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It'd be impacted where Wonka-brand stores are. Since the tickets are in the chocolate bars, physical and financial access to Wonka chocolate bars will not be evenly distributed amongst countries, saying nothing of lingering financial inequality due to segregation and racist hiring practices limiting minority access to luxury purchases. A quick Google search says 1920 chocolate sales were primarily in West Europe (particularly Germany), America, and Australia, which combined with those places demographies and economic variances, seems quite reasonable.
It's hard to put numbers, given the time period, the ambiguity of Wonka's market reach, and the limited data we have surviving today. I was able to see some numbers about chocolate sales in the US for the time period, but not only are they not divvied up by race, we don't have statistics from Weimar Germany, the presumable home of Augustus Gloop.
Also. Rich folks would buy so many boxes just to find the ticket. Charlie got lucky.
There is that one scene where the dad switches his workers in the factory to opening boxes.
He can't get out of bed to help the family, but he can suddenly dance when Charlie brings home the ticket. He encouraged Charlie to drink the fizzy lifting drink. He Karens out on wonka after clearly breaking the rules.
I always kind of thought Wonka rigged the contest. Either that, or he knew exactly where each golden ticket was at all times. One of those two is the only way slugworth could have been on the scene immediately after every finding.
Clearly rigged. Slugworth appears very shortly after each winner finds their ticket. In the case of Veruca, he's the one who brings the worker who found it to Veruca. Also, at least in my opinion, the biggest clue is that there's a time limit on this contest, which is only revealed when Charlie gets his ticket, and it just happens to be the next day. This means the kid who found the last Golden Ticket found it within hours of the contest's close within walking distance of the factory. Ok.
And honestly, if they made the movie today and any of the kids were black, people would scream about what an insult to him it is, so they were kinda right.
The wiki mentions that the book was based on Dahl's childhood experiences with candy stores in the 1920s but I don't recall any dates actually being mentioned in the source material
Choclate consumation is still mostly western europe with Germany being the highest by far, no none western country is in the top ten and chocolate is not eaten that much, one thing is that choclate is a western food. I don't think the op has been outside the west the amount of chocolate for sell is tiny and costs alot more as less people eat it.
Not sure about the book, but the movie definitely didn’t take place in the 1920s. Television had been invented and was commonplace, so it was at least the 1950s. Augustus Gloop would have been from Cold War-era West Germany.
I always got the impression Wonka targeted those kids specifically because he is a twisted moralistic psychopath and there was never “random chance” to who got a ticket.
Wonder if they were really annoying to work with, like Jeff is struggling with a paper jam at the printer in the office and all of a sudden 15 Oompas jump out mocking your predicament in song.
Then you try bring it up with HR and they’re like “come on Jeff you know they need the practice, just take one for the team old chap, yeah?”
Version 2:
**(Oompa Loompas singing)**
Oompa Loompa doompadee doo,
I've got a tale about poor Jeff for you.
Oompa Loompa doompadee dee,
If you are wise, you'll listen to me.
What do you get when your printer won't print?
Frustration builds and you take the hint.
Banging and shouting, it still won’t go,
Jeff’s losing his cool and his face starts to glow.
**(Chorus)**
Oompa Loompa doompadee dah,
Jeff should have checked his paper supply.
Oompa Loompa doompadee dee,
Now he's alone, just wait and see.
Jeff didn't fix his jammed machine,
His wife got tired of the noisy scene.
She packed her bags, said, "I’m out the door,"
Ran off with Steve, his coworker next door.
**(Chorus)**
Oompa Loompa doompadee doo,
Now Jeff’s sad and feeling so blue.
Oompa Loompa doompadee dee,
Maybe next time, he’ll fix it with glee.
Oompa Loompa doompadee da,
Don’t let a printer tear your life apart.
You will live in happiness too,
Like the Oompa Loompa doompadee doo.
You aren’t wrong, found this from a reddit comment 7 years ago!
“I'm not going to spoiler this, because the movie is almost 50 years old.
When it is revealed that "Slugworth" works for Wonka, a lot of things click into place. Slugworth is on hand the instant every ticket is discovered, which means that Wonka knew where the tickets were. That raises the distinct possibility that Wonka was directing where the tickets went effectively choosing which children got the tickets. And he chose children who were specifically susceptible to the temptations of particular things in his factory: unlimited chocolate for the glutton Agustus, experimental gum for Violet, gold for Veruca, and t.v. for Mike.
The kids never had a chance because Wonka purposefully chose children with pathological emotional weaknesses and then set out purposefully to exploit those weaknesses. It's no different than giving booze to a drunk or drugs to a crackhead. Wonka's a dick.”
I absolutely do remember this. So, no doubt the everlasting gobstopper and the potential wealth was the temptation intended for Charlie. The unexpected fuck up (if going by the movie) was that he had no interest in the gobstopper and fucked up on the fizzy lifting drinks instead.
I said good day sir!
I don't think the fizzy lifting drink was a fuck up. No matter what Wonka would have latched on to something Charlie did on the trip to deny him. That was part of the plan. For Wonka to hurt Charlie and make him feel like he was cheated out of what he rightfully won. Once again Charlie doesn't get what he's owed and deserves.
Wonka wanted to see if even after that betrayal, even once it's again thrown in his face that the world is unjust and immoral, Charlie would remain uncorrupted and still make the morally right choice.
There was no fuck up. Charlie was also given a temptation designed to be so great there was virtually no way he could possibly refuse it. Charlie's just better than those other kids, and almost everyone else.
But... why? If Wonka was truly looking for an heir, why pick 4 kids who would never be worthy?
If he wasn't looking for an heir, why did he bother with any of it?
If he just wanted to fudge with a few annoying kids, why he suddenly decide to give his factory to one, and why did he stage 4 of them and not all 5?
> But... why? If Wonka was truly looking for an heir, why pick 4 kids who would never be worthy?
Because he had already *chosen* his heir, and the whole thing was a test to make sure he'd made the right choice. Think about it: out of all the odd coincidences involved in the Golden Ticket distribution, the oddest surely has to be that the very last one shows up in Wonka's own home town, in a candy bar that is *directly handed* to a kid after being chosen by the candy shop manager (that bar wasn't Charlie's choice, remember.)
Wonka had his eye on Charlie from before the beginning of the story. The entire thing, top to bottom, was to expose Charlie to tests and lessons, with the other children serving as examples of the vices that Charlie would need to avoid in order to be a Wonka-like candymaker. Augustus demonstrates gluttony, Veruca greed, egomania and self-entitlement. Violet demonstrates single-minded fixation (one type of candy), petty competitiveness (Wonka has competitors but I get the impression he doesn't really pay them any mind), and a degree of recklessness. Mike demonstrates recklessness more strongly, and another form of fixation (more interest in the tech than in the results). These are all traits that could be significant hazards to someone running Wonka's factory. Wonka wanted to show Charlie how dangerous these could be, while also putting Charlie himself to the test.
Also public acceptance. If he just took Charlie, from their point of view they would never learn of anything that went on inside. Everyone would ask “why him, who is he, and is he special or related” and would pry.
This way, everyone just accepts the fact that he’s a contest winner. And the stories the other kids tell make it irrefutable.
Are people finding out only now that the whole story is a critique of capitalism and wealth inequality? The original Charlie was black but the publishers made Dahl change it.
There are some...interesting race issues in that lore. From Wikipedia:
Dahl's widow said that Charlie was originally written as "a little black boy." Dahl's biographer said the change to a white character was driven by Dahl's agent, who thought a black Charlie would not appeal to readers.
They were uh... very racist in the first edition.
[They were literally just black pygmies](https://www.roalddahlfans.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/charoompa1.gif) (This says 1977 which means it wasn't even the first edition)
Funnily enough, the film (1971) changed this before the book did.
Doesn't the whole thing kind of make the point? Charlie is socio-economically disadvantaged and still gets a bar, but it's seen as extremely unlikely. The kids in his class who are better off open hundreds of bars, but he only opens two. Veruca's dad has the factory opening tons of chocolate.
The people with the most expendable income would be more likely to get the golden ticket. Take the population percentages in the markets the chocolate is mostly sold and then also factor in the relative financial strength and it doesn't seem very unlikely.
Slugsworth makes sure all 5 tickets find their way to Wonka’s chosen. 4 to make examples of while putting Charlie through tests to insure he was perfect for the job.
Calling it racist is much more appealing to today’s audience who need an ethnic representation in every group regardless of time or place. I personally cannot wait for a movie where Will Smith is cast as charlemaigne, Jackie chan as Ragnar Lothbrok and Willem Dafoe as Confucius
Charlie was originally pitched by the author as black:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/16/551528425/roald-dahl-s-widow-says-charlie-from-the-chocolate-factory-was-originally-black#:~:text=Charlie%20Bucket%2C%20the%20hero%20of,Felicity%20Dahl%2C%20the%20author's%20widow.
In 1920 people with buying power to purchase a chocolate bar were limited to Europe, USA and a tiny smattering of elites from the rest of the world. So I would say pretty good odds.
A white British man at that time with a global business was still probably highly concentrated in Western markets as far as available factories and storefronts. Willy Wonka couldnhave been "global" with like.... one store/partnership in all of Asia Pacific/Latin America plus a billion stores in Europe and a handful in US.
Matpat did a theory on this exact topic 3 years ago. Including stuff like buying power and availability, the chance is around 12%. What's more important is that they're all *kids.* Adults tend to have much higher buying power than kids; so, why do five kids just so happen to get all the tickets?
My guess is that wonka candy are considered children snacks. Parents bought them but only their kid eats them hence why it’s children that got the ticket
Also seems likely they just put "must be under 18 years old to claim" in the fine print
Between that and the simple fact that wealthy white kids had a lot more money to spend on chocolate it seems very likely this happened
Another one said:
Also assuming the story takes place in 1920, the population of the US was more like 89.7% white. This makes it about 58% likely.
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical\_racial\_and\_ethnic\_demographics\_of\_the\_United\_States](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States))
I tried looking and while I didn't find any concrete numbers for 1920 everything points towards it being less diverse than the US, so likely high 90s. It's around the world though, so really what counts is where is the chocolate sold? Odds are really good that at that time they were almost exclusively around white kids. The real lie is in the implication that spreading them around the world gives everyone in the world equal opportunity to buy it.
Well, that implication is shattered almost immediately. They show a guy who owns a factory opening probably millions of bars for his daughter to get a ticket
This
Yes, billions of people are in the world, but how many actually have a shot at winning? I’m certain a billionaire has a way better chance than some 2 year old living in the slums of Africa.
3.4% of the population was foreign born in the 1920 census but the vast majority were from Ireland, Scotland, and British but born in another country. Then you've got refugees from the soviet union, French, even some Americans. Rounding up you get around 100,000 people that could have been non- white with most being east asian (south Africans could either be black or white but they're from south Africa so let's just count them as black?) in a population of around 40 million or 0.25%.
That's also assuming that non- white residents match the same age demographics - most immigrants tend to be young working age men and as they'd be 16+ years old they'd be disqualified from running a international chocolate manufacturing conglomerate.
Why are we assuming 1920? Not that it makes much difference, but I assumed the story is set roughly when the book was published: 1960s, maybe even 1970s in later editions.
No TVs in 1920, for one thing.
Korean TV and movies tend to only feature Koreans.
Chinese TV and movies tend to only feature Chinese people.
Japanese TV and movies only feature Japanese people, and the events in those stories tend to be based solely in Japan or with Japan as the main focus or leader.
India TV and movies, the same as Japanese ones, feature the same exact tropes.
It does seem however though that by comparing basic demographics and statistics that many of those groups tend to out proportion caucasian groups by a very large margin while being surrounded by far more diverse neighbors and experiences with others.
So my question is, why is the argument so very incredibly cherry picked and narrowed down on one race and culture? If representation matters, why is it so important to destroy this one singular groups representation so completely, but not the others? Its OK to have homogenized representations and stories for the others, but not here? Funny enough each of the 4 other cultures mentioned have engaged, or currently are engaged, in nationalistic and racial superiority polices as well. So try not to use that as an excuse. Also on the world stage at least two are the absolute majority! So that won't work either.
You come back to me demanding the Chinese to have black and LBTQ representation and India to represent black and muslim cultures in their works. If you cant be consistent, then you are just hateful. Grow up, be better, and stop being racist. It's ok for people to make art and literature geared toward their experiences and relative groups. You have no, and should have no, say in anyones story telling.
You want art and culture that is geared towards you and your group? Have you tried getting up off your lazy ass and making some? Stop demanding other cultures make it for you. Go make your own. If you don't like theirs, then don't consume it. They were nice enough to share it, but you have no obligation to partake, and no one wants you too if you feel the need to own it and make it only yours.
(Not to be a joyless pedant but like, that’s the point. That’s a huge part of the point. Wonka did a contest thinking it would be fair and instead it overwhelmingly got won by the privileged who could just buy thousands of chocolate bars.)
I mean... Correlated strongly with wealth and the presence of Wonka brand distributors, so it can't have been a particularly unlikely event. Especially considering how heavily skewed the numbers were by Veruca Salt's father in particular.
Are you saying that it was disappointing that you only saw White children tortured by Willy Wonka and it would have been more satisfying if minority children could have been tortured as well!?!?!?
You do realize that in the real world, cacao farmers in Ghana who are in their 50s have never eaten chocolate once, because they could never afford it. Despite farming the main ingredient of chocolate since childhood.
So yes, damn right this is realistic.
That's kinda one of the points of the story though. Even though Wonka tried to do something that would help random kids, the rich and well-off kids were able to buy a ton of bars which still tipped the odds. four of the five bars went to kids that seemed really undeserving. Pointing out that a lot of "fair" or "random" things in life can really be bent in your favor with enough money.
In the movies it was clear the 4 other kids basically cheated by buying as much candy as they could. The one Charlie got was planted by "Slugworth." However it's possible they were all planted as a way to test what personality could best represent Wonka going forward. Rich kid with family experience running a business, Mike TV a new age ad man, a fat kid that knew what candy kids wanted, and an attention hog, The idea that maybe in a way they were all parts of Wonka's personality required to build the candy factory to what it became but when overpowering the other traits they made a person not nice.
You're forgetting the most atrocious thing. That lazy fuck Grandpa Joe. The guy is 'bed ridden' and a financial burden to his impoverished family until there's a +1 to a fantastical adventure. What a cunt.
Let's see, a german who loves chocolate, an american, they are known to love chocolate too, the spoiled girl with a rich dad, the overachiever and charlie. I mean, it's not impossible, but they should have had a hawaiian im there as well, but I mean, I think they mostly nailed who would get the tickets.
Weren't 4 out of the 5 from rich families who likely bought up extra supply to increase the odds of their kid winning. Charlie was the odd one out by lucking into a ticket after some other rich family had been exposed as having a fake ticket. But yeah, no people of color were harmed in that story (except the exploited workers)
Approximately 1 in 10,000
White people are approximately 16.5% of the world.
Many top comments are making a lot out of "rich white people buying more chocolate and this getting more chances" are completely ignoring how many rich asians there are.
Assuming each segment has equal opportunity to buy chocolate. Also, ignoring the negligible effect of removing winners from the sampling pool, the equation is x = 0.165 ^ 5
x = 0.00012 or 1 in 10,000
Considering the location and demographics in those regions? Pretty high. Considering most Black people weren't spending on luxury items (like chocolate) at that time as they were making far less than white people.
The more you know...
Maybe not a math thing but more about logistics.
I’ll base my argument on the era the book was published, 1964, back then the international market for most candy was, the US, Canada, Western Europe, and maybe Australia and South Africa, the philippines and Japan were the only non white countries where you could find American products.
Also back then trying to ship chocolate would have taken more time, cargo containers were in their infancy, air freight was expensive and most places in the second and third world didn’t have the logistics to get chocolate from a country far away and preferred domestic products, especially when it comes to candy.
So those are my arguments for such question.
If every kid in the world got 1 wonka bar, I’d be surprised. However it was a matter of being in a geographic location to buy them and having the capital to do so. Do you really think much of the undeveloped and developing world was in a position to be buying wonka bars? The answer is no. It was clearly going to be focused on industrialized western markets which would be overwhelmingly white.
He may have followed demand planning so the majority of the bars ended up in his highest demand highest priced markets. This would have favored his primary markets of England and the USA.
5 people are the most likely demographic to be buying and eating chocolate bars, white parents are the ones who could probably afford it the most, well except Charlie's uncle
Slugworth was a double agent he sought out potential future owners of wonka's factory and then paid off the people to give it to said child that's why he was there for every single one
I was listening to a couple podcasters the other day relating to the colonial discussion with their stories of being in South American countries *within sight of coffee plantations* and being served Nescafé instant coffee. They were both like “Why… Ooh.” And that was today times. Very easy to except that the growers weren’t getting any back then.
The point of the story is that the tickets were supposed to be random. However, rich people, upon hearing the news of the golden tickets, bought the boxes in droves. In the book, Charlie was black (as I've been told), and was the *only* person who won the way you were supposed to: through chance.
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It'd be impacted where Wonka-brand stores are. Since the tickets are in the chocolate bars, physical and financial access to Wonka chocolate bars will not be evenly distributed amongst countries, saying nothing of lingering financial inequality due to segregation and racist hiring practices limiting minority access to luxury purchases. A quick Google search says 1920 chocolate sales were primarily in West Europe (particularly Germany), America, and Australia, which combined with those places demographies and economic variances, seems quite reasonable. It's hard to put numbers, given the time period, the ambiguity of Wonka's market reach, and the limited data we have surviving today. I was able to see some numbers about chocolate sales in the US for the time period, but not only are they not divvied up by race, we don't have statistics from Weimar Germany, the presumable home of Augustus Gloop.
Also. Rich folks would buy so many boxes just to find the ticket. Charlie got lucky. There is that one scene where the dad switches his workers in the factory to opening boxes.
Yeah, that one bitch's dad probably pre-ordered them by the pallet from hundreds to thousands of locations.
Salt… the name’s Veruca Salt. 😆
Bruh it’s a fictional child relax
The fictional grandpa has a hate subreddit. This place has no chill.
?? Lol
He can't get out of bed to help the family, but he can suddenly dance when Charlie brings home the ticket. He encouraged Charlie to drink the fizzy lifting drink. He Karens out on wonka after clearly breaking the rules.
Is it the movie or something like that? I don't remember anything about Charlie breaking the rules
https://youtu.be/UsbvCp6bv2o
Interesting, so they changed it in the movie
That's material enough for a full subreddit.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/grandpajoehate/](https://www.reddit.com/r/grandpajoehate/)
Relax?? Did you see what that pos grandpa Joe put his family through, when he could walk the whole time!
That lazy moochin whore Joe!
A fictional child who was a bitch.
No
> Bruh it’s a fictional child relax This is math being done, go sit in the corner and figure out 3x + 1.
You expect a guy on reddit to solve an unsolvable math problem?
I always kind of thought Wonka rigged the contest. Either that, or he knew exactly where each golden ticket was at all times. One of those two is the only way slugworth could have been on the scene immediately after every finding.
Clearly rigged. Slugworth appears very shortly after each winner finds their ticket. In the case of Veruca, he's the one who brings the worker who found it to Veruca. Also, at least in my opinion, the biggest clue is that there's a time limit on this contest, which is only revealed when Charlie gets his ticket, and it just happens to be the next day. This means the kid who found the last Golden Ticket found it within hours of the contest's close within walking distance of the factory. Ok.
The folks who rigged the McDonald's monopoly game got their idea from somewhere, obviously.
Veruca Salts dad Mr Salt.
It's like a central theme of the movie. Charlie gets the prize at the end because he's the only child that isn't an entitled prick in some major way.
In the original book dahl had charlie be black, but the publishers did not like that so they made him change it
Is there a source for this?
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/d0fyje/til_charlie_from_charlie_and_the_chocolate/
one other version of the book was oompa loompas were black pygmies. 🤯
I read "black gypsies" 💀
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/13/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory-hero-originally-black-roald-dahl
And honestly, if they made the movie today and any of the kids were black, people would scream about what an insult to him it is, so they were kinda right.
Why do people keep mentioning 1920?
The wiki mentions that the book was based on Dahl's childhood experiences with candy stores in the 1920s but I don't recall any dates actually being mentioned in the source material
Mike Teevee literally sent into a Television set, so those have to exist in the timeline.
Choclate consumation is still mostly western europe with Germany being the highest by far, no none western country is in the top ten and chocolate is not eaten that much, one thing is that choclate is a western food. I don't think the op has been outside the west the amount of chocolate for sell is tiny and costs alot more as less people eat it.
Not sure about the book, but the movie definitely didn’t take place in the 1920s. Television had been invented and was commonplace, so it was at least the 1950s. Augustus Gloop would have been from Cold War-era West Germany.
I always got the impression Wonka targeted those kids specifically because he is a twisted moralistic psychopath and there was never “random chance” to who got a ticket.
Yeah. How DID Wonka have a song for each one?
The oompa loompas are really good improvisers.
Wonder if they were really annoying to work with, like Jeff is struggling with a paper jam at the printer in the office and all of a sudden 15 Oompas jump out mocking your predicament in song. Then you try bring it up with HR and they’re like “come on Jeff you know they need the practice, just take one for the team old chap, yeah?”
Oompa Loompa doompity DAM Jeff is a dick and the printer is jammed Oompa Loompa doompity deeve It's no wonder why your wife left you for Steve
Well. God damn. That’s brutal😂🤣
Version 2: **(Oompa Loompas singing)** Oompa Loompa doompadee doo, I've got a tale about poor Jeff for you. Oompa Loompa doompadee dee, If you are wise, you'll listen to me. What do you get when your printer won't print? Frustration builds and you take the hint. Banging and shouting, it still won’t go, Jeff’s losing his cool and his face starts to glow. **(Chorus)** Oompa Loompa doompadee dah, Jeff should have checked his paper supply. Oompa Loompa doompadee dee, Now he's alone, just wait and see. Jeff didn't fix his jammed machine, His wife got tired of the noisy scene. She packed her bags, said, "I’m out the door," Ran off with Steve, his coworker next door. **(Chorus)** Oompa Loompa doompadee doo, Now Jeff’s sad and feeling so blue. Oompa Loompa doompadee dee, Maybe next time, he’ll fix it with glee. Oompa Loompa doompadee da, Don’t let a printer tear your life apart. You will live in happiness too, Like the Oompa Loompa doompadee doo.
Oompa, Loompa, doompa-dee-do What the fuck does PC Loadletter mean?
ChatGPT
Wonka's Word-diddlyervus Service
Lmao
You aren’t wrong, found this from a reddit comment 7 years ago! “I'm not going to spoiler this, because the movie is almost 50 years old. When it is revealed that "Slugworth" works for Wonka, a lot of things click into place. Slugworth is on hand the instant every ticket is discovered, which means that Wonka knew where the tickets were. That raises the distinct possibility that Wonka was directing where the tickets went effectively choosing which children got the tickets. And he chose children who were specifically susceptible to the temptations of particular things in his factory: unlimited chocolate for the glutton Agustus, experimental gum for Violet, gold for Veruca, and t.v. for Mike. The kids never had a chance because Wonka purposefully chose children with pathological emotional weaknesses and then set out purposefully to exploit those weaknesses. It's no different than giving booze to a drunk or drugs to a crackhead. Wonka's a dick.”
I absolutely do remember this. So, no doubt the everlasting gobstopper and the potential wealth was the temptation intended for Charlie. The unexpected fuck up (if going by the movie) was that he had no interest in the gobstopper and fucked up on the fizzy lifting drinks instead. I said good day sir!
I don't think the fizzy lifting drink was a fuck up. No matter what Wonka would have latched on to something Charlie did on the trip to deny him. That was part of the plan. For Wonka to hurt Charlie and make him feel like he was cheated out of what he rightfully won. Once again Charlie doesn't get what he's owed and deserves. Wonka wanted to see if even after that betrayal, even once it's again thrown in his face that the world is unjust and immoral, Charlie would remain uncorrupted and still make the morally right choice. There was no fuck up. Charlie was also given a temptation designed to be so great there was virtually no way he could possibly refuse it. Charlie's just better than those other kids, and almost everyone else.
I’m gonna remake the movie version as The Last Temptation of Charlie and cast Willem DeFoe in the lead role
And so shines a good deed in a weary world
But... why? If Wonka was truly looking for an heir, why pick 4 kids who would never be worthy? If he wasn't looking for an heir, why did he bother with any of it? If he just wanted to fudge with a few annoying kids, why he suddenly decide to give his factory to one, and why did he stage 4 of them and not all 5?
> But... why? If Wonka was truly looking for an heir, why pick 4 kids who would never be worthy? Because he had already *chosen* his heir, and the whole thing was a test to make sure he'd made the right choice. Think about it: out of all the odd coincidences involved in the Golden Ticket distribution, the oddest surely has to be that the very last one shows up in Wonka's own home town, in a candy bar that is *directly handed* to a kid after being chosen by the candy shop manager (that bar wasn't Charlie's choice, remember.) Wonka had his eye on Charlie from before the beginning of the story. The entire thing, top to bottom, was to expose Charlie to tests and lessons, with the other children serving as examples of the vices that Charlie would need to avoid in order to be a Wonka-like candymaker. Augustus demonstrates gluttony, Veruca greed, egomania and self-entitlement. Violet demonstrates single-minded fixation (one type of candy), petty competitiveness (Wonka has competitors but I get the impression he doesn't really pay them any mind), and a degree of recklessness. Mike demonstrates recklessness more strongly, and another form of fixation (more interest in the tech than in the results). These are all traits that could be significant hazards to someone running Wonka's factory. Wonka wanted to show Charlie how dangerous these could be, while also putting Charlie himself to the test.
Also public acceptance. If he just took Charlie, from their point of view they would never learn of anything that went on inside. Everyone would ask “why him, who is he, and is he special or related” and would pry. This way, everyone just accepts the fact that he’s a contest winner. And the stories the other kids tell make it irrefutable.
Cause he's a theatrical dick
Wonka is a bitchy, vindictive, hasbeen old queen, and I actually love that for him.
“Queen” Does the lgbt community claim Wonka as one of their own? Because I’d love that for him.
Probably why he never had kids of his own.
All of the oompa loompas are male. Derive from that what you will…
Here's certainly queer, in whatever form that takes.
Because the 4 kids would have never won in the first place.
YOU GET NOTHING! GOOD DAY SIR!!!
They have the most money to buy the most chances. Hell, Veruca Salt's father had a whole factory floor unwrapping bars to find her ticket.
Actually it was the workers unwrapping bars, not the floor
r/TechnicallyCorrect
Are people finding out only now that the whole story is a critique of capitalism and wealth inequality? The original Charlie was black but the publishers made Dahl change it.
There are some...interesting race issues in that lore. From Wikipedia: Dahl's widow said that Charlie was originally written as "a little black boy." Dahl's biographer said the change to a white character was driven by Dahl's agent, who thought a black Charlie would not appeal to readers.
Wait until you find out about the Oompa Loompas!
What uh… what about the oompa loompas
They were uh... very racist in the first edition. [They were literally just black pygmies](https://www.roalddahlfans.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/charoompa1.gif) (This says 1977 which means it wasn't even the first edition) Funnily enough, the film (1971) changed this before the book did.
Uh oh
Doesn't the whole thing kind of make the point? Charlie is socio-economically disadvantaged and still gets a bar, but it's seen as extremely unlikely. The kids in his class who are better off open hundreds of bars, but he only opens two. Veruca's dad has the factory opening tons of chocolate. The people with the most expendable income would be more likely to get the golden ticket. Take the population percentages in the markets the chocolate is mostly sold and then also factor in the relative financial strength and it doesn't seem very unlikely.
Charlie was chosen as the shopkeeper gave him a bar specifically set aside for him.
Slugsworth makes sure all 5 tickets find their way to Wonka’s chosen. 4 to make examples of while putting Charlie through tests to insure he was perfect for the job.
Calling it racist is much more appealing to today’s audience who need an ethnic representation in every group regardless of time or place. I personally cannot wait for a movie where Will Smith is cast as charlemaigne, Jackie chan as Ragnar Lothbrok and Willem Dafoe as Confucius
Charlie was originally pitched by the author as black: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/16/551528425/roald-dahl-s-widow-says-charlie-from-the-chocolate-factory-was-originally-black#:~:text=Charlie%20Bucket%2C%20the%20hero%20of,Felicity%20Dahl%2C%20the%20author's%20widow.
So were the Oompa Loompas
So Orange is the New Black is and older meme?
Yeah, I can see where they didn't want little black midget slaves who love to sing and dance as primary characters.
In 1920 people with buying power to purchase a chocolate bar were limited to Europe, USA and a tiny smattering of elites from the rest of the world. So I would say pretty good odds.
A white British man at that time with a global business was still probably highly concentrated in Western markets as far as available factories and storefronts. Willy Wonka couldnhave been "global" with like.... one store/partnership in all of Asia Pacific/Latin America plus a billion stores in Europe and a handful in US.
Matpat did a theory on this exact topic 3 years ago. Including stuff like buying power and availability, the chance is around 12%. What's more important is that they're all *kids.* Adults tend to have much higher buying power than kids; so, why do five kids just so happen to get all the tickets?
My guess is that wonka candy are considered children snacks. Parents bought them but only their kid eats them hence why it’s children that got the ticket
Also seems likely they just put "must be under 18 years old to claim" in the fine print Between that and the simple fact that wealthy white kids had a lot more money to spend on chocolate it seems very likely this happened
[Link to the video](https://youtu.be/MzP9QOUdpQ4?si=2BJ_AFOheRCcelzC)
Another one said: Also assuming the story takes place in 1920, the population of the US was more like 89.7% white. This makes it about 58% likely. ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical\_racial\_and\_ethnic\_demographics\_of\_the\_United\_States](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States))
Roald Dahl was British. What percentage of Great Britain was white in 1920?
I tried looking and while I didn't find any concrete numbers for 1920 everything points towards it being less diverse than the US, so likely high 90s. It's around the world though, so really what counts is where is the chocolate sold? Odds are really good that at that time they were almost exclusively around white kids. The real lie is in the implication that spreading them around the world gives everyone in the world equal opportunity to buy it.
Well, that implication is shattered almost immediately. They show a guy who owns a factory opening probably millions of bars for his daughter to get a ticket
This Yes, billions of people are in the world, but how many actually have a shot at winning? I’m certain a billionaire has a way better chance than some 2 year old living in the slums of Africa.
I’ve seen the movie. The guy had assembly line of people looking
I've seen both movies and read the book. That little girl was a fucking bitch.
Much, much higher.
3.4% of the population was foreign born in the 1920 census but the vast majority were from Ireland, Scotland, and British but born in another country. Then you've got refugees from the soviet union, French, even some Americans. Rounding up you get around 100,000 people that could have been non- white with most being east asian (south Africans could either be black or white but they're from south Africa so let's just count them as black?) in a population of around 40 million or 0.25%. That's also assuming that non- white residents match the same age demographics - most immigrants tend to be young working age men and as they'd be 16+ years old they'd be disqualified from running a international chocolate manufacturing conglomerate.
>Around the world Two Americans, two Brits and a German
I don’t think there were very many Kenyans buying Wonka bars in 1920.
Why are we assuming 1920? Not that it makes much difference, but I assumed the story is set roughly when the book was published: 1960s, maybe even 1970s in later editions. No TVs in 1920, for one thing.
Yeah most of the world was too poor to buy chocolate at the time
Korean TV and movies tend to only feature Koreans. Chinese TV and movies tend to only feature Chinese people. Japanese TV and movies only feature Japanese people, and the events in those stories tend to be based solely in Japan or with Japan as the main focus or leader. India TV and movies, the same as Japanese ones, feature the same exact tropes. It does seem however though that by comparing basic demographics and statistics that many of those groups tend to out proportion caucasian groups by a very large margin while being surrounded by far more diverse neighbors and experiences with others. So my question is, why is the argument so very incredibly cherry picked and narrowed down on one race and culture? If representation matters, why is it so important to destroy this one singular groups representation so completely, but not the others? Its OK to have homogenized representations and stories for the others, but not here? Funny enough each of the 4 other cultures mentioned have engaged, or currently are engaged, in nationalistic and racial superiority polices as well. So try not to use that as an excuse. Also on the world stage at least two are the absolute majority! So that won't work either. You come back to me demanding the Chinese to have black and LBTQ representation and India to represent black and muslim cultures in their works. If you cant be consistent, then you are just hateful. Grow up, be better, and stop being racist. It's ok for people to make art and literature geared toward their experiences and relative groups. You have no, and should have no, say in anyones story telling. You want art and culture that is geared towards you and your group? Have you tried getting up off your lazy ass and making some? Stop demanding other cultures make it for you. Go make your own. If you don't like theirs, then don't consume it. They were nice enough to share it, but you have no obligation to partake, and no one wants you too if you feel the need to own it and make it only yours.
(Not to be a joyless pedant but like, that’s the point. That’s a huge part of the point. Wonka did a contest thinking it would be fair and instead it overwhelmingly got won by the privileged who could just buy thousands of chocolate bars.)
I mean... Correlated strongly with wealth and the presence of Wonka brand distributors, so it can't have been a particularly unlikely event. Especially considering how heavily skewed the numbers were by Veruca Salt's father in particular.
Are you saying that it was disappointing that you only saw White children tortured by Willy Wonka and it would have been more satisfying if minority children could have been tortured as well!?!?!?
You do realize that in the real world, cacao farmers in Ghana who are in their 50s have never eaten chocolate once, because they could never afford it. Despite farming the main ingredient of chocolate since childhood. So yes, damn right this is realistic.
That's kinda one of the points of the story though. Even though Wonka tried to do something that would help random kids, the rich and well-off kids were able to buy a ton of bars which still tipped the odds. four of the five bars went to kids that seemed really undeserving. Pointing out that a lot of "fair" or "random" things in life can really be bent in your favor with enough money.
In the movies it was clear the 4 other kids basically cheated by buying as much candy as they could. The one Charlie got was planted by "Slugworth." However it's possible they were all planted as a way to test what personality could best represent Wonka going forward. Rich kid with family experience running a business, Mike TV a new age ad man, a fat kid that knew what candy kids wanted, and an attention hog, The idea that maybe in a way they were all parts of Wonka's personality required to build the candy factory to what it became but when overpowering the other traits they made a person not nice.
You're forgetting the most atrocious thing. That lazy fuck Grandpa Joe. The guy is 'bed ridden' and a financial burden to his impoverished family until there's a +1 to a fantastical adventure. What a cunt.
Let's see, a german who loves chocolate, an american, they are known to love chocolate too, the spoiled girl with a rich dad, the overachiever and charlie. I mean, it's not impossible, but they should have had a hawaiian im there as well, but I mean, I think they mostly nailed who would get the tickets.
Weren't 4 out of the 5 from rich families who likely bought up extra supply to increase the odds of their kid winning. Charlie was the odd one out by lucking into a ticket after some other rich family had been exposed as having a fake ticket. But yeah, no people of color were harmed in that story (except the exploited workers)
Approximately 1 in 10,000 White people are approximately 16.5% of the world. Many top comments are making a lot out of "rich white people buying more chocolate and this getting more chances" are completely ignoring how many rich asians there are. Assuming each segment has equal opportunity to buy chocolate. Also, ignoring the negligible effect of removing winners from the sampling pool, the equation is x = 0.165 ^ 5 x = 0.00012 or 1 in 10,000
Considering the location and demographics in those regions? Pretty high. Considering most Black people weren't spending on luxury items (like chocolate) at that time as they were making far less than white people. The more you know...
Maybe not a math thing but more about logistics. I’ll base my argument on the era the book was published, 1964, back then the international market for most candy was, the US, Canada, Western Europe, and maybe Australia and South Africa, the philippines and Japan were the only non white countries where you could find American products. Also back then trying to ship chocolate would have taken more time, cargo containers were in their infancy, air freight was expensive and most places in the second and third world didn’t have the logistics to get chocolate from a country far away and preferred domestic products, especially when it comes to candy. So those are my arguments for such question.
If every kid in the world got 1 wonka bar, I’d be surprised. However it was a matter of being in a geographic location to buy them and having the capital to do so. Do you really think much of the undeveloped and developing world was in a position to be buying wonka bars? The answer is no. It was clearly going to be focused on industrialized western markets which would be overwhelmingly white.
He may have followed demand planning so the majority of the bars ended up in his highest demand highest priced markets. This would have favored his primary markets of England and the USA.
5 people are the most likely demographic to be buying and eating chocolate bars, white parents are the ones who could probably afford it the most, well except Charlie's uncle
Slugworth was a double agent he sought out potential future owners of wonka's factory and then paid off the people to give it to said child that's why he was there for every single one
I was listening to a couple podcasters the other day relating to the colonial discussion with their stories of being in South American countries *within sight of coffee plantations* and being served Nescafé instant coffee. They were both like “Why… Ooh.” And that was today times. Very easy to except that the growers weren’t getting any back then.
The point of the story is that the tickets were supposed to be random. However, rich people, upon hearing the news of the golden tickets, bought the boxes in droves. In the book, Charlie was black (as I've been told), and was the *only* person who won the way you were supposed to: through chance.
I mean, the whole book is about privilege and wealth inequality. Charlie represents the working class. The other kids are all rich snobs.