When Your Favorite Childhood Films Are a Little More Homophobic Than You Remembered

[Chellee]

39. No kidding.

I loved Nancy Drew as a child. I had all of them. My set was destroyed when our house burned down; I was in the eighth grade. So when my daughter was old enough for them, I bought her the complete set. Nostalgia got the better of me and I was reading them. And I noticed something funny. Nancy would help out Hannah by loading the dishwasher. In the books I read, Nancy did the dishes by hand. So I did some investigating, and found out that they "update" the books for new generations. Which made me wonder, what were the originals like?

So the great Nancy Drew used book/antique store hunt began. I have 15 that were published in the 20's and 30's. And there are a few things that are OMG shocking in there.

The first time Ned Nickerson (Ned!?! Clean-cut, unfailingly polite, all-American boy Ned!?!) used the word "darkey" I was so shocked I slammed the book shut. Like maybe I could stop the racism by closing the book.

Holy crap.

I wasn't expecting that.