Challenging Identity Hierarchies in Julie Taymor's Tempest
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DePaul University Via Sapientiae College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences 6-2014 Challenging identity hierarchies in Julie Taymor’s Tempest Aaron W. Vinson DePaul University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd Recommended Citation Vinson, Aaron W., "Challenging identity hierarchies in Julie Taymor’s Tempest" (2014). College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations. 161. https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd/161 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Challenging Identity Hierarchies in Julie Taymor’s Tempest by Aaron W. Vinson, B.A. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of DePaul University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts DePaul University June 2014 DEDICATION To My Mother and Father, Tom and Barbara Vinson – Who Taught Me the Discipline and Curiosity Necessary Complete this Project To My Wife, Amy Cohen – Whose Love and Support Helped Me Through Writer’s Block, Technical Difficulties, Lost Books, and So Much More ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS While I am ultimately responsible for this thesis, I recognize that it was made possible by the inspiration, love, support, and guidance of many. I would like to thank my thesis committee for their direction, assistance, criticism, and patience. Without their help I may have gone down a different path. More importantly, they helped me cultivate new methods of critical inquiry and strategies for developing argumentation. In my many roles as a student, teacher, reader, viewer, I have been exposed to and considered the stereotypical portrayals of identity groups. Throughout this thesis I tried to challenge those representations and explore ways that Julie Taymor’s film could do the same. June 11, 2014 iii ABSTRACT Challenging Identity Hierarchies in Julie Taymor’s Tempest By Aaron W. Vinson, B.A. Thesis Adviser: Francesca Royster, Professor Committee: John Shanahan, Associate Professor Julie Taymor’s The Tempest was released in 2010 and received mixed critical response though almost all critics lauded Helen Mirren’s performance as Prospera, the first female Prospero in a major film. In the spirit of the original, almost all of the dialogue is Shakespeare’s save for some voiceover where Prospera explains a modified origin story. Taymor’s film challenges stereotypical character identities in Shakespeare’s plays through casting, dialogue, and editing. Casting Helen Mirren as Prospera changes the dominant figure from a patriarchal tyrant to a matriarchal enlightened despot while casting Djimon Hounsou as Caliban forces an examination of colonial history in Shakespeare. Dialogue is trimmed and condensed, even added in very extreme circumstances as Taymor changes the dynamic to lessen misogynist stereotypes. Editing provides her with a weapon to accent her other moves with lighting and sound in ways that add to the classic story instead of distracting from them like her Tempest predecessors Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway. This paper will show how Taymor’s reimagining casts characters anew, iv forcing an interrogation of those characters’ history, representations, and meaning as she explores whether or not Shakespeare was a feminist, sexist, or something else. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... vi INTRODUCTION: How Julie Taymor’s Tempest Challenges Hierarchies in Shakespeare .......... 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1 WHO HAS WRITEN ABOUT THE TEMPEST? ...................................................................... 5 WHAT IS FILM LIKE AS ADAPTATION? ............................................................................. 7 HOW DOES TAYMOR CHANGE EVERYTHING? ............................................................. 11 WHAT SHOULD THE TEMPEST BE? ................................................................................... 13 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 15 CHAPTER 1: Miranda – Mothers and Daughters in Julie Taymor’s Tempest ............................. 17 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 17 WHO IS MIRANDA?............................................................................................................... 20 WHERE IS HER MOTHER? ................................................................................................... 23 HOW DOES THE MOTHER-DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP CHANGE THE TEMPEST? 27 WHAT ABOUT HER FATHER? ............................................................................................ 31 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 34 CHAPTER 2: Sycorax – Witches and Villains in Julie Taymor’s Tempest ................................. 35 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 35 WHO IS SYCORAX?............................................................................................................... 38 WHAT IS SYCORAX LIKE AS A PARENT? ....................................................................... 41 HOW DOES THE BLACK-WHITE DYNAMIC CHANGE THE TEMPEST? ...................... 44 WHAT MAKES SYCORAX AND PROSPERO(A) SIMILAR? ............................................ 48 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 52 CHAPTER 3: Ariel – Spirits and Servants in Julie Taymor’s Tempest ....................................... 54 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 54 WHO IS ARIEL? ...................................................................................................................... 57 WHAT IS ARIEL LIKE AS A SPIRIT? .................................................................................. 59 HOW DOES THE MASTER-SERVANT RELATIONSHIP CHANGE THE TEMPEST? .... 64 WHAT, OR WHOM, SHOULD ARIEL BE? .......................................................................... 68 vi CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 72 CHAPTER 4: Caliban – Blackness and Slavery in Julie Taymor’s Tempest ............................... 73 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 73 WHO IS CALIBAN? ................................................................................................................ 77 WHAT IS CALIBAN LIKE AS A SLAVE? ........................................................................... 80 HOW DOES THE BLACK-WHITE POWER DYNAMIC CHANGE THE TEMPEST? ....... 84 WHAT DOES CALIBAN WANT TO BE? ............................................................................. 89 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................... 91 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................. 92 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................... 95 vii INTRODUCTION: How Julie Taymor’s Tempest Challenges Hierarchies in Shakespeare INTRODUCTION This paper will explore how Julie Taymor’s 2010 film The Tempest challenges gender, sex, and race hierarchies in Shakespeare. I will show how Taymor’s film questions assumptions about character identities and representations in Shakespeare’s plays. Casting is an important step in any production, but Taymor’s casting is significant for how it showcases her arguments in the context of several critical questions. Namely, her casting of Helen Mirren as Prospera changes the direction and standpoint of the play away from Prospero’s patriarchal approach to Prospera’s maternal one. When the exiled white father of Miranda, and master of Ariel and Caliban, becomes a mother and master, all of the major relationships in the play change. The significance of that change and why Taymor makes that change is another important component of this paper. The thesis of this paper is that Taymor illustrates how film adaptations of Shakespeare can question hierarchy by recasting and reimagining character identities, roles, and relationships. Taymor’s reimagining casts the characters in a new light that forces a literary interrogation of those characters’ history,