Colin Fogarty

Windsor

LSA Honors English 9

May 3, 2017

Romeo and Juliet: A Comparison to a Film Adaptation

The uniqueness of Shakespeare’s plays is unparalleled by any other author. His plays

posses motifs and stories that can be emulated by others years and years after their creation.

Plays can be modernized to fit a more recent and topical context, especially a play like The

Tragedy of Julius Caesar. The same can be said for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet which was

adopted to fit a tale about garden gnomes. As with many comparisons, reades should understand

the accuracy, creative differences, subversion, choice of scene direction, enjoyability, and prose.

Gnomeo and Juliet can be considered a partially accurate in relation to Shakespeare’s

original work. In relation to quantifiability, it’s a five in accuracy. They both have a opening

chorus monologue, a opening fight scene and a death of (Gn)(R)omeo and Juliet. Tybalt dies in

both the works and both involve families getting revenge for maring each other. Most

importantly, the love between the two protagonists (Gn)(R)omeo and Juliet is treated as a

forbidden love because their two factions oppose one another and ultimately, that's forbidden

love brings together the two factions. However, there are notable differences. There is no prince

in the movie despite the fact that the Prince, in the play, is a key character for moving along the

plot. Gnomeo and Juliet features lawnmower racing as a competition between the two factions

and also features a certain lawnmower, named the Terrafirminator, which destroys both the

gardens. Notably absent from Gnomeo and Juliet is Mercutio and any real death, as all the

characters either survive, aren’t killed like in the play, or are put back together. Ultimately, the
accuracy of the adaptation only affects the power of the storytelling inasmuch as creating new

plot devices or leaving others out. Mercutio’s “Queen Mab” story could be very confusing to a

younger, 21st Century audience. Dropping certain elements of original play doesn’t hurt the

storytelling or take away from Shakespeare’s original message; it gives more room for the

creators of the movie to create their own version of Shakespeare. What they keep similar is the

gist and key ideas of the plot, motifs, and messages while tailoring the direction of the story to fit

the audience, the times, and the path on which the directors want to see the movie go.

This moves the directors towards creative differences. These creative liberties are either

less significant plot elements or plot elements that are reshaped; they keep their original purpose

but are shown or presented differently. Generally, the differences between the play and film

adaption concern location, organization, naming, specific wording, and how situations play out.

In many instances, we see parts of the original, Shakespearean plot modified so that while it

serves purpose as it did in the text, it also blends in with the context of the overall story of the

adaption. The instance in which Romeo and Juliet meet also differs. In the play, they meet at a

gala and exchange words of pilgrim and god, whilst in the movie, while fleeing from a raid

Gnomeo meets Juliet over a greenhouse as they both vy for a flower. Another major difference is

that in the “death” of the characters, firstly in the method of such “death” and secondly of the

nature of the “death”. In the play, Romeo commits suicide after thinking Juliet is dead, leading

Juliet to commit suicide after she wakes to Romeo’s corpse. In this instance, the two characters

actually die. In the movie, both Gnomeo and Juliet “die” at the same time when the

Terrafirminator crushes Juliet’s pedestal castle. However, they do not actually die. There are

other instances where less significant parts of the text are modified by the directors to fit the new

story. For example, Paris exists in both universes, but in the movie, the Frog, who represents the
nurse, falls for Paris. None of this happens in the play. Another instance is the fact that Tybalt

dies in both, but in different ways. In the movie, Tybalt dies by being smashed by a wall, but in

the play he is stabbed. The movie chooses to change how scenes specifically play out in order to

fit the context of the situation. It would not make sense to have a gnomes stab each other but to

be smashed makes more sense. Similarly, having gnomes in the backyard makes more sense the

gnomes having their own entire city. However, the animators chose to pay homage to Verona by

naming the street the houses were on Verona Lane and pay homage to Shakespeare himself by

having the story take place Stratford-on-Avon, the birthplace of the playwright. However, the

portion where creative liberty is take its farthest is at the very beginning of the movie. A gnome

enters on a stage and reads the actual opening chorus lines from the play, verbatim, before he is

cut off. This also breaks the fourth-wall by acknowledging the fact that this is a retelling of the

story. Shakespeare never breaks the fourth-wall in his own works but the creator’s chose to do so

while still delivering Shakespeare’s opening sonnet. The liberty the creator’s have taken in this

portion doesn’t necessarily impede the overall story. Ultimately, the reason Shakespeare is so

endearing is that his message can be retold over and over again, so there has to be some kind of

creativity in how it's presented to make it fresher. As long as the same core messages are

articulated and the overall story Shakespeare presented is shown, the choice to make certain

changes to how the story evolves are sensible and sometimes necessary.

While both works have changes in scenes and complete differences of the original story,

subversion is present in both works. Subversion is double meaning of text, but is also the way an

author contradicts the established principles of a society. In Shakespeare’s work, we see gender

roles subverted in the fact that Romeo is presented as a weak and affected by such things as love

much more than he ought to be as a man. However, Juliet is portrayed as more masculine of the
two, standing up to the demands made of her as a woman from her parents and even mocked by

the nurse. She rejects being forced to marry Paris by her father and tries to free herself from the

tyranny of patriarchy in medieval Verona. However, Shakespeare doubles back and subverts his

own subversion by forcing Juliet to accept her fate as a woman on two occasions; once with the

mother and nurse from Act 2 and with marrying Paris. In Gnomeo and Juliet, we see a partially

similar subversion. Romeo is always shown as a dynamic, masculine person; however, Juliet is

also displayed in a similar fashion. She wants to be free from the yard, likes lawnmowers (the

equivalent of cars in this universe) and even ventures out of the garden to capture a flower and

prove herself. However, just like Shakespeare, the movie subverts the notion of feminism by

having Lord Redbrick, the father, glue her down to her pedestal, as to insinuate that men will

always have the final say, and Romeo eventually has to run through the mess of war to protect

her on her pedestal from the Terrafirminator. In such a way, that is shared subversion between

the text. However, the movie has other ways of subversion which are not present in the play

which can be divided into three categories: innuendo, the flower, and breaking the fourth-wall.

Firstly, we look at innuendo. Now, innuendo is certainly in Shakespeare’s work;

however, in that work it serves to please the commoner and layman rather than to be itself a

subversive piece. The movie, on the other hand, uses innuendo as a means of subversion. In one

scene, the Frog and Juliet are talking about Gnomeo’s hat (“His hat is big and pointy”) which is a

clear reference to male genitalia. Here we see three individual subversions. One is the idea that

love is about bond, however, since this scene takes place so short after the two lovers meet, it

implies that love can also be heavily influenced by physical appearance and sexual prowess.

Second is that society shouldn’t care about the size of male genitalia. As part of the pro-sexual

openness movement, many have asked society to dismiss the size of male genitalia and society
seems to have responded, but this movie brings the focus right back to it as a means to justify

why or why not a male is worthy of companionship by females. And third is the idea of

children’s entertainment. Children’s entertainment is often perceived as a pure and clean way to

communicate positive messages and society has generally elected to protect children from

vulgarity and impureness; in fact, in some circles, especially Christian circles, it is a life-mission.

Nevertheless, this movie completely subverts that by clearly and without confusion talking about

male genitalia, albeit in innuendo, which allows them to subvert society but also keep the movie

clean (this in-it-of-itself raises the paradox of can something ever truly be subversive, which

cannot be discussed in this analysis). Many other innuendos exist. Jokes about the size of nuts

(another reference to male genitalia), a joke about Juliet “wanting to be smashed” (this, in

context, references being killed by a car, but also implies sexual activity), and a scene where the

Frog is in a bed of roses covering her breast and groin regions is a clear reference to the movie

American Beauty. These innuendos all seek to subvert children’s entertainment and the notion of

child purity and ignorance by placing overt sexual innuendos into the work.

Second major subversion is the flower scene. It is best to understand the flower as a

symbol for virginity. Juliet’s mission to capture the flower is representative of the feminist, pro-

sex camp which supports women taking the initiative and reclaiming their own sexuality.

However, Gnomeo too captures this flower, representative of a traditionalist critique of

relationships. Nonetheless, the movie subvert’s both those camps in favor of its own critique.

The movie eventually stops both Gnomeo and Juliet from ever truly seizing the flower, rejecting

both the traditionalist and feminist critiques. In fact, the flower is never brought up again. Thus,

the subversion in the text means to imply that it is not one gender’s role to take up sexual

authority in relationships, but that sexual activity ought to be a mutual and non-individual idea.
This supports a pro-sex society that supports openness and mutuality in all relationships and

rejects the traditional Victorian, Christian, sexual repression of modern society, especially in the

United States.

The third major subversion is the breaking of the fourth-wall. The scene where the fourth

wall is broken was already explained in an earlier paragraph. On the surface, this scene seems to

be for pure comedy, however, in breaking the fourth-wall, the directors and creators

acknowledge that this story is nothing new. In fact they even say “We know you have heard this

story before. A lot”. So in communicating this they show that what matters more is the story and

not the message behind it because they follow up their acknowledgement by stating “We are still

going to tell it anyway”. This falls in line with a postmodernist view of storytelling or the view

that the author is dead. It does not matter what Shakespeare wants, it matters what can be done to

the story. That’s why the movie is about gnomes and not teenagers in Italy. This postmodernism

is furthered when Gnomeo outright rejects what Shakespeare says will happen in the play when

he talks to the statue of Shakespeare. This total rejection of the author as dead means that

whoever is handed the story can do whatever they please without consideration of what the

author had originally intended. However, this rejection of the author also rejects the messaging

of the entire play and seeks to value a story’s entertainment over its substance, which actually

subverts the entire movies messaging, creating a paradoxical loop of subversion and overall

nihilist view to any opinion or themes presented in the movie but implying the idea “It doesn’t

matter because who ever wrote it doesn’t matter” Overall, the specific subversion of the play

Romeo and Juliet is not present in the movie, save for the subversion of Juliet’s gender role, but

the amount and depth of the subversion is equal, and in some instances, better, more thought-

provoking, and easier to recognize in the movie than in the play.

 The scene direction within the movie is fine and it is granted more leeway than a live-

action film because its animated and the ability of animation is still very much behind actual

human ability in acting. The movie should be kept the way it is in how scenes are directed. The

story is there and because of story continuity, to modify one scene would require that all other

scenes are modified. Modifying all the scenes would require an entire rewrite of the movie and

could potentially kill off part of the story, context, and theme that the movie ought to articulate

and show.

On balance, the play itself is better than its adaption. The play rewards you for

understanding its quick, witty humour because it’s more vigorous in word choice. Once you

understand it, it makes a consumer feel more intelligent. That same reward system isn’t present

in Gnomeo and Juliet. Some of the humour is cheap, throwaway comedy that is aimed at

children, not matured audiences, save for innuendo. So, much of the comedy doesn’t really

resonate with scholarly or adult consumers. The tone of the play is also better. It’s darker nature

makes it more suspenseful and ultimately a much better ending. Having protagonists die is a bold

literary move, one the Shakespeare does not shy away from and when he does it, it’s impact and

payout is much greater than a ‘Happily ever after’ story. The movies omission of Mercutio is

saddening and inclusion of a flamingo is confusing at times and annoying most of the time.

However, the movie does have better subversion than the play, but that doesn’t outweigh the

better nature of the play over the film adaption.

Whilst the movie has better subversion, the play does include one kind of social prose

which is absent from Gnomeo and Juliet; that prose being the question “What is love?”. Both

works critique love, but Romeo and Juliet also asks the question what is love. The play has this

kind of internal conflict in itself trying to decide what love is. When Romeo complains about
Rosaline rejecting him, love seems to be viewed as an absolute but only a scene later at the gala,

Romeo completely forgets Rosaline, so love seems to be transplantable to anyone. When Romeo

and Juliet exchange a scene where he is a pilgrim seeking god, love seems to be of lust. But

when Juliet dismisses Romeo putting love into words in the chapel as being a beggar, love seems

to be a inner feeling, one that cannot so easily be converted into words or actions like lust can.

These can all be viewed as critiques, but it is better to see them as questions. Posing to the reader

that many conceptions of love, both in thought and in action. They weigh them and have the

reader weigh them too. Commentary does not need to have a thesis necessarily and this is prime

example. Perhaps love can be anything. Perhaps love can be between anyone. Perhaps love is

lust. Perhaps love is a undescribable bond. Perhaps love is disposable. Perhaps love is absolute.

Perhaps love can manifest one way for one person and differently for another. Or perhaps love is

the same for all people. These are all very real questions posed by the text, but they aren’t

statements. They want the reader to ask themselves that question, to challenge the reader to

think. Such open-ended social prose is not present in the film Gnomeo and Juliet. This social

prose is a question commentary on how society perceives and manifests love for itself and tries

to start a conversation amongst community-members.

In the end, while Romeo and Juliet will likely stay in the annals of history throughout

time, Gnomeo and Juliet will simply be a blip on storytellings ever growing history. That does

not mean, however, that it is not worth observing both the works in a side by side comparison.

When compared, it is found that the movie possesses more deep-striking subversion, but does not

compare to the overall strength of the play. Alas, this is but an opinion and both these works try

to challenge and question opinions, which is the time-honored tradition and expectation from

each and every great work of storytelling.