I hate when people use the word "sanitize" in this context. For one, it's a weasel word and needlessly moralistic. But, even more than that, when people write essays complaining about sanitizing classic stories, most of what they succeed in communicating to me is that they don't actually understand how literature works.
Adjusting older stories to reflect contemporary cultural values has been happening for as long as there have been stories. The reason for that is simple: one of stories' major functions is to express things about ourselves - lessons, observations, etc. When an element gets dropped from a story, it's because that element is no longer culturally relevant, plain and simple. Stories, too, need to choose between evolution and extinction.
Take an oft-bemoaned example: Disney's version of the Little Mermaid. It's a very good adaptation. Adaptation. It differs from Hans Christian Anderson's in part because the lessons we think are important to teach our kids are different. But also, the medium itself affects things: children's movies don't have to be as graphic to achieve the same excitement level and emotional impact as written stories with few or zero pictures. A movie that didn't change anything from the original version of the story wouldn't have had nearly the same cultural impact, because it wouldn't have been nearly as good.
Adjusting older stories to reflect contemporary cultural values has been happening for as long as there have been stories. The reason for that is simple: one of stories' major functions is to express things about ourselves - lessons, observations, etc. When an element gets dropped from a story, it's because that element is no longer culturally relevant, plain and simple. Stories, too, need to choose between evolution and extinction.
Take an oft-bemoaned example: Disney's version of the Little Mermaid. It's a very good adaptation. Adaptation. It differs from Hans Christian Anderson's in part because the lessons we think are important to teach our kids are different. But also, the medium itself affects things: children's movies don't have to be as graphic to achieve the same excitement level and emotional impact as written stories with few or zero pictures. A movie that didn't change anything from the original version of the story wouldn't have had nearly the same cultural impact, because it wouldn't have been nearly as good.