had crossed a boundary for the ministry in “the ‘great replacement’ of blond princesses by young Mediterranean girls”.
AfricaNews English notes that the modernized version of Beauty and the Beast is part of the “A book for the holidays” program giving French students a book to read over the summer. Previous books included La Fontaine’s Fables, Homer’s The Odyssey and Jean Giono’s The Man Who Planted Trees. With this cancellation, students are unlikely to receive a book for the holidays book this summer.
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