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.