ENGL 2234 Novel, Movie, Meme— Adaptations and Media Culture

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

ENGL 2234 Novel, Movie, Meme— Adaptations and Media Culture ENGL 2234 Novel, Movie, Meme— Adaptations and Media Culture General Information Instructor: Dr. Erin MacWilliam ([email protected]) (Office: A324d) Course Times: Tuesday / Thursday 12:30-2:20 Credits: 3 (for information about transfer credit, visit bctransferguide.ca) Course Description What do Bridget Jones and Cher Horowitz have in common? Beside notable fashion and questionable paths to romance, both heroines owe their iconic appeal to the novels of Jane Austen and the adaptation of Austen’s free indirect discourse into sharp but often cringeworthy narrative voiceovers. Twenty-five years after its release, Amy Heckerling’s Clueless, a film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma starring Alicia Silverstone, is still influencing the vocal and sartorial inflections of young adults, while the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice miniseries starring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, released the same year, informed Helen Fielding’s classic chick lit novel Bridget Jones’ Diary, later to be a film starring, of course, Colin Firth. In 2021, what Austen created has become the inspiration for a #drunkausten hashtag and countless memes that bring Austen’s observations about social relationships into the internet age. This course will explore the ways in which Austen’s novels continue to influence and produce what William Warner, writing on the effects of Richardson’s 1740 Pamela has described as “media culture,” where the extraordinary popularity of a text shifts not only taste, but the production and consumption of media itself. The eighteenth-century media culture of Pamela has become the twenty-first century internet culture of, among other forms, the meme, defined by Limor Shifman as not only a text, but a cultural practice embedded within digital culture. In this course we will read two essential Austen novels, Pride and Prejudice (1813), and Emma (1815), along with the novels, movies, and memes they inspired, analyzing these texts not only in their historical moment, but seeking to understand why they have become continually revisited pop cultural touchstones. Course Texts 1. Selections from Samuel Richardson, Pamela (1740 Novel) 2. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813 Novel) 3. Simon Langton, dir. Pride and Prejudice (1995 BBC Miniseries) 4. Gurinder Chadha, dir. Bride and Prejudice (2004 Film) 5. Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’ Diary (1996 novel) 6. Sharon Maguire, dir. Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001 movie) 7. Jane Austen, Emma (1815 novel) 8. Amy Heckerling, dir. Clueless (1995 film) 9. Selections from the following Instagram hashtags and accounts: @janeaustenmeme, @excellent_boiled_potatores #janeaustenmeme, #drunkausten, 10. English 2234 Course package *course texts are subject to change before the semester begins .
Recommended publications
  • Pride and Prejudice
    Curriculum Guide 2010 - 2011 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Sunshine State Standards Language Arts Health Theatre • LA.7-12.1.7.2 • HE.7-12.C.1.2 • TH.A.1.7-12 • LA.7-12.1.7.3 • HE.7-12.C.2.2 • TH.D.1.7-12 • LA.7-12.2.1 • HE.7-12.C.2.3 • LA.7-12.3.1 • HE.7-12.C.2 Social Studies • LA.7-12.3.3 • SS.7-12.H.1.2 • LA.7-12.5 Historical Background and Lesson Plans used with permission by Actors’ Theatre of Louisville http://www.actorstheatre.org/StudyGuides 1 Table of Contents A Letter from the Director of Education p. 3 Pre-Performance - Educate Read the Plot Summary p. 4 Meet the Characters p. 4 Research the Historical Context p. 5 Love and Marriage p. 5 Time Period p. 5 Roles of Women p. 6 in Regency England p. 6 From Page to Stage p. 6 A Chronology of Pride and Prejudice p. 8 Speech - What’s the Big Deal? p. 8 Top Ten Ways to be Vulgar p. 9 Best and Worst Dressed p. 10 Dances p. 12 Performance - Excite Theater is a Team Sport (“Who Does What?”) p. 13 The Actor/Audience Relationship p. 14 Enjoying the Production p. 14 Post-Performance - Empower Talkback p. 15 Discussion p. 15 Bibliography p. 15 Lesson Plans & Sunshine State Standards p. 16 2 A Letter from the Director of Education “ All the world’s a stage,” William Shakespeare tells us ”and all the men and women merely players.” I invite you and your class to join us on the world of our stage, where we not only rehearse and perform, but research, learn, teach, compare, contrast, analyze, critique, experiment, solve problems and work as a team to expand our horizons.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding the Art of Adaptation: New Approaches to Pride And
    Understanding the Art of Adaptation: New Approaches to Pride and Prejudice on Film by Danielle McCarthy B.A (Honours) English , Memorial University of Newfoundland A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Film Studies Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario March 16, 2009 © 2009 Danielle McCarthy Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-51981-3 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-51981-3 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Nntemet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis.
    [Show full text]
  • JANE AUSTEN's PRIDE and PREJUDICE on FILM by Katherine
    PROFIT AND PRODUCTION: JANE AUSTEN’S PRIDE AND PREJUDICE ON FILM by Katherine Eva Baresay Hon. B.A., University of Toronto, 2006 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in The Faculty of Graduate Studies (Film Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2008 © Katherine Eva Barcsay, 2008 11 Abstract Adaptation from literature to film has always been a much criticized enterprise, with fidelity criticism, or an attempt to discredit fidelity criticism, often driving the critical discussion. However, this type of thinking is somewhat limited, becoming circular and going nowhere productive. Instead, taking into account what has come before, this thesis attempts to settle on a method of examination that moves away from fidelity criticism and towards an approach that aligns itself with cultural studies. Adaptations, then, can be seen as products of the historical, cultural, political and general socio-economic framework out of which they emerge, owing perhaps more to their context of production than to their source material. In order to provide a case study that reflects this idea, this paper looks to an author who has been adapted on multiple occasions, Jane Austen, and examines her as a cultural construct. Looking at Austen’s most popular novel, Pride and Prejudice, and using Robert Z. Leonard’s Pride and Prejudice (1940), Cyril Coke’s Jane Austen ‘s Pride and Prejudice (1980), Simon Langton’s Pride and Prejudice (1995), Andrew Black’s Pride and Prejudice: A Latter Day Comedy (2003), Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice (2004) and Joe Wright’s Pride & Prejudice (2005), the thesis argues that the appeal of Austen is a result of her cult status and economic viability, and also the malleability of her text, which allows filmmakers to use it in a number of different contexts, while still embodying the source material.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction We Seem to Accept That Certain Things Can Be Reproduced for Example, Furniture
    Introduction We seem to accept that certain things can be reproduced for example, furniture. We might see ‘Genuine Georgian reproduction’ in a furniture shop and we will accept this reproduction. Art galleries sell reproductions of paintings for us to hang on our walls, paintings of which we may never have seen the ‘original’. Indeed the original might be disappointing after only ever having seen the reproduction for many years. It seems inevitable that when a film director makes a film whose source is a novel or a play the critics instantly make a comparison with the original, commenting on what has been left out and what has been changed. What should be asked, however, is why certain things have been left out, why changes have been made and do these alterations to the ‘original’ text actually interfere with our understanding of the original and the new text – the film. Task Try to come up with definitions of the two words ‘adaptation’ and ‘reproduction’. How does each relate to the idea of an ‘original’? When you have done this let’s complicate matters a little by putting in three other words: ‘based on’, ‘inspired by’ and ‘replica’. How do these fit into this pattern? You might also like to consider what we mean by the word ‘original’. ©Film Education 2004 1 Adapting a text Bride & Prejudice is based on Jane Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice; however, it is not a straightforward ‘adaptation’. We could say that there are three different types of filmic adaptations of novels and plays: 1. transposition – where the novel is directly given on screen 2.
    [Show full text]
  • It's a Woman's World: Feminist Themes from <I>Pride and Prejudice</I> To
    University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 12-2014 It's a woman's world: Feminist themes from Pride and Prejudice to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries Amber Naz Haydar University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Haydar, Amber Naz, "It's a woman's world: Feminist themes from Pride and Prejudice to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2014. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/3153 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Amber Naz Haydar entitled "It's a woman's world: Feminist themes from Pride and Prejudice to The Lizzie Bennet Diaries." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Amy Billone, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Kirsten F. Benson, Allen R. Dunn Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the
    [Show full text]
  • Bride and Prejudice
    “Bride and Prejudice” by Gurinder Chandra although settled in Amritsar, in the heart of Punjab and in the heart of quintessential Indian culture, the plot follows the same story as in the Austen’s classic “Pride and Prejudice”. The Bakshi family has been blessed with five daughters and just as in “Pride and Prejudice” the main preoccupation of their mother is marrying them off to preferably very rich gentlemen. However, the main heroine – Lalita (Aishwarya Rai) is not interested in marriage but rather in reading and self-development. At the wedding of a friend the whole family meets Balraj and his sister along with their friend –Will Darcy a rich, arrogant hotelier. Balraj falls in love with Lalita’s sister Jaya and the love-hate relationship between Lalita and Darcy begins… The initial contact between Lalita and Darcy reveals the power relations and still existent stereotypes between Westerners and Indians. The image of the Englishmen as oppressors and Indians as victims is deeply rooted in the mentality of both cultures. And even though in the movie Mr. Darcy is American he is still portrayed as rich, snobbish and disrespectful of other cultures which he doesn’t understand. Supposedly, the director has decided to make Mr. Darcy American in order to reflect the present political and economic situation of the world in which the US is perceived as the powerful “Empire” just as Britain used to be when it ruled in India. Initially, Darcy sees India only as another business opportunity. He thinks that the country is under-developed and is reluctant to get to know the Indian culture.
    [Show full text]
  • British Schools Film Festival
    study guide BRITFILMS british schools film festival Bride and Prejudice USA / UK, 2004 Director: Gurinder Chadha Screenplay: Gurinder Chadha, Paul Mayda Berges Camera: Santosh Sivan Music: Ann Malik Producer: Gurinder Chadha Starring: Aishwayna Rai (Lalita Bakshi), Martin Henderson (William Darcy), Naveen Andrews (Mr. Balraj), Nam- rata Shirodkar (Jaya Bakshi), Daniel Gillies (Johnny Wickham), Alexis Bledel (Giorgina Darcy), Anupam Kher (Mr. Bakshi), Nadira Babbar (Mrs. Bakshi), Indira Varma (Kiran Balraj), Nitin Ganatra (Mr. Kholi), Meghna Kothari (Maya Bakshi), Peeya Rai Chowdhary (Lacki Bakshi) Running Time: 107 mins Language: English, OV Recommended Age Group: 12 + Topics: Bollywood, British colonies, literary adaptations: Pride and Prejudice, culture clash, traditions, love, family, arranged marriage vs romantical marriage School Subjects: History, English, Social Sciences, Literature, Film „All mothers think that any single guy with big bucks must be shopping for a wife.“ Bride and Prejudice Bride and Prejudice is Gurinder Chadha‘s loose adaptation of Jane Austen‘s classic Pride and Prejudice. The film is set in present-day India in the provincial town of Amritsar. While there have been key changes to location and several names, the main protagonists are easily recognisable as the original book characters. The Bennet family has become the Bakshi family, an Indian middle-class family struggling with the limited income their family estate brings in and four lively daughters. Elizabeth Bennet is now Lalita Bakshi, her older sister Jaya instead of Jane, Lydia has become Lacki and Mary is Maya. The book’s middle daughter Kitty has been quietly dropped from this adaptation and has no equivalent. Mrs. Bakshi‘s main goal in life is to have her four daughters married off, preferably rich.
    [Show full text]
  • In Gurinder Chadha's Cinema
    Musical ‘Contact Zones’ in Gurinder Chadha’s Cinema Serena Guarracino UNIVERSITY OF NAPLES ‘L’ORIENTALE’ ABSTRACT This article explores strategies of cultural representation in the produc - tion of Gurinder Chadha, a British director of Sikh origin. Chadha’s work is located in what Marie Louise Pratt defines as ‘contact zones’, negotiating between US, European and Indian audiences. The result is a directing style that puts together ‘East’ and ‘West’, Bollywood and Hollywood, in an in-between space that has been radically reconfigured through hybridization. This happens in particular through her use of music and soundtrack, from the documentary I’m British but . (1990), up to the recent Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Bride and Prejudice (2004). Here, many and diverse musical languages are put together through the representational strategies of parody and kitsch, deconstructing the idea of cul - tural identity in the very gesture that creates it. KEY WORDS Gurinder Chadha N contact zone N cut ’n’ mix N popular culture N post-feminist masquerade N South Asian diaspora There is always the possibility to transgress. (Said, 1991) A dark-skinned, blue-eyed DJ raps on the remix of a traditional Punjabi melody. Young KMD, son of diaspora, animates London clubbing nights where both South Asian and white youngsters come to dance and socialize to the sound of bhangra , a mix of Punjabi traditional songs, African- American rap and hip-hop, and disco music. The period, as we can infer from the profusion of backcombed hair and shoulder pads, is the late 1980s. Somewhere else and some time later, a whole town (Amritsar) dances and sings in celebration for a ‘marriage come to town’, a song in English set to a distinctly ‘Indian’ sound.
    [Show full text]
  • Peripheral Phenomena: the Colliding Evolution of Darcy and Dracula
    University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Undergraduate Humanities Forum 2012-2013: Penn Humanities Forum Undergraduate Peripheries Research Fellows 4-2013 Peripheral Phenomena: The Colliding Evolution of Darcy and Dracula Elaine Ogden University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/uhf_2013 Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, and the English Language and Literature Commons Ogden, Elaine, "Peripheral Phenomena: The Colliding Evolution of Darcy and Dracula" (2013). Undergraduate Humanities Forum 2012-2013: Peripheries. 5. https://repository.upenn.edu/uhf_2013/5 This paper was part of the 2012-2013 Penn Humanities Forum on Peripheries. Find out more at http://www.phf.upenn.edu/annual-topics/peripheries. This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/uhf_2013/5 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Peripheral Phenomena: The Colliding Evolution of Darcy and Dracula Abstract In this study, I examine aspects of Jane Austen, vampire fiction, and contemporary culture through the lens of vampire adaptions of Austen's work. Although a study of vampire fiction may seem peripheral to any serious study of Austen's novels, I contend that studying those adaptations is central to understanding Austen in modern culture, as her work is recycled and reapportioned. Vampire fiction's success in today's marketplace and the prevalence of modern vampire adaptions of Austen's work can reveal much about how the two disjointed parties have been united, and what it says about our culture, which so eagerly consumes them together. Disciplines Comparative Literature | English Language and Literature Comments This paper was part of the 2012-2013 Penn Humanities Forum on Peripheries.
    [Show full text]
  • Pride and Prejudice: Comparison of the Book with Its Film Adaptation
    UNIVERZITA PALACKÉHO V OLOMOUCI PEDAGOGICKÁ FAKULTA Katedra anglického jazyka Veronika Šustková III. ročník – kombinované studium Obor: Anglický jazyk se zaměřením na vzdělávání – Český jazyk se zaměřením na vzdělávání Pride and Prejudice: Comparison of the Book with its Film Adaptation Bakalářská práce Olomouc 2014 vedoucí práce: Mgr. Blanka Babická, Ph.D. Čestné prohlášení Prohlašuji, že jsem tuto bakalářskou práci vypracovala samostatně s použitím POUZE literatury a pramenů uvedených v bibliografii. V Olomouci dne 30. 3. 2014 .................................................... vlastnoruční podpis I would like to thank Mgr. Blanka Babická, Ph.D. for her guidance and valuable comments on the content and style of my thesis and to Jessica Rofe for her comments on linguistic aspects and grammar. Last of all I would like to thank my husband and my family for their unrelenting support during the process of writing. Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................... 1 Theoretical part 1. Adaptation ………………………………………………………………….. 2 1.1. Defining a film adaptation …………………………………………………… 2 1.2. From text to screen …………………………………………………………… 2 1.3. Adapting Pride and Prejudice ………………………………………………... 3 2. The novel Pride and Prejudice ……………………………………………… 5 2.1. The Victorian literature and Jane Austen as a unique exception ……………... 5 2.2. The Title ………………………………………………………………………. 6 2.3. First impression, reassessment and recognition ……………………………….
    [Show full text]
  • The Transformation of Pride and Prejudice Into Film and Television Camila Rojas
    Florida State University Libraries Honors Theses The Division of Undergraduate Studies 2012 From Classic Novel to Popular Culture: The Transformation of Pride and Prejudice into Film and Television Camila Rojas Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] Abstract: (Pride & Prejudice, Literature, Film) This thesis deals with film adaptations of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. This work examines how this particular novel has been translated into film and the issues that arise from changing media. This study focuses on five different films [Pride and Prejudice (1980), Pride and Prejudice (1995), Pride and Prejudice (2005), Bride and Prejudice (2004) and Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)] and their relationship to the book and adaptation theory. To provide the reader with a greater understanding of adaptation theory, this thesis will include a section briefly outlining current adaptation studies followed by in-depth analyses of each film in comparison to the novel and theory. THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES FROM CLASSIC NOVEL TO POPULAR CULTURE: THE TRANSFORMATION OF PRIDE AND PREJUDICE INTO FILM AND TELEVISION By CAMILA ROJAS A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major Degree Awarded: Spring, 2012 The members of the Defense Committee approve the thesis of Camila Rojas defended on April 18, 2012. ____________________________ Dr. Eric Walker Thesis Director ____________________________ Professor Barbara Hamby Committee Member ____________________________ Dr. Valliere Richard Auzenne Outside Committee Member Table of Contents Chapter I. Preface…………………………………………………………………………………..…1 II. Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..2 - Adaptation Theory - Pride and Prejudice: Novel III.
    [Show full text]
  • Pride+Prejudice+Zombies Miller, Catriona
    Film Review: Pride+Prejudice+Zombies Miller, Catriona Published in: International Journal of Jungian Studies Publication date: 2016 Document Version Author accepted manuscript Link to publication in ResearchOnline Citation for published version (Harvard): Miller, C 2016, 'Film Review: Pride+Prejudice+Zombies', International Journal of Jungian Studies, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 136-140. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19409052.2016.1160615> General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please view our takedown policy at https://edshare.gcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/5179 for details of how to contact us. Download date: 25. Sep. 2021 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF JUNGIAN STUDIES, 2016 VOL. 8, NO. 2, 136–140 FILM REVIEW Pride + Prejudice + Zombies, directed by Burr Steers, screenplay by Burr Steers, Lionsgate, 107 minutes, English Spring 2016 saw the release of the film Pride + Prejudice + Zombies (2016, Burr Steers). It is, entirely as the title suggests, a version of the Jane Austen novel with zombies. The original concept came from an editor at Quirk Books, a small publishing house based in Philadelphia, who contracted television writer Seth Grahame-Smith to realise the idea. The book was pub- lished in April 2009 and very quickly made it onto the New York Times bestseller list. By June the same year, it had been optioned by Hollywood production company Lionsgate, though it would be another seven years before the project was finally completed.
    [Show full text]