#adaptation studies

[gothhabiba]

I want to have conversations about Netflix's Persuasion that are very different from the ones I've seen. For the most part we seem to have retreated into a literary-textual discussion about what Jane Austen's Persuasion "means" or "is about" and how the adaptation differs from this "meaning" (in 'moral,' tone, composition, plot). At their best, these conversations take a socially situated view in speculating on why an adaptation (and all the people who go into making one) might have felt that changes in a specific direction were necessary or desirable in presenting Persuasion to a particular audience—at their worst (by which I mean: most mundance, least challenging), they merely catalogue how the adaptation is "different from" the text, including in terms of general historical inaccuracies, with a sense of indignation approaching to violation.*

I see people saying that the "modern" tone, dialogue, jokes, and narration style are out of place in what is supposedly (from dress, technology, and other details) a period piece—they specify that they don't mind modern adaptations (Clueless, even Bridget Jones' Diary is mentioned with generosity!) so long as they bill themselves as such (e.g. "if they wanted to make a modern adaptation, they should have just made a modern adaptation"). We don't expect a period piece to make such unabashedly modern jokes or references.

But why not? We are offended when our expectations of what a "period piece" is are transgressed against. But why? We insist that these modes of storytelling (the "period" and the "modern") must not be mixed. But why not?

Quotations of the more obviously "modern" concepts and turns of phrase in the dialogue are trotted out ("I'm an empath," "exes," "alone, in my room, with a bottle of red," "if you're a 5 in London you're a 10 in Bath")—but then we kind of stop there, as though it is enough to say that this sounds awkward in a period setting.

Of course it sounds awkward in a period setting—it's obvious enough that even the writers undoubtedly knew it sounded jarring and were doing it on purpose. So what might this instinctive recoiling from this type of period mish-mash tell us about what we usually hope to get out of period pieces? Obviously every adaptation is "modern" in that it is produced for an audience of the producers' contemporaries, and in that the sensibilities of the "original" will inevitably be shifted in a thousand ways more or less perceptible to us—so what we can we learn from the places where these shifts raise our ire, as opposed to the places where they go largely unnoticed (a shift to a modern concept of "romantic" love that removes much of the requirement of tutelage, for example—no adaptation that I know of has Mr. Bennet tell Elizabeth to look up to her husband "as a superior")?

Literary-critical-style analyses of the adaptation complain that it got Anne Elliot "wrong" (interestingly, the people saying this have pretty different interpretations of her character amongst themselves). I don't think this is untrue so much as I wish we could push this conversation further. Assertions that the adaptation "failed" assume what its goals were—but what can we deduce about the team's goals from interviews (which I admit I haven't read) or from the film itself? Why do these goals offend us so much? We have a feeling that an adaptation has to "respect" its source material (I recall one person in a youtube video essay baldly stating as much)—but why?

What happens when an adaptation does not respect its source material, in terms of literary or adaptation / book-to-film studies or in terms of the commercial marketplace for movies? How does this movie reveal its own assumptions to us? How does it reveal our assumptions to us? Has it stumbled onto anything clever in its attempt to be more, well... 'clever'? What's going on with the audience-addressing narration? What pitches and shifts does that produce? How does it compare to Austen's narration? Why is this kind of question fruitful or unfruitful to ask of an adaptation?

For anyone who doesn't already get it, this isn't a 'defense' of Netflix's Persuasion (nothing with so much money behind it needs me to defend it). I just wish we were asking more interesting questions!!!

*Of course the language of fandom is frequently self-consciously exaggerated and emotional, as well as based around collective rituals of sharing and commenting, assuming a framework and an idiom that is common to those of others in the same spaces, for fun. This kind of indignation is fun! I get it! As Elizabeth Bennet says, hating something is a spur to one’s genius. And some of these literary-textual discussions are genuinely insightful and convincing. There's nothing "wrong" with these discussions. They're just not exactly what I want to read and therefore I'm making that everyone's problem.

[ghostcat3000]

I watched Persuasion (2022)— Ghostcat (@ghostcat3000) July 18, 2022

Was it substantially different, in tone and spirit, from that preview? No. It was exactly like that. The Fleabagification of Persuasion, it most certainly is.

I love adaptations, I LOVE them. And I love Persuasion. I'm not sure that "modernizing" this material for fun anachronism (and profit) could ever work for this novel. Anne, who regrets deeply. Anne, who is kind and helpful to others. Anne, who observes. Good to her bones but marginalized by nearly everyone around her. 👈 this is not a character that could ONLY have existed in Austen's time. There are real Annes all around us NOW. Making Anne arch, wine-swilling, and judgy does not modernize her. Making her "self-aware" and "pathetic" doesn't modernize her. It just makes her relatable in a "sexy disaster" way. A way the gals understand. Raises glass I'm not Anne, I'm a full-on disaster. And yet, I love Anne and relate to her particular quiet story of longing. The fact that she cannot speak her regrets to anyone but us. She persists in another way. Adapting this story and, in the process, completely reconstructing the main character so that she resembles the ideal current female lead is missing the point. Anne is the secret inside many readers. The plain, bare truth of missed opportunity. This is why all the updated, anachronistic language paired with Regency gowns: self-care, I'm an empath, single and thriving, 10 in Bath already feels dated and dumb. It's not a thoroughly reimagined Austen update like Clueless, which is perhaps what it wants to be but isn't. I don't blame the actors. Golding is a fantastic William Elliot. Grant is a brilliant bit of casting and is sadly underused. As for Dakota Johnson, she is a charming comedic actress and should not be held responsible for this adaptation's failures. The issue isn't that Johnson could not deliver what was on the page, she did all that and more, but rather that Anne is not a comedic character, so the writers' interpretation of her does not make sense anymore within the frame of the original story. Don't get me started on Wentworth. The script does him so many wrongs--it strips nearly all the tension from his relationship with Anne. It never feels like there's any question of how this will end, and it should. It must. Blah blah blah adaptations with a modern twist. It's not a bad idea to see how old stories apply to the present and to reconceptualize them for modern sensibilities. Again, see Heckerling's Clueless. What's interesting is how little needs to be adjusted in the adaptation in order to have it connect to the present with continued relevance. Persuasion is still in print. We're still reading.

[attleboy]

Can you give some tutorials on how to/how you draw Pomni? I struggle with drawing her hat. XD

oh yeah of COURSE!!! :D i've waiting for this moment... literally! i've most of this sitting around for like, a month but, idk, i worried it'd be like, egotistical(????) to post a pomni tutorial unprompted..? but now i have been prompted so the floodgates shall open!!! >:D pomni be upon thee

(here's goose's pomni expression sheet in case you haven't seen it yet)

and if you're interested in how i draw her with sharp teeth, i've already made a tutorial on that!! check it out here :D

[katanasonata]

if sokka and zuko were university roommates (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ

[mozzarellamint]

that yakuza/like a dragon (the movie) (2007) huh??

[muninnhuginn]

Ngl definitely thinking back to the cartoon-making chapter now we know that Twilight doesn't realise studying/pursuit of knowledge can be fun. No wonder the cartoon he made sucked. He was approaching it purely from the educational angle with zero idea of the entertainment aspect that makes edutainment programming effective.

It's not that he was really bad at writing the fun parts. He plain didn't realise there were meant to be any in the first place for it to work.

Copying the aesthetics with no understanding of what was underneath.

[hordeofcorvids]

My deepest desire is for a Sherlock Holmes adaption with a Scottish Watson because one line in a Study in Scarlet mentions that he doesn't have any family in England and I used it as a thin excuse to incorporate Scottish Watson™ into my world view

[razmerry]

can the mediator of vengeanceclan really fall in love with a kittypet?...

[cainternn]

candy crush 💕

[emotinalsupportturtle]

Blackadder vs Shakespeare

This is THE most satisfying 2 seconds of a comedy sketch

Thank you sincerely Blackadder Sir. Especially because that is the version you have to inevitably suffer through (very much against your will) when you are studying Hamlet

[teabree-shark]

I really wanted to like Goncharov but the typical Scorsese bit of "talk while walking down a hallway" schtick got really old really fast.

[ask-the-rag-dolly]

FINALLY THESE ARE OPENS

Whats your opinion on other ships like

Gangle x Zooble

Queenie x Kinger

Jax x Kaufmo

Caine x Kinger

Caine x Moon

Ofc this is optional but I'm just curious

umm ......... neutral ! ... " oh people ship these ? ... good for them ! ..." i don't mind that they exist ! ... i just only ever latch onto one romantic ship because i'm a weirdo who has an extremely specific dynamic she loves and it's ' opposites attract w/ bad communication and a lot of emotional problems to go through but it's ok holding hands will totally solve all of it '

[hyakunana]

That Sword wailing like a banshee seeking vengeance, carrying the weight of thousands of lost souls.

Bonus:

Me: Although it would be nice to see Elsie with Lament, I also understand the sword was designed by her grandfather to his own exo version and so it's something she shouldn’t—

Fortnite collab, basically:

[vorpalone]

studies from jane eyre (2011)

if you enjoy my work, consider tipping me on my ko-fi <3

[galaxseacreature]

i saw a post awhile ago basically saying how laios dungeonmeshi was top tier bio nerd representation but now I'm actually reading it and. yeah. 100%. my friends also make horrified faces at my nature facts all the time

[fleurral]

“we accept the love we think we deserve.” — the perks of being a wallflower