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YA Adaptations, Dark Romance, and the Profitability of Youth Markets

In Week 11 of Adaptation in Film, we discussed the article “The New Old Face of a Genre: The Franchise Teen Film as Industry Strategy,” by Elissa Nelson and “Twenty Years Ago, ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Lord of the Rings’ Changed the Future of Hollywood,” by Joanna Robinson. We also watched the film Twilight by Catherine Hardwick. This infamous film came at a time around the beginning of the twenty first century when franchises based on young adult book series were all a rage. These types of stories portrayed the teens as heroes and had lead roles. These characters were also able to tell coming of age stories. Both of these elements are main indications of the teen film genre. There is a goal that is able to showcase these young characters and their stories will appeal to a young audience. A type of audience that is the most reliable and profitable. Twilight was able not only able to fit within the teen film Nelson discussed how the emergence of these films has made Hollywood abandon the typical structure of the teen film genre by combining the coming of age story with tales of heroic journeys. These films also had a presence on social media. Robinson describes how groups of fans or small scale fandoms emerged from late nineties tv shows and grew within message boards and chat rooms. Later on, the world of fan fictions came along. It allowed for fans to create their own what-if scenarios and stories with popular and famous characters from movies and pop culture. Many of them involved teen genre films, including Twilight. Now, many social media creators, especially on TikTok, have created humorous content where they reminisce on how they were part of those fandoms and how “cringy” it is now. Many of the most popular ones include Twilight, and they are quite funny especially after seeing the film.

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Male Gaze, Girlhood, and Representation: The Remake Edition

In Week 10 of Adaptation in Film, we discussed the article “Twice-Told Tales: Disavowal and the Rhetoric of the Remake” by Thomas Leitch and the film Lolita by Adrian Lyne. 

This version of Lolita is a remake of the Kubrick version. In his article, Leitch describes remakes as a unique genre by the relationships it has with earlier versions and their audience. Remakes target different types of audiences including the ones who have not heard of the original film, the ones that have heard of the original film but not seen it, those who have seen it but do not remember it, those who have seen it but did not like it, and those who have seen it and liked it. Those audiences do not expect anything new but remakes promise that they will stay close to the original and be better than it.

This is different from sequels. Sequels promise that even though it is telling a different story, they will be just as good as the original. They have the ability to incorporate plot points from the story they are continuing without disappointing the audience that has not seen the original, yet they create a desire for the original in order for those audiences to be prompted to watch the original. 

Lolita is a film that continues the legacy of the previous film while making it a more serious story. It is a film that makes brings to light a forbidden type of love that is very controversial and makes for an uncomfortable viewing. Both the remake and previous version still including male gaze by the fragmentation of Lolita’s body. With a slogan like “how did they ever make a movie of Lolita”, audiences are sure to be in for something unexpected. 

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The Male Gaze and Media Depictions of Girlhood

In Week 9 of Adaptation in Film, we discussed the articles “The Last Lover” by Lionel Trilling, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” by Laura Mulvey, and the film Lolita by Stanley Kubrick.

Trilling claims that Lolita is about love, instead of sex. It is a love that is forbidden, a cultural taboo. A grown man falling in love with a young child was probably something unheard of in the film. It was an “amour fou”. The man was a sick person, as a patient, but sick when it came to who he loved. In this adaptation of Lolita, they push the concept of generic hybridism. The film is able to combine satire, tragedy, love, and more, but it definitely is more comedic despite its dark story. Even with the comedy aspect, there is still a feeling that there is a focus on the whole figure of a teenage girl, appealing to the male gaze. This appeal to the male gaze can be seen in the book covers of Lolita also. Many of the covers show the typical symbols or iconography of Lolita but others are more graphic and show the teenage body in different ways. 

The male gaze is discussed more in detail in Laura Mulvey’s article. The gaze is a concept that analyzes visual culture. It’s how an audience sees the people displayed on screen. In a majority of films, the women are the ones on display and cater to desire. It is shown by how the different camera angles and movements shows the female body in a sexual way, objectifying and fetishizing them. The same thing happens in Lolita with how her body is fragmented and focused on. 

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The (un)Dead Author

In Week 7 of Adaptation in Film, we discussed the short story “The Children of  Hamelin” by the Brothers Grimm, the articles “What Is an Author?” by Michel Foucault, “The Death of the Author” by Roland Barthes, and the film The Sweet Hereafter by Atom Egoyan.

Michel Foucault defines what an author is in his article. It is a relationship where a text, in a way, points a finger towards a figure that both is outside of it and comes before it. That is the author. But, after some time, the text moves beyond its rules and leaves them behind. The author eventually disappears.

In his article, Barthes presents the idea that nothing is an original, and has no author. Writing in itself is a collection of different sources. Over time it is updated and performed communally in different ways and forms. This includes oral stories, dances, songs, celebrations. According to Barthes, when societies or cultures acknowledge the existence of an author, it creates a cult of personality/author. This is an idea that started with the Western Renaissance and took shape in the late 19th Century. Barthes says it resulted from the capitalist ideology. No author is unique either. They all borrow, imitate, translate, and remaster all from different citations, cultures, individuals, languages, and individuals.

The Sweet Hereafter is able to both call back the original story with the whole tragedy involving children. In the short story, children disappear from Hamelin, cause of the actions of Pied Piper who lured children using a small fife and leads them to the mountains. In the film, there is a school bus accident that kills a group of school children. Both forms of these media are unique in their own way. The film is able to distance itself away from the author and create its own take on the classic story based on a different place, culture, and language.

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Fairytales and Dark Romance

In Week 6 of Adaptation in Film, we discussed the short story “The Company of Wolves” by Angela Carter, the article “Between the Paws of the Tender Wolf: Authorship, Adaptation and Audience” by Lorna Jowett, and the film Company of Wolves. 

The film and the story shows the theme of stranger danger. It portrays the woman as a target for men’s desire. This is much like how the film shows a wolf targeting the woman is his prey. Throughout the film he tries to get her to kiss her. He tries and fails at times, he eventually kisses her, but she pushes him away. While she does not seem into it, through the course of the film it goes from her having fear to love, leaning on the dark romance aspect. The film can also be a “gothic fairytale”. Within its world, there is dream-like imagery, a young protagonist, nightscapes, the supernatural, familiar places, excess, metaphors, and psychological terror. 

The article by Lorna Jowett mentions how Carter’s story “The Company of Wolves” comes from oral tradition. These oral traditions had a purpose to tell stories that were able to discuss many cultural taboos. This calls back the purpose of this story being not to trust strangers, even within the familiar. Everything may be normal around you but there could be a someone of something that wants to disrupt that normality. Yet, the monsters, more apparently in the films, have a combination of both hypermasculinity and vulnerability. This creates a feeling of both danger and appeal. 

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The Old is New Again

In Week 2 of Adaptation in Film, we discussed the articles ‘Franchising/Adaptation’ by Clare Parody and Captain America, Masculinity, and Violence by J. R. Stevens, and the film Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The figure of Captain America has been around for many decades. He has appeared in comics, novels, movies, and other forms of media.

Parody describes franchise storytelling as the creation of narratives, characters, and settings into interlinked media and merchandise. We see this with the Captain America films. Not only is it a trilogy but also a part of the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. Also, it stretches into products like action figures, video games, clothing, and much more. It was also mentioned that the first Captain America film included transmedia storytelling, which is the systematic branching and extension of a narrative across multiple media outlets. The example mentioned was that there is a video game based on Captain America: The First Avenger and the fighting style of Cap in that game influenced his fighting in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I personally didn’t know that a game existed but this shows that companies want to ensure that a consumer base will follow a franchise.

In the article by Stevens, it is discussed that comics are political texts. This is evident with Captain America, as one of the first comic covers showed him punching Hitler in the face. In the movie, we watched it is shown as a conflict between America’s symbol dealing with a seemingly foreign threat and a corrupt government organization.

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Fairytales and Gender

In Week 5 of Adaptation in Film, we discussed the article “‘With a Smile and a Song:’ Walt Disney and the Birth of the American Fairy Tale,” by Tracey Mollet, the story “Sun, Moon and Talia” by Giambattista Basile, the poem “Briar Rose” by Anne Sexton, and the film Snow White and the Huntsman. 

“Sun, Moon and Talia” is one of the first versions of the Sleeping Beauty story. These classic stories originated from oral tellings. They were filled with taboos and served as a cautionary tale. Showed who is good or bad. An emphasis on strangers being bad could be seen as a bit xenophobic or show who’s bad within the family structure. These stories created types of characters that were not only relatable to children, but also to a larger audience. “Briar Rose” is also a version of Sleeping Beauty. This one shows a more nightmarish story and shows the consequences after. This poem gives the princess a voice. It shows her mental trauma by her having a fear of sleep now. She is turning to drugs in order to sleep, and becoming an addict. This could be seen a psychological horror. 

Snow White and the Huntsman shows how something can be redressing something old. The Queen in the new film showed how it was inspired by the 1916 film. This 2012 Queen did a good job at expressing female rage and had more of a backstory. She was also fitted more to the male gaze not only in casting but also in wardrobe. Snow White in this film showed how a princess could be a warrior and how all princesses can be warriors. The role of the dwarves Is replaced by the Huntsman, while they do appear more towards the end but as side characters. This film could be considered as a retelling of the classic Snow White film. This film also appealed to the young audience of the time with the whole medieval and fantasy aspect. It’s also did that my the casting choices of the main characters. Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, and Chris Hemsworth are all considered beautiful people, which appeals to the whole “celebrity crush” feeling. 

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Bodies, Youth, and the Supernatural

In Week 4 of Adaptation in Film, we discussed the articles “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess,” by Linda Williams and Supernatural Youth: the Rise of the Teen Hero in Literature and Popular Culture by Jes Battis and the film Let The Right One In. 

In Jess Battis’ article it is states that the ages of adolescence as a time and space for both fear and discovery. I think everyone after they pass those years realize that notion. During those years is when we discover who we are and grow into adulthood. It is a time where we make both mistakes and accomplishments, and we grow from that. Two ways media appeals to this notion. We have teen geared media that have a goal to send messages of critical hope. There also the fantasy and horror genres. These two genres make young people who are marginalized and embattled into hero figures. These genres also explore both gender and sexuality. In the film, the character Eli subverts these two conventions. He is born male but was castrated when they were turned into a vampire. They dress in female clothing and is perceived as a female by the people around him. This “changing” body plus that fact that tey are a vampire can give a way for horror, fear, desire, and fear to be present. 

This movie can be described a film body according to the Article by Linda Williams. It is a genre that is defined by excess, and we can see that within the film. There’s a lot of moments where the vampire attacks people in different ways. There’s blood, gore, and intense emotions. Typically in these horror films, girls tend to be the victim. We see this happen but she is turned to a vampire as well. She goes from being a victim to being a figure that can have victims as well. 

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Queering Comics

In Week 3 of Adaptation in Film, we discussed the articles “Introduction: Queer About Comics” by Darieck Scott and Ramzi Fawaz and “’Gay’ Sidekicks: Queer Anxiety and the Narrative Straightening of the Superhero” by Neil Shyminsky and the podcast “Superheroes Are So Gay!” by Stephanie Bastek. We talked about several topics. First is how we define queer. As the podcast discusses, the term was first used in a derogatory term as a way to show that someone was weird, strange, and sexually twisted. The term was later taken back and changed it to represent being outside the “normal” straight or gay. Comics could be seen as “queer” as they usually portray an individual or a group that have extraordinary powers. The main examples would be the X-Men or the Fantastic Four. They live in a world where they are labeled as “mutants” and are a times casted out by society. Or they are regular people that have some sort of freak accident that grants them these said powers. These story elements or fantasy aspects create a scenario where expressions of gender and sexuality are depicted. In a lot of cases, these expressions are in a way “hidden” within that story, in both good and bad ways. There is queer coding which is the use of visual and/or behavioral aspects that are usually associated with the queer representation. This can be seen when feminine men or masculine women are present but not always as a representative of that but also used as a small moment or joke in a character. There is also queer subtext which is the intentional narrative and/or visual underpinning/innuendo that suggests certain attraction but is not addressed. Then you have queer representation which is the explicit, non-normative traits that are addressed in characters. Lastly, we have the bad side which is queerbaiting which is the exploitation of queer subtext and/or coding that is hinged on the promise of delivering explicit queer representation. As a bi male in film, I write based on personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. I think I use a lot of queer coding because I don’t explicitly represent bisexuality explicitly but the symbolism is there.

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A Poem and A Vampire

In Week 1 of Adaptation in Film, we discussed the poem “Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allen Poe and the film “Tale of a Vampire” by Shamiko Sato. The poem talks about a man who has lost the love of his life. Pretty sad huh? Well, it shouldn’t be too surprising as Poe usually wrote about death in his gothic style of writing. As my professor said, he is the original goth kid. “Tale of a Vampire” adapts this poem into a film by not only directly quoting the poem but also the overall story, with some differences of course. The film is about a man who lost the love of his life. Sounds like the poem right? But this film adds supernatural elements and goes deep into the gothic horror feel. The man is a vampire and he falls in love with a librarian who reminds him of the one he lost. Oh, and there’s a vampire hunter too. When I saw this film, I sorta forced myself to see the whole thing. Within the first ten minutes of the film the vampire bites and drinks the blood of a cat, which I thought was very odd and made me uncomfortable. Also, there’s the whole sequence where the vampire, Alex, bites a girl, she seems to die, he bites himself, spits the blood into the girl’s mouth, she comes back to life and they start kissing passionately. That whole scene was so weird to me, it was pretty disgusting too. I definitely think it was more sexual than romantic, at least to the mind of a vampire. As an adaptation, I think “Tale of a Vampire” kept the general story of “Annabel Lee” but it took the gothic style of Edgar Allen Poe and pushed it to a more extreme sense and created an odd, sexual, super gothic vampire story.