You Can’t Say That Any More

Is The Sound of Music insensitive to deaf people, or The Barber of Seville cruel to the follicly challenged? In this age of gender fluidity, is the title Guys and Dolls acceptable when the more tasteful People of Unspecified Gender would do?

Protecting delicate sensibilities from the harmful values of yesteryear, You Can’t Say That Any More reveals the shocking danger around us in the books, films and TV shows we used to cherish. From Bambi to Bleak House, from the lack of balcony safeguarding in Romeo and Juliet to the troubling depiction of body dysmorphia in The Very Hungry Caterpillar, we are surrounded on all sides by danger, depravity and profoundly harmful messaging.

Titles taken to task and put on the naughty step (at long last!) include: Postman Pat, Middlemarch, Happy Days, My Fair Lady, the Bible, Pride and Prejudice, Peanuts, Dante’s Divine Comedy, The Wombles, Star Wars, the weather forecast, Bagpuss, Casablanca, Homer’s Iliad and many, many more!

Each entry includes trigger warnings, suggested edits, alternative plots and helpful rewritings of deeply problematic books, films, plays, television series and musicals.

Over 100 all-time favourites disapproved of at length and in detail.

Format: Hardback
Pages: 240
Imprint: ABACUS
Publication date: 11/02/2025