I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WB EZ Chicago.

Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.

Listen wherever you get your podcast.

From WBEZ Chicago, this is Nerdette. I'm Greta Johnson. We did it. We made it to another weekend. Coming up, the delightful Zoe Chow is in the new party down reboot on Stars. And she says it totally triggered work nightmares she used to have when she was bartending to make ends meet. I found it very triggering. And I didn't anticipate that. But first, let's take a minute to

sit back and relax this time with two of my favorite Chicago podcasters. Today, we have the host of

CityCast Chicago, Jacoby Cochran. Jacoby, welcome back. Thank you for having me. I appreciate you.

Also, here is the host of WBEZ's The Run Down Podcast, Aaron Allen. Aaron, welcome to Nuredette. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Oh my gosh. So thrilled to have you. Okay. So I want to start with what I think is some super interesting book news. This is about Roll Doll, who of course is the classic author behind books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach. He's getting kind of a facelift. And what I mean by that is that the publisher of his books is editing them, even though the author died more than 30 years ago. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the word fat was changed to enormous. Umpalumpas were originally small men. Now they are small people. There's mention of a weird African language and the word weird was removed. The company that manages Dahl's copyright worked with a company that focuses on inclusion in books. And they said they did it to make sure that his works could still

be enjoyed by kids today. They said the changes were, quote, small but carefully considered.

Some people are alarmed by this. They're calling it censorship. Others are arguing this is all

about making sure the IP can thrive and not really about inclusive language at all.

What do you all think? Like, are these updates necessary? You know, I think that inclusive language at all. What do you all think? Like, are these updates necessary?

You know, I think that inclusive language is really important. I love a lot of these stories.

I've mostly consumed them in movie form. I appreciate some of those changes for sure.

Like an African language is not weird just by virtue of being an African language.

But on the other hand, I think that there is value in showing folks what writing used to be like and helping readers understand the context in

which someone was writing who they were, right?

And the time that they were writing in.

Yeah.

People were gendering their characters.

...