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When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", University of Southampton, name of the University School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination http://eprints.soton.ac.uk UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF HUMANITIES THE CONSTRUCTIONS OF AUTHORSHIP AND AUDIENCE IN THE PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF CHILDREN’S FILM ADAPTATIONS By Amanda Dawn Stephenson For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy March 2016 Abstract In the public consumption of film adaptations of popular children’s litera- ture, which is, particularly in relation to the popular press, influenced by the marketing communications of the filmmaking team, the discursive negotia- tion of author and audience constructs is pivotal in the endeavor to side-step or manage the seemingly unavoidable discourses of fidelity. In this, child au- diences are imagined and constructed in a variety of ways; however, these constructions generally have very little to do with actual children and much more to do with how the filmmakers wish/need to manage and negotiate the significance of both book and film authors. This area is largely unexplored in adaptation studies, for whilst the topic of fidelity proliferates the disci- pline, its function as a marketing tool - as well as its links to how author(s) and audience(s) are imagined and constructed - needs further investigation. What is clear in the following case studies is that the representations of audience(s) vary depending on the culturally understood personas of the author(s) at hand, therefore as the representation of the various book and film authors shift from case study to case study, so does the representa- tion of the audience. In Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone,J.K. Rowling is deemed to be the primary authorial presence, and the audience are imagined as a cohesive, loyal group of avid readers. In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tim Burton and Roald Dahl are equally significant (de- spite the lack of Dahl’s physical presence) because they are both deemed to be outsiders, much like the audience members are all (implicitly and para- doxically) also deemed to be. In The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, Andrew Adamson is unable to compete with the emotional attachment many adult journalists and critics have to the book, and the result of this is that the discursive presence of the child audience is largely absent. All of these films were within a few years of each other, yet the ‘child,’ childhood more generally, and the intended audience are all constructed in very different ways demonstrating that what is important to those promoting (and often those consuming) a film is a solid author construct, and any discussions of children or child audiences only serves to validate these author figures. Contents 1 Authors, Audiences and Children’s Culture 10 2 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: The Struggle for Authorship and the Commodification of Childhood 44 3 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The ‘Marriage’ of Au- thorship and the Elusive Audience 95 4 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe: Authorship, Narratives of the Self and the Dis- placed Audience 142 5 Conclusion 177 1 Academic Thesis: Declaration Of Authorship I, Amanda Stephenson declare that this thesis and the work presented in it are my own and has been generated by me as the result of my own original research. This work was done wholly or mainly while in candidature for a research degree at this University; Where any part of this thesis has previously been submitted for a degree or any other qualification at this University or any other institution, this has been clearly stated; Where I have consulted the published work of others, this is always clearly attributed; Where I have quoted from the work of others, the source is always given. With the exception of such quotations, this thesis is entirely my own work; I have acknowledged all main sources of help; Where the thesis is based on work done by myself jointly with others, I have made clear exactly what was done by others and what I have con- tributed myself; Either none of this work has been published before submission, or parts of this work have been published as: [please list references below]: Signed: Date: 30th September 2015 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the AUB for supporting this project as part of my staff development, and also Tim Bergfelder for his encouragement during its early stages. Thanks also to Herman Rapaport whose 2003 second year Trauma Theory unit paved the way for me to turn my interest in the construction of identity (which had, up until that point, only been explored creatively), into an academic pursuit. I consider myself extremely lucky to have have the guidance and support of Linda Ruth Williams throughout this PhD. Linda understood the challenges I faced because I was also teaching and caring for two small children, and she reminded me that there would always be research opportunities but my children would not always be small (she was right - they are no longer small). Likewise, I am thankful for the enthusiastic support of Shelley Cobb. Shelley agreed to become my advisor when I was trying to narrow the project down and her insight was, and has been since, invaluable. I am thankful to my husband Ian who told me that I should ‘just get on and do it’ any time that I felt overwhelmed by the project, and to my friends and family for continuing to ask me how I was even though the answer was, for seven years, some variation of ‘I am good, just looking after the kids, teaching, and working on my PhD.’ Finally, I am thankful to Anya and Alex - it is for them that I do things for myself. 3 Preface ...it would be worth examining how the author became individ- ualized in a culture like ours...at what moment studies of au- thenticity...began, in what kind of valorization the author was involved, at what point we began to recount the lives of authors rather than of heroes, and how this fundamental category of “the-man-and-his-work” began.1 It is hardly surprising that lesser known literary texts are nor- mally overshadowed and/or overtaken by their film adaptation... This trajectory, however, is reversed in adaptations of popular children’s writing, where the battle between the book and the film is, it would seem, at its most ferocious.2 From its inception, cinema lays claim to the child - both on and off screen.3 The aim of this thesis is to examine the relationship between the discursively constructed author(s) and audience in the press, marketing and reception material pertaining to three children’s film adaptations. These construc- tions, as they appear in the materials studied (which, as I will discuss later, are wide ranging), are inextricably bound up with the underlying assump- tion that the film and/or book authors, as well as the audience, desire a ‘faithful adaptation’ of the book they love and that this ‘fidelity’ (however it is measured) is crucial to a film’s success. Furthermore, as the represen- tation of the author shifts with each case study, so does the representation of the audience so that the two remain, in the way that they are imagined and discussed, inextricably linked. However, because the representations of 1Foucault, What Is An Author, p205 2Deborah Cartmell, The Cambridge Companion to Literature on Screen, p175 3Lebeau, Childhood and Cinema, p7 4 the imagined audience shifts so much between case studies it is evident that these audience constructions say more about the author figure(s) than they do any real audience members. Thus, in all three cases here, the audience is imagined, constructed and represented in the way that best legitimises the author figure at hand as someone who cares about the source novel and can be trusted to adapt it. Therefore, according to this press material, fidelity matters to the authors because it matters to the audience, even though this ‘audience’ is largely constructed by the press and marketing apparatus itself in order to validate the author figures. Before we move on it is important to note that in regards to ‘marketing apparatus’ I am not referring to the more obvious marketing paraphernalia of film posters and trailers. Rather, I am referring to the ways that quotes from directors, producers, screenwriters etc - which are intended to repre- sent and promote the films in particular ways - find their way into press and reception material. These quotes, when combined with the journalis- tic, academic and viewers responses to films, work to construct authorship and audience in particular ways and with varying success. Therefore when I hereafter refer to ‘press materials’ I do so with the understanding that although not directly written or distributed by the filmmaking team, they are, generally, influenced and include direct quotes by the filmmaking team and thus serve a very important marketing function.

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