Adaptations and Culture

Paromita Chakravarti
Professor, Dept of English,
Jadavpur University
chakravarti6@gmail.com
 The “remake”
• We live in a world of remakes, remixes,
retellings, reversionings—same stories, songs,
plays, novels, films circulating in new garbs,
new contexts—what we may refer to as
adaptations and appropriations.
• Speaks for our hunger for the old and the new
—the same stories, but not quite—
modernised, tweaked, adapted—”adaptare”—
made fit for our times, cultures, needs.
 The Sholay phenomenon
• Ram Gopal Verma ki Aag—2007 film.
Adaptation of 1975 film, Sholay—
• Court case—Ram gopal Verma fined Rs 10 lakh
for deliberate copyright infringement—using
names like Gabban Singh, Mehbooba song,
Basanti/Ghungroo—although Basanti’s tangaa
becomes Ghungroo’s autorikshaw--
• Copying (copyright) Vs. Adaptation?
 The “original” Sholay?
• Sholay is no original--was “inspired” by Hollywood westerns
which too were inspired by other films--Magnificent Seven,
For a few dollars more, North West Frontier, Good Bad and
Ugly, Once Upon a time in the West
• But even these Hollywood films not original—inspired from
each other—also Magnificent Seven inspired by Kurosawa’s
Seven Samurai—
• A palimpsest of texts—texts inspiring each other-
INTERTEXTUALITY
• So what does it mean to sue Ram Gopal Verma’s Aag?—a
revenue issue
 Copyright?
• Copyright Vs right to ‘copy’—really about revenues—related
historically to rise of print culture, book trade. No copyright in
oral cultures and even early performative cultures
• Shakespeare—lifted stories indiscriminately—and did not care
for his own authorial proprietorship either—only posthumously
established with publishing of Folio. Before that—no stable text
—bad quartos, good quartos—memorial reconstruction
• Ben Jonson—very different author. Published his own collected
“Works” in his lifetime—”tell us great Jonson where the mystery
lurks/what others call plays, you have called works?”
 Originality as Literary value
• Originality as a criteria in literary aesthetics—a post-romantic idea—but also
related to the rise of book trade. In Renaissance, imitatio was a literary ideal
—adapting classical texts.
• Widespread piracy—to prevent it (and to exercise surveillance) texts were
required to be registered in the Stationers’ register from 1557. More to
protect publishers and booksellers’ interests—not auhor’s---really about
book trade, not intellectual property. In 1710 Statute of Anne required all
works to be registered to protect author’s claims on the text. But actual
copyright law is instituted only in 1842 in UK.
• But from point of view of literary aesthetics--TSE’s 1919 essay—”Tradition
and Individual Talent”—attacking romantic notion of emotionalism and
individual authenticity--rethinking originality as literary value. Meaning not
dependant on sole author—meaning stems from the relationship between
texts—between literary tradition and indiv talent of particular author.
 Originality Vs Intertextuality
• Intertextuality—how art generates art—texts
feed off and create new texts--texts and their
“afterlives”. Roland Barthes—”Any text is an
intertext”—texts not produced solely by authors,
their meanings generated through intertextual
networks created by readers. Julia Kristeva—”any
text is a permutation of texts, an intertextualiy”
• Hypertext (adapted version) and hypotext
(source)
 Adaptations and Appropriations
• Adaptation, Translations, Performances, Appropriations—modes of retellings
which are fundamental to the practice and enjoyment of literature
• Adaptations and Appropriations vary in how explicitly they state their
intertextuality—openly declaring that they are reworking of an original text
(adaptation) or suppressing it (appropriation). Also audience’s awareness or
ignorance of intertextual relationships
• Reinterpretative act involves cultural relocation, modernisation even generic
crossover—results in changed contexts, meanings, politics---Rich’s Feminist
revisions
• Retellings sometimes subvert authority of source text, changing its original
meaning—sometimes helps to reinforce its authority by giving it an afterlife—
original text not effaced in adaptation, but rejuvenated—a recanonising--thus
hierarchy of original and adaptation—dynamic, contextual.
Adaptation, Allusion, Quotation, Citation

• Adaptation is sustained engagement with a

source text—allusion, quotation and citation
are different ways of drawing attention to texts
that a particular text wishes to be read with.
Also deriving meaning, value, context from
quoted/cited text—a mode of canonising the
quoted text—paying homage.
• Jinhe Naaz hai—kabhi to chhaliya lagtaa hai
(bricolage, pastiche—postmodernist)
 Politics of Adaptation
• Rewriting not only for aesthetic reasons—
reviving classics, rereading texts etc—but also
political revisions—Adrienne Rich’s idea of
Feminist revisions and rewritings of texts—Rhys’
Wide Sargasso Sea—rewriting Jane Eyre—a
political adaptation? Also post colonial writing
back—Black rewriting of a white literary
tradition—Shakespeare’s Tempest and Othello—
Aime Cesaire’s Une Tempete etc. Gloria Naylor.
 Function of adaptations
• Not to replicate but to complicate, innovate, improvise, expand—so not
about fidelity or lack of it, difference or loss—but about gains and new
readings—not fixity of texts but their plurality and hybridity (bhaba)—a
generative, creative process
• Adaptation is a comment on the original—a critique--or seeking to make
original accessible (R and J as teen romance adaptations—Shksp made easy)
—an editing process—pruning, excising, adding (Lamb’s tales)—to make
more relevant—update—to get new audiences. Or voicing marginalised
voices in texts
• Generic transposition—drama into film, novels into drama, drama into
musical
• CULTURAL TRANSPOSITION---making it comprehensible in another culture—
a process of translation? Geographical relocation in order to expand reach
and relevance of source text
 Adaptation and Culture
• Adaptations have to fit source text into the
specificities of its target culture—not just in
literature and art—also business and brands.
• HSBC bank ad
• McDonald’s—adapts products, ads, shop design--
according to country they are in
• Various elements of culture—language, religion,
values and attitudes, customs and manners,
aesthetics, material goods and education
 McDonald’s:Adapting to cultures
• Languages—Hindi commercials, Indian way of life portrayed in ads—
pucca Indian ad—the first ad in Hindi in 1996 when McDonalds arrived
—stage fright—child suffering from stage fright gets comfortable in
McD and recites
• Religion/Customs—vegetarian items--paneer burgers (first veg products
started in India), Mcaloo tikki, Mac veggie-- no beef burgers in India—
Chicken Maharaja burger—using spices. Special offers during Indian
festivals. Promoted more as a family space in India—birthday parties for
kids.
• Huge furor when case was filed saying mcDonalds don’t use vegetable
oil—
• In India McDonalds is not just cheap fast food—many other things—
fashion, being hip and trendy, a family space—a different brand story.
 McDonald’s Cultural Translations
• In China—special dishes during Chinese New Year—Chilli Garlic
sauce with chicken nuggets—soups added—corn, seafood.
• In germany beer served with food—In Indonesia—Muslim
population—so replacing pork with fish.
• In Japan—green tea ice cream, seaweed shaker, rice burger,
teriyaki burger.
• There are kosher restaurants in Israel and Argentina and halal
branches in Pakistan, Malaysia, and other predominantly-
Muslim countries. In India, meanwhile, no beef or pork
products are sold in deference to Hindu and Islamic beliefs
respectively.
 Cultural Translation and its problems
• Kentucky Fried Chicken's famous "Finger lickin' good" slogan
came out in China as "Eat your fingers off" while Honda was
forced to rebrand the Honda Fitta to the Honda Jazz in the
European market after discovering that fitta is crude slang for
female genitalia in Norway and Sweden.
• But problems too-- When Gallic cartoon icon Asterix was co-
opted to advertise McDonald's in France it caused a furor. What
marketers didn't take into account was the fact that the
character can be seen as both a defender of all things French
(including cuisine) and an anti-Imperialistic hero who
consequently taps into anti-American sentiments in the country.
Clearly cultural oversights can occur even when least expected.
 McDonalds ads
• Show ads—all over world
• Ads are narratives to sell brands—the narrative must change in
different cultural locations– a different story. We don’t just buy
food—we also buy a self image, a lifestyle, an aspiration, a dream,
a sense of our situation in our communities and cultures.
• Exercise—if Mcdonalds were to open on IIM campus—what food,
language, architecture, ads, aesthetics, interior design? How do
we create a cultural narrative?
• Mc Donalds in Hazrat gunj—anything different? McD in your own
cities/towns—what story does it need to tell?
• How do we localise brands—cultural adaptation—relevant to
Shakespearean adaptations
 Source texts: Shakespeare
• Hypotext—adapted version is hypertext. Most adapted
source texts constitute literary archetypes—folk tales
(Propp), fairy tales, myth. Orally circulated body of work
which travels across the globe and are continuously
changed, improvised and adapted. But one author who
serves as a literary archetype and is part of a written
culture—Shakespeare—his plays—a communal, shared,
transcultural, transhistorical art—carried by colonialism,
imperialism, globalisation to all parts of the globe—
shakespeare’s global capital and social currency--
Shakespeare Adaptations and Appropriations

• Shksp adapted since 16th century—From 1660—Restoration

adapters—Nahum Tate and William Davenant changed plot
lines, added characters, excised lines, set to music—all
performances of his plays are also adaptations
• Over the years not just in drama—adaptations across genres—
films, TV, manga, anime, vimeo, video games, graphic novels,
cartoons
• Shakespeare himself an adaptor—with little or no
acknowledgement of sorces—Ovid, Plutarch, Holished (see
Bullough)—Shakespearean age also had open approach to
literary borrowing—imitation taught and practiced in schools.
No copyright laws.
 Romeo and Juliet
• R and J one of the most popular plays in Shksp’s lifetime—
and one of the most performed(with Hamlet)
• The plot is based on an Italian tale translated into verse as
The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke
in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by
William Painter in 1567. Shakespeare borrowed heavily
from both but expanded the plot by developing supporting
characters, like Mercutioand Paris.
• Written between 1591 and 1595, the play was first
published in a quarto version in 1597
 R and J adaptations
• Romeo and Juliet has been adapted numerous times for stage, film, musical,
opera.
• During English Restoration, it was revived and heavily revised by
William Davenant. David Garrick's 18th-century version also modified several
scenes, removing material then considered indecent, and Georg Benda's
Romeo und Julie omitted much of the action and added a happy ending.
• Performances in the 19th century, including Charlotte Cushman's, restored the
original text and focused on greater realism.
• John Gielgud's 1935 version kept very close to Shakespeare's text and used
Elizabethan costumes and staging to enhance the drama.
• In the 20th and into the 21st century, the play has been adapted in versions as
diverse as George Cukor's 1936 film Romeo and Juliet, Franco Zeffirelli's 1968
version Romeo and Juliet, and Baz Luhrmann's 1996 MTV-inspired
Romeo + Juliet.