The Secret World of Roald Dahl - The Interview

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

At the height of his fame, Dahl picks up the phone for an interview and makes bigoted remarks that will haunt his legacy forever. A difficult question emerges that affects how we think about all artists, but especially those who shape our children’s imaginations. Featuring conversations with Roxane Gay, and The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg.    Follow "The Secret World of Roald Dahl": Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/secretworldpod/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SecretWorldPod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@secretworldpod YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SecretWorldPod X: https://x.com/SecretWorld_Pod See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hello, gorgeous. It's Lala Kent. Host of Untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up cups at sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley. Live on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala,

I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate. It's unruly, it's unruly, unafraid, it's untraditionally Lala. Listen to Untraditionally Lala on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. get your podcast. Most people out here think that taking care of one another is important. And most people would step up for a neighbor going through a tough time. Most people around here help out friends and family when they need it. But the funny thing is, most of us won't look for help when we need it.

Talk to someone if you're struggling with mental health because most people out here really care. Find more information at loveyourmindtay.org. That's loveyourmindtay.org. Brought to you by the Hunsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council. Now everybody over here? Oh, it's one of my other favorite places. The Twilight Gazebo. Sunset Gardens. Twilight gazebo.

What's next? Dead man's grove? Mom, could you please try to be a little bit positive about this? From Kenya Barris, the visionary creator of Blackish, comes Big Age, an audible original about finding your way in life's next chapter. This audio comedy series follows a retired couple's reluctant relocation to Sunset Gardens, a Floridian senior community that is anything but relaxing. Starring Comedy Legends Jennifer Lewis, Cedric the Entertainer, and Nisi Nashvettes.

Through its blend of outrageous comedy, key party anyone, and touching revelations, big age explores what it means to grow older without growing old at heart. Go to audible.com slash big age series to start listening today. I'm Kristen Davis. host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? In 1998, my life was forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte York on a new show called Sex and the City. Now I get to sit down with some of my favorite people and relive all of the incredible moments this show brought us on and off the screen. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. Before we start, one production note. In this episode, we again have quotes from Roll Doll. Rather than just have me read them in my Terrible British accent, we decided to bring them to life. So we use an actor's performance and some custom software to create a doll-like voice. Okay, on to the episode. Roll Doll sits comfortably at home, giving what should be a casual, breezy phone interview to a popular magazine called The New Statesman. It's 1983. Dahl is at this point, without question, the most famous and most successful children's author of all time. The BFG came out of the just last year, and was a phenomenon. The Witches is about to be published to critical acclaim.

On the phone with Dahl is Michael Corrin, a young theater critic. Corrin is just out of college. He's not an experienced journalist or some sort of master interrogator. This isn't some kind of brilliant gotcha moment, but Dahl is in one of his dark moods. Corinne asked about a book review that Dahl recently wrote. The book centered on the very thorny topic of Israel's invasion of Lebanon the previous year. Dahl decides he doesn't just want to talk about the book, or his review of it. He wants to widen things. He wants to talk about the Holocaust. You know, the generational tragedy where six million Jewish men, women, and children were systematically exterminated? It might be the most softball topic in all of journalism. Anyone in their

right mind recognizes the immense scale of the horror and expresses a firm desire for it never to be forgotten and to never happen again. Instead, here's what Roll Doll says to the young journalist. There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity. Maybe it's a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews. I mean, there's always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere. And then he goes on to say, even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason. Ugh, okay, this is what we've been waiting for, folks. Here we go. For my hard podcast, Imagine Entertainment, and Parallax. I'm Aaron Tracy, and this is The Secret World of Roll Doll. Episode 7. Now, if you're worried we're about to waste a whole lot of time

dissecting one unrepresentative quote that didn't really reflect who Doll was or what he believed in, don't be. The quote I just read wasn't a one-off comment. There's extensive evidence of doll's bigotry. Doll biographer, Jeremy Treglone, records a bunch of problematic stuff that Dahl said and did throughout his life. At his social club, for instance, Dahl's daughter Tessa remembers her father complained about the number of Jews who were members. He got drunk one night and stood up to make a speech. Diner's at nearby tables told him to shut up. Dahl was thrown out, and his club membership was revoked, says Treglone. Dahl's editor, the legendary Robert Gottlieb, who worked with so many brilliant writers from Nora Ephron to Tony Morrison to Robert Caro,

he believes that Dahl's prejudice against Jews grew worse after he and Dahl's. had a falling out. Now, a little context. Career-wise, Dahl was on top, having already published most of his iconic children's books. But in his personal life, Dahl was a bit of a mess. He had divorced Patricia Neal after 30 years of marriage. He was in constant physical pain from back surgery stemming from that crash in the desert decades earlier. And while he's having all this career success, he's very insecure about people thinking he can only write for kids. So, when he's offered the chance to review a book about Israel in a literary journal, he sees it as a rare opportunity to write for adults. And he's going to make the most of it. As I mentioned, the review comes out

in 1983. It's not excusing Dahl to say that certain prejudices were more common in mainstream culture back then. Just look at our movies of the era. Some of the biggest films of 1983 to 1984 were 16 Candles, the John Hughes Classic, featuring Long Duck Dong, the Chinese exchange shooting. Trading places, the Eddie Murphy breakout, which includes blackface, along with a bunch of class-based stereotypes. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where Indian characters are depicted as either noble mystics or bloodthirsty savages. And on TV, Three's Company is the big show, which is basically one long gay panic joke. Now, a confession. I still love some of those movies, And that's part of why this is so complicated.

I can still laugh at a lot of the jokes in training places and just ignore the offensive ones. But I know I'm in a privileged position to be able to do that. And of course, not everybody wants to do that. So back to that book review. It's just as problematic as the interview he gives about it. It's for the journal Literary Review. The book tells the story of the recent Israeli siege of Beirut.

But in his review, Dahl goes beyond the contents of the book. He takes the opportunity to write a passionate denouement of the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he broadens into an attack on Israel and Jewish people everywhere. And, yes, this has a ton of contemporary relevance. The same stuff is happening all over again today. Here's the beginning of Dahl's book review.

In June 1941, I happened to be in, of all places, Palestine, flying with the REF against the Bishi French and the Nazis. Hitler happened to be in Germany and the gas chambers were being built, and the mass slaughter of the Jews was beginning. Our hearts pled for the Jewish men, women and children, and we hated the Germans. Okay, so far, Dahl is throwing in some of his own biography to relate to the contents of the book.

And then he continues. Exactly 41 years later, in June 1982, the Israeli forces were streaming northwards out of what used to be Palestine into Lebanon and the mass slaughter of the inhabitants began. Our hearts bled for the Lebanese and Palestine, men, women and children, and we all started hating the Israelis. Okay, so he's connecting what he saw as a pilot in the war with what he sees now. But then he ramps up to this, referring to the Jewish people.

Never before in the history of man has a race of people switched so rapidly from being much-pitted victims to barbarous murderers. Never before has a race of people generated so much sympathy around the world and then, in the space of a lifetime, succeeded in a... in turning that sympathy into hatred and revulsion. It is as though a group of much-loved nuns in charge of an orphanage had suddenly turned around and started murdering all the children. He continues,

It is like the good old Hitler and Himmler times all over again. Wow, there's a lot there. Like calling a whole race of people, namely the Jews, barbarous murderers, because he opposes the actions of a handful of people in the Israeli government. Honestly, I'm just not a lot of people. enough of an expert in these issues to do this conversation justice. So I want to bring in someone who is. Yair Rosenberg has dedicated his professional life to studying and thinking about this stuff

in a really brilliant way. Yair is a writer for the Atlantic. He's also written for the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, you name it. He speaks around the world on the topic of anti-Semitism. And I love this. He's credited with coining the sarcastic internet term, gerbils gap, which is the amount of time between a negative event transpiring in the world and someone finding a way to blame it on the Jews. I'm going to ask Geyer to help provide context for various things to all said. This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us. The United States will not stand by and allow any power, however great, take over another country. From My Heart Podcasts, Saigon. Please allow me to introduce Joseph Sherman.

You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? I should stop talking so much. I like hearing you talk. One city, a divided country, and the war that tore America apart. This is for Vietnam. I've taken a hit from Japanese ground fire. Do you rate me? They're pouring petrol all over him.

He's holding matches. I'm on a landmine. Four free time. Let's get out. Freedom from Vietnam. Run! Saigon, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Rob Benedict. Staying here.

madness. The world should hear about this. There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything. Listen to Saigon on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, gorgeous, it's Lala Kent. Host of Untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up Cubsid Sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley. Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate. I've been full on over sharing with fans, family, and former frenemies like Tom Schwartz. I had a little bone to pick with Schwarzy when he came on the pod.

You don't feel bad that you told me I was a bootleg housewife? I almost flipped a pizza in your lap. Oh my God, I literally forgot about that until just now. Sorry, I don't want to blame alcohol. I got to blame that one on the alcohol. This is about laughing and learning when life just keeps on life in. Because I make mistakes so that you guys don't have to. We're growing, we're thriving.

And yes, sometimes we're barely surviving, but we do it all with love. It's unruly, it's unruly, it's unawraid, it's Untraditionally Lala. Listen to Untraditionally Lala on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Most people out here think that taking care of one another is important. And most people would step up for a neighbor going through a tough time. Most people around here help out friends and family when they need it. But the funny thing is, most of us won't look for help when we need it. Talk to someone if you're struggling with mental health.

Because most people out here really care. Find more information at loveyourmindtay.org. That's loveyourmindtay.org. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council. Now everybody over here? Oh, it's one of my other favorite places. The Twilight Gazebo. Suns set gardens.

Twilight gazebo. What's next? Dead man's grove? Mom, could you please try to be a little bit positive? positive about this. From Kenya Barris, the visionary creator of Blackish, comes Big Age, an audible original about finding your way in life's next chapter. This audio comedy series follows a retired couple's reluctant relocation to Sunset Gardens,

a Floridian senior community that is anything but relaxing. Starring Comedy Legends Jennifer Lewis, Cedric the Entertainer, and Nisi Nashvettes, through its blend of outrageous comedy, Key Party Anyone, and Touching Revelations. Big Age explores what it means to grow older without growing old at heart. Go to audible.com slash big age series to start listening today. First up, I ask Gaiyar, why blaming all Jews for the actions of the Israeli leadership is thought to be anti-Semitic? Yeah. So there's a general human tendency here and a particular anti-Jewish one.

Generally speaking, a lot of prejudice takes the form of people looking at a minority group and saying anybody in this minority community that does anything or says anything reflects on the entire group and every person in it, such that if you're a member of a minority, you're collectively culpable for what anyone else in that minority may say or do anywhere, no matter where they are, and no matter your connection or lack they're off to those people. And that's not unique to Jews, right? That's textbook, racism, textbook, bigotry. Think the spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes after 9-11, which was people taking out anger at a specific group of fundamentalist terrorists, on everyday Americans who happen to have some identifying characteristic that they associated with them.

And so that is the general human tendency towards prejudice. That's, you know, an old, old thing that many of us have experienced were seen. And then there's this specifically Jewish version of it, where you see people saying that, yeah, all Jews are to blame for anything else, any other Jew did in my perception. But you have to think of Rodal in this particular context. He was raised on a continent that for centuries persecuted, abused, expelled, and murdered Jews over allegations of what other Jews thousands of miles away did in the Middle East, namely they allegedly killed Jesus. And that was seen to justify centuries of anti-Semitism on the European continent. Rodal grows up in that place, right?

That sort of way of thinking about Jews is part of what pays the way for the Holocaust and the ideas of the Nazis spread. It's not particularly new. It does get secularized later on, where the Jews in Europe and the United States and elsewhere get attacked over whatever Jews thousands of miles away in the Middle East may have done and that somebody is angry about. It's not exactly different. It's just the names change. And so in that way,

Da was reflecting a general human tendency towards prejudice, and he's also reflecting a very age-old story that people tell about Jews. And I think, actually, he's not particularly unique in this respect.

As you can see, this is a very common way of thinking about minorities as mendacious monoliths. What is unique is us asking the question and saying, maybe we shouldn't do that.

We're the exception. He's actually the rule. Interesting. And, I mean, we see this a lot today. Obviously, what's going on in Israel and Gaza, right now is, you know, on the front page every day. And people are doing it again. People are

blaming Jews in America, Jews all over the world with what the Israeli government is doing right now to the Palestinians. Yeah, it's a very similar dynamic. If Rodal was alive today, he would be doing the same thing. He'd be blurring these lines between actions committed by an Israeli government at a specific place in time for specific people with all Jews around the world, rather than treating everybody as individuals and judging them based on those characteristics. It's disheartening, and obviously it's wrong, but it's just something that's always been with us

as human beings. It's a sort of a shortcut we use for thinking about minority groups that we don't know well, rather than trying to get to know them and to understand them in their complexity and diversity, we often try to reduce them to stereotypes,

and in some cases that means negative stereotypes or the worst thing that anyone has ever said or done in that group. There is a parallel to this because it's a very old thing. Ever since Israel has existed, there have been people who have been angry about this or that Israeli policy

that have taken that out on proximate Jews, and before Israel existed, whatever Jews in the Middle East did was also taken out on, you know, any nearby approximate Jews, no matter what connection they had to what happened in that place. Dole also makes reference to, quote, those powerful American Jewish bankers.

Any asserts that the United States government is, quote, utterly dominated by the great Jewish financial institutions over there. Can you talk a little bit about those anti-Semitic tropes? Sure. There are two kinds of anti-Semitism, generally speaking. One is the personal prejudice. This is the kind of bigotry that most of us are familiar with, which is, I don't like that person because they're different. They're too Jewish. They're too Muslim. They're too black.

And that's a social prejudice, and it's very harmful to the people targeted by it. There's also a different kind of anti-Semitism. That's the conspiratorial expression of anti-Semitism. And this one posits the Jews are a sinister string-pulling cabal that is behind all the world's social and economic problems. It's a theory about how the entire world works, and it all traces back to Jews,

and if you see something going wrong, there's definitely a Jew behind it, right? You perceive that there's an invisible hand. It belongs to an invisible hand. Jew. And so Rodahl here is expressing that. He did it at my understanding as in other contexts as well, not just saying Jews controlled the banks, not just saying they controlled the government. He also said they controlled the media. You know, Jews are 0.2% of the human population, right? If you were to think about this logically, even if they punched 100% above their weight, they would have 0.4% of the power.

It's just not how the world actually works. In reality, of course, Jews have been persecuted and exterminated for much of their existence because they're a tiny group that doesn't really have this kind of power or influence. And Jews themselves are extremely diverse and fractious and disagree with each other. And there are many different sects and different beliefs and they all argue with each other. And anyone who's ever spent time in a Jewish community or with Jews or around a Shabbat or Passover table knows, right, that Jews can't set the thermostat, let alone how to, you know, I don't know, control Western civilization.

But again, this is a sort of a very longstanding stereotypical way of thinking about Jews. And, you know, Dahl is reflecting it. In the case of, you know, Jewish bankers and others controlling the government, you might wonder, how did two out of every three European Jews get killed on the Holocaust if this incredible Jewish conspiracy was there running the show? It seems extremely bad at its job. And similarly speaking, there's so many, when the state of Israel was founded in 1948, America put it under an arms embargo, which is a very strange thing to do if the Jews control the government. There's a lot of examples of this in history. Lots of Jewish activists did lobby Franklin Delano Roosevelt to try to bomb the railway tracks to Auschwitz, the death camp, where so many Jews were being killed and he didn't do it. Lots of Jewish activists tried to get the United States and other countries to lift their immigrant quotas to allow more Jewish refugees to flee the Holocaust. They didn't do it. There are so many examples of this. It's kind of perverse. The anti-Semitic worldview is kind of an inversion of the reality.

It posits that this tiny group of Jews determines the fate of all the non-Jews, when in fact, logically speaking, right, the large non-Jewish majority of the world decides what the world is going to be like for a lot of different minorities, not just Jews. Here's another one, and this is one I'm certainly less familiar with than the other tropes. Talking about Jewish victims of the Holocaust, Dahl said, quote, if you and I were in a line moving towards what we knew were gas chambers, I'd rather have a go at taking one of the guards with me, but they, meaning the Jews, were always submissive. What is that about? So this is more complicated than simply some sort of anti-Semitic idea.

It's actually a critique that many people have leveled against Jewish victims of the Holocaust, which is a hardest thing to do to critique victims of the Holocaust, but it's been done. And some of the people who leveled that critique, ironically, were people that Dahl hated, Zionists. Some Zionists said that the problem of the Jews of Europe is that they didn't defend themselves and that they weren't strong enough. And so that they need a state and an army,

so that things like this can never happen again. And the irony is that Roldal is criticizing these Jewish victims of the Holocaust in the same way as some of the founders of the state of Israel criticized their Jewish forbears. And yet he doesn't support anything that Israel does, militarily. And Dahl says that Jews were too weak and pathetic and they went like lambs to their slaughter and they didn't fight back. But then when Jews go along and say, you know what, we're going to found a state and have an army and then we're going to fight back when we perceive

ourselves to be threatened. Well, then he says they're incredibly evil, bloodthirsty, and militaristic. Heads, well, Dahl wins, tails the Jews lose. And this is a very common way that bigots relate to minorities they don't like. Basically, there's nothing they can do that is right. And they're attacked for absolutely contradictory things. No matter what they do, no matter how they change, they're always subject to the same prejudice because where prejudice comes from prejudging. You've already prejudged the community. And then you come up and backfill the justifications afterwards. To go back to this specific instance for just because it's really something I don't know about, there's an idea among people that the Jews during the Holocaust should have wrestled

their Nazi guards to the ground more. They should have gotten together and wrestled them. What is? Yeah, no. So I think so exactly. So this is good because you give me a chance to say thing I should have said at the outset, which is I think it's an unfair critique, whether leveled by Zionists or ledle by Rodal the anti-Zionist, I think the idea that the Jews could have somehow overturned or walked back in any really effective capacity against this Nazi empire is not a reasonable critique. That being said, the other thing to note is that plenty of Jews did. The critique is wrong because plenty of Jews did attempt to fight back. The reason we know it wouldn't work is because they failed or they weren't successful in saving so many of the Jews. You have the Warsaw-Sogato uprising, perhaps the most famous example of to the Nazis, but it did ultimately fail. You similarly had plenty of Jews who joined the various resistance movements in different European countries against the Nazis and helped fight back and also help spirit Jews and others away to safety. All of these things actually did happen, and they did make a difference, but they weren't the

same thing as defeating the Nazis. It wasn't something that the Jews in their tiny numerical rounding error in the human population ever could have possibly done. So it's good that you've circled back because I do think you actually kind of at the foreground by saying, I think, personally, right, the critique is wrong. It's historically wrong, and it's morally inadequate. And at the same time, it is very revealing about Dahl, that he can make this critique,

and then at the same time attack Jews for being so pathetic and so inept and so weak. And then when they act strong and they're militaristic, then they're evil for being blunt-thirsty and villainous. Did he ever spell out what he actually think Jews were allowed to do and what they should be? Or, you know, is it no matter what they do, they can ever please, Roald Dahl? That was Yaya Rosenberg,

staff writer at the Atlantic, author of the newsletter, Deep Stettel. I also want to mention that while Dahl died without apologizing for his anti-Semitic comments, years after his death, the Dahl family did issue a formal apology. It was around the same time that Netflix purchased his whole catalog. Here's the statement in its entirety, which you can also see at Roldaul.com slash apology. The Dahl family and the Rold Dahl Story Company deeply apologized for the lasting and understandable hurt caused by Rold Dahl's anti-Semitic statements.

Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew and to the values at the heart of Roald Dahl's stories which have positively impacted young people for generations. We hope that, just as he did at his best, at his absolute worst, Roald Dahl can help remind us of the lasting impact of words. So, what are we supposed to do about this?

Do we accept that apology from his family? Do we chalk it all up to it being a different era? Or do we stop reading it? Dal, stop giving his books to our children. One thing that makes it especially complicated for me is that doll's personal prejudices didn't really make it into his books as far as I can tell. Some critics say they see anti-Semitic tropes in the witches. It's possible, but I don't know if I agree. And if we can't definitively locate those problematic views in his writing, and he's no longer profiting off the sales of his books, does it still make sense to stop reading them?

I'm fascinated by this question. I'm someone who constantly does the mental gymnastics that's required of all of us when we consume art from previous generations. I'll just say it outright. Some of my favorite writers and favorite filmmakers have done awful things. I don't want to have them over for dinner, but I still read the novels, still worship the movies. And of course, it's not always even previous generations. The writer Alice Monroe, who died not long ago, was revealed to have stayed with her second husband after learning that he'd sexually abused her daughter. With Roll Dahl, I think the issue is even more complicated by the fact that we encourage our kids to consume him. I would never allow a babysitter with clear, open prejudices

to be around my kids in real life. Why should authors and filmmakers be any different? Maybe because we think we have more control over how they're presented to the kids? Like, we can offer a warning, and we know what's in there and what's not in there. We know nothing crazy is going to be set off the cuff, the way it might be if a bigoted old grandmother or somebody was left alone with them. Also, forcibly taking away books and movies feels like a slippery slope. It feels a little little bit like censorship, and I hate the idea of that. I firmly believe that experiencing art is essential to being human, and that art has the capacity to do great things, even if it's created by crappy people. And I'm absolutely including children's books in that definition of art.

All kinds of art can affect positive change. Often, even more than protest movements or marches or elections can. Just look at how Americans started becoming more tolerant of gay families thanks to a silly network sitcom, Will and Grace. For your information, Will, Walter was the love of my life. You said that about each back street boy at one time or another. I also totally buy the argument that America was only able to finally elect a black president because they saw a prosperous, lovable, familiar black family on TV every week in the 1980s, namely the Cosby's.

How's it going? Great. Vanessa and Rini gave us some fascinating stuff. Yeah, they can be pretty fascinating. We're on the way to Theo's room now. Are you going inside? Yeah. Well, I would just like to say that the condition of certain rooms in this house do not necessarily reflect the views of management. Thank you. And yes, the idea that Cosby is responsible for anything good at this point is hard to believe.

But of course, there are tons of other examples of popular art creating positive change in the world. I was commissioned by A&E a few years ago to write a four-part limited TV series. about how Breakfast at Tiffany's jumpstarted the feminist movement. And Tiffany's managed that really positive outcome while also containing one of cinema's most egregious examples of anti-Asian stereotyping, namely Mickey Rooney's performance as Holly's upstairs neighbor. The racism in Tiffany's is so egregious

that it feels like you can use it as a teaching moment if you watch it with your kids. The much scarier thing to me is when the bigotry is more subtle, which brings us back to dull. I can't help thinking about a very scary, may be very pertinent metaphor, suggested by doll himself in maybe his greatest book. In the BFG, he writes that his hero has the ability to influence children's thoughts by delivering specific dreams to them while they sleep.

In the story, it's an act of kindness by a sweet, loving creature. But what if the guy delivering those dreams and influencing children's thoughts wasn't so sweet and wasn't so loving? What then? To get a better understanding of this really important issue, I want to talk to a few people. people who are really thoughtful about this stuff. I did read him growing up, and I enjoyed his books.

That's the voice of the great Roxanne Gay. She's a best-selling writer and critic. She's written novels, short stories, and even a Marvel comic. Your smartest, most engaged friend has definitely forwarded you one of her essays at some point. I'm very excited to talk to Roxanne about all of this. She has really strong, clear feelings on the subject. This is Saigon, the story of... of my family and of the country that shaped us.

The United States will not stand by and allow any power, however great, take over another country. From My Heart Podcasts, Saigon. Please allow me to introduce Joseph Sherman. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? I should stop talking so much. I like hearing you talk. One city, a divided country, and the war that tore America apart. This is for Vietnam.

I've taken a hit from Japanese ground firearm. Deuterate me. pouring petrol all over him. He's holding matches. I'm on a landmine. Or freeze on. Let's get out. Freedom, mommy. Run! Run! The Saigon. The Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Rob Benedict. Sting here's madness. The world should hear about this. There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything. Listen to Saigon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Lola Kent. Host of Untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up cups at sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley. Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate. I've been full on over sharing with fans, family, and former frenemies like Tom Schwartz. I had a little bone to pick with Schwartzie when he came on the pod. You don't feel bad that you told me I was a bootleg housewife? I almost flipped a pizza in your lap. I was so pissed. Oh my God. I literally forgot about that until just now. Sorry, I don't want to blame alcohol.

I got to blame that one on the alcohol. This is about laughing and learning when life just keeps on life in. Because I make mistakes so that you guys don't have to. We're growing, we're thriving, and yes, sometimes we're barely surviving, but we do it all with love. It's unruly, it's unafraid,

it's untraditionally la la la. Listen to Untraditionally Lala on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Most people out here think that taking care of one another is important. And most people would step up for a neighbor going through a tough time. Most people around here help out friends and family when they need it. But the funny thing is, most of us won't look for help when we need it. Talk to someone if you're struggling with mental health because most people out here really care. Find more information at loveyourmindtay.org.

That's loveyourmindtay.org. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the ad council. Now everybody over here? Oh, it's one of my other favorite places. The Twilight Gazebo. Sunset Gardens. Twilight Gazebo. What's next? Dead Man's Grove? Mom, could you please try to be a little bit positive about this? From Kenya Barris, the visionary creator of Blackish, comes Big Age, an audible original about finding your way in life's next chapter. This audio comedy series follows a retired couple's reluctant relocation to Sunset Gardens, a Floridian senior community that is anything but relaxing. Starring Comedy Legends Jennifer Lewis, Cedric the Entertainer, and Nisi Nashvettes.

Through its blend of outrageous comedy, key party anyone, and touching revelations, big age explores what it means to grow older without growing old at heart. Go to audible.com slash big age series to start listening today. What I want to talk to you about is, you know, Dahl also said some very anti-Semitic things. And I struggle with whether or not I can read his work. And sort of even more importantly for me, I guess, can I give his books to my little kids to read? Which leads to kind of a larger question about whether we can ever separate an artist's private beliefs from their public art. So I think you've written really wisely about this topic. And I was hoping you could just talk a little bit about your own experiences grappling with that question.

Yes, I mean, it's a question I think about quite a lot, and certainly as a feminist, it's a question I'm asked about a lot. And I, for one, don't believe you can separate the art from the artist, nor do I think you should. I think that we are who we are. And that influences the art that we put into the world in some way. Now, Roald Dahl wrote some amazing books, like James and the Giant Peach, Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, he's a consummate storyteller. And certainly generations of children have fallen in love with his work. So the legacy is there, but there's also the legacy of virulent anti-Semitism. And the reality is that there are plenty of children's authors out there who have written very good books who also are not anti-Semites. And so when people sort of wring their hands about this, I get a little frustrated because this is not the only game in town. And what really people want is like a morality hall pass because, oh, he's a genius. Like, so are lots of other people. And so, like, read what you want, truly, enjoy what you want.

But accept responsibility for the fact that you are willing to overlook some truly bad behavior for your enjoyment or for someone else's enjoyment. That makes not a sense. When Nate Parker's Birth of a Nation was going to be released in 2016, you wrote a really great piece for the New York Times about just what we're talking about not being able to separate the past. accusations against Parker for sexual assault from his movie. Reading the piece, I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but it felt a little bit like one of the things that troubled you most about that situation was how he handled it. He sort of made the apology all about himself. With Roald Dahl, it's tricky, right? Because he's not around to defend himself anymore or apologize for that matter. And I'm not saying he would apologize. In fact, he probably wouldn't.

But who knows? Does that play in for you in terms of long dead artists? Like, do you have trouble reading Agriam Poe, knowing that he married his 13-year-old cousin, or T.S. Eliot, or Norman Mailer, or more recently Alice Monroe. What does it do for you when it's sort of someone who is not around to defend themselves or not defend themselves? I mean, that doesn't even factor for me. I think that it would be great if these people could apologize, but I doubt that most of them would be apologetic, because most of them would not think that they had done anything wrong, or they would be like, yeah, I said it. And I believe it. And so what? It just doesn't even factor. And I have no problem. not reading these people. I just don't. Because there's so much amazing literature out there. And I know,

for example, a lot of people feel a true sense of loss over Alice Monroe. But every time I think about, oh, you know, her incredible short stories, I have far more empathy for her daughter, who she was willing to sacrifice because of her own weakness. I'm a human being. I can understand sort of that she, you know, why she made that choice of choosing her husband despite the harm that he was doing to her child. But it's not okay. And I'm not speaking for anyone else. I'm only making these decisions for me. And, you know, a lot of times people really overestimate the power of writers in terms of like, oh, what do you mean I can't enjoy this thing I want to enjoy? Like, do what you want? But what you want is for me to say, it's fine. And I can't say that because I don't think

it is, but also who cares what I think? What do you think? So I don't struggle with these things in that I just tend to value the dignity and the lives of these people's victims far more than the people who have made such egregious mistakes themselves. And the counter argument often is that we're all human and we all make mistakes. And that is absolutely true. We are all flawed. And I include myself in that. but I also know that I'm never going to be an anti-Semite. I'm never going to be transphobic. I know who I am. There are some mistakes most of us don't make.

I'm never going to commit sexual violence. And so I think that we have to also remember that these are things are a matter of scale and that we can't compare our normal human foibles and flaws with people who are criminals and bigots. I think that makes a ton of sense. When I buy a Mel Gibson movie or, rent a Roman Polanski movie or buy a Kanye West song, I feel like I'm giving them money, right? And that bothers me. It sounds like for you, it's not as much about whether or not we're

sort of enriching them or helping them. It's more just you have trouble enjoying it, right? Is that right? I have trouble looking past, you know, like for example, I used to really enjoy Kanye West's music before we found out who Kanye really is. I just can't enjoy it anymore because every time I start to be like, oh, yes, listen to that beat drop. Because he is brilliant, and I acknowledge that. He's also truly a horrible person. So I just can't. And that's just the way I'm made up.

I don't even think about the enrichment thing. I think people really overvalue their dollar. Like Kanye Rich is already wealthy. Buy his music, don't buy his music. It's not really changing his bottom line. I mean, I don't think we should consume his music. I don't think we should enrich him or fat, his coffers, but I do think that for me it's just something I can't do. And I don't, not even

can't. Of course, I could. I don't want to. I can no longer enjoy the Cosby show. And I loved that show. I loved it because we weren't really allowed to watch TV growing up. And that was one of two things we were allowed to watch. It was that and Little House on the Prairie. You know, it's sad. And I definitely lament, you know, the loss. Do you think a writer's personal views always or their prejudices or their outlooks or their viewpoints always find a way into the work. And if they don't, does that change the calculus at all? I don't think that a writer's views

always infuse themselves into the work. I do think that there are some writers and other artists who are very capable of hiding their true selves. But it's rare. It's rare. I do actually think that's what makes Roe Dahl such a tough one. For the most part, you really would not know his beliefs if you didn't know about them, if you didn't go and look up information about the artist.

Certainly, it's not something I ever knew about until recently, like in the past decade. It's challenging. And I think that what a lot of people need to believe is that genius and genius art matters more than the crimes of the genius artist and the toxic beliefs of the genius artist. We hear that quite a lot with Woody Allen, with Roman Polanski, especially with like a whole slew of anti-Semites. And I firmly understand that for some people that is just the case. And it is, you know, I just disagree. I think that you can't separate it. Now, when people just say, like, yes, he's an anti-Semite and he made amazing work, that's more honest that you acknowledge it and you're going to consume the work regardless.

because you feel like it offers more than the damage done by whatever the toxicity or the crime is. And I think that more people believe that than not, unfortunately. But I'm sure you're talking to Claire Ditterer. Yeah, we are actually. Yeah. She wrote an amazing book about this that I thought was really, really well done, where she grapples with these questions. And when people are at least willing to grapple with the questions, I find that more interesting.

than actually sitting around worrying about these horrible people. Because, again, that's more honest, that, yes, some people are ambivalent about this, or some people really struggle. Some people don't know how to sacrifice these works of art for the sake of the greater good. And, you know, I do think it's at least important to have those conversations. And a book like Monsters, which Claire Dederer wrote, I think, are interesting entrance into the dialogue about this. A huge thanks to Roxanne, and I totally agree with what she said at the end there about who to speak to next.

First thing, if you wouldn't mind, introduce yourself. I'm Claire Dieter. I'm the author of Monsters A Fans Dilemma. Hear my conversation with Claire in our next episode. She feels really differently than Roxanne about all this. We'll also get into the nitty-gritty of an explosive controversy regarding Doll's work, 32 years after his death,

that seemed to get the entire world talking about him again. The Secret World of Roll Doll is produced by Imagine Audio and Parallax Studios for IHard Podcasts. Created and written by me, Aaron Tracy. Produced by Matt Schrader. Post-production by Windhill Studios with editing, scoring, and sound design

by Mark Henry Phillips. Editing by Ryan Seton. Music by APM. Executive producers, Nathan Clokey, Cara Welker, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and Aaron Tracy. Additional voice performances and recreation by Mark Henry Phillips and 11 Labs. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and review the Secret World of Roll Doll on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Copyrate, 26, Imagine Entertainment, IHeartMedia, and Parallax. Hello, gorgeous, it's Lala Kent, host of Untraditionally Lala. My days of filling up cups at sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley. Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here on my podcast, Untraditionally Lala, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate. It's unruly, it's unafraid, it's untraditionally Lala. Listen to Untraditionally Lala on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Most people out here think that taking care of one another is important.

And most people would step up for a neighbor going through a tough. time. Most people around here help out friends and family when they need it. But the funny thing is, most of us won't look for help when we need it. Talk to someone if you're struggling with mental health because most people out here really care. Find more information at loveyourmindtay.org. That's loveyourmindtay.org. Brought to you by the Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council. Now everybody over here? Oh, it's one of my other favorite places. The Twilight Gazebo. Sunset Gardens, Twilight Gazebo. What's next? Dead Man's Grove?

Mom, could you please try to be a little bit positive about this? From Kenya Barris, the visionary creator of Blackish, comes Big Age, an audible original about finding your way in Life's Next Chapter. This audio comedy series follows a retired couple's reluctant relocation to Sunset Gardens, a Floridian senior community that is anything but relaxed. Starring Comedy Legends Jennifer Lewis, Cedric the Entertainer, and Niecy Nashvettes. Through its blend of outrageous comedy, key party anyone, and touching revelations, Big Age explores what it means to grow older without growing old at heart.

Go to audible.com slash big age series to start listening today. I'm Kristen Davis, host of the podcast, Are You a Charlotte? In 1998, my life was forever changed when I took on the role of Charlotte York on a new show called Sex and the City. Now I get to sit down with some of my favorite people and relive all of the incredible moments this show brought us on and off the screen. Listen to Are You a Charlotte on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.