Recently I collaborated once more with Dr Stephanie Russo and Dr Jimmy Van on Macquarie University’s From the Lighthouse podcast to record a series of discussions based around one thing we all have in common: a love for teen movie adaptations of classic literature! From films like Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You, which have become 90s classics in their own right (and indelibly marked my own teenage years), to a range of weird and wonderful adaptations in the years since, we tackle the ups and downs of turning classic literature into teen film, what we love and loathe about these productions, the advantages and pitfalls of fidelity to the ‘original’ text, and the evergreen question of what makes a good adaptation. Invariably, these discussions also invited a lot of introspection and reflection on our own teenagehoods, and I found it particularly interesting to trace the ways that these films shaped our own varied experiences of being teenagers, and even, in some cases, our journeys into studying and researching literature and its contexts for a living. I will share more of these episodes as they become available below:
#1 – 10 Things I Hate About You
An adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew
When this film was released in 1999, I was 14 years old; right in the middle of my own teenage experience. I remember enjoying the film along with every one else when it was released, but the real magic came when I was able to study it alongside its source text, Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, when I was in Year 11 (my second last year of high school). Diving into the intricacies of this text – as well as the creative possibilities and world of new, subtle meanings opened up by adaptation – was probably one of those experiences that consolidated my eventual path into studying English Literature at University all the way into a PhD. I absolutely loved it. This is one of those films that I continue to rewatch and love just as much each time: clever, sassy, endlessly quotable, hilarious, heart-warming, and somehow a beautiful time-capsule of the late 90s without being ‘dated’ or outmoded, there is so much to get out of a film as beautifully layered, and an adaptation as smoothly, smartly done as this. Listen to our full discussion of the film and its adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic below:
Link to this podcast episode: https://www.fromthelighthouse.org/2020/classic-teendaptation-1-10-things-i-hate-about-you
#2 – She’s The Man
An adaptation of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
This was not one of the films I grew up with, sitting just outside my own teenage years. However, give me a girl who fights against gender discrimination, rejects outmoded attitudes towards women, and rises above the fray to kick goals (in this case, quite literally) and I’m there (and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is one I happen to particularly enjoy). This film is quirky, silly, funny and innocent in turns, yet also potentially frustrating and limited where the earlier 90s adaptations were braver with their choices. Regardless, it is a really interesting attempt to take a classic Shakespearean text and merge it with mid-00s teen culture. With Stephanie and Jimmy, I chatted about what we loved (and some things we didn’t) about this film, about what choices were made during the process of adapting it into its modern teen context, and what this suggests about the possibilities of adaptation in general. Listen to our full discussion of the film below:
Link to this podcast episode: https://www.fromthelighthouse.org/2020/classic-teendaptation-2-shes-the-man
#3 – Clueless
An adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma
I was only 10 years old when this film came out and didn’t see it at the time, so it didn’t immediately have a big impact on my youth. That would all change at 17 when I got to watch it – many, many times over – during my final year of high school (and it counted as schoolwork!). I was studying it alongside Jane Austen’s 1815 novel Emma as an adaptation. And boy did I fall in love with it (and Emma, and literary studies, and adaptation – again). Like my experience of studying 10 Things I Hate About You the year before, this was one of those formative moments that I’m pretty sure laid yet another brick in the path that would lead me to where I am now, teaching literature at university and researching, among other things, adaptation, teen texts and nineteenth-century literature. Actually, when I put it like that, it was definitely a formative moment. Since then I have enjoyed this film many times over, and I think it is a perfect, immortal bubble of 90s teen happiness. It is incredibly intelligent, subtle, witty, smart, laugh-out-loud funny, whimsical and fantastic, and yet it is also deeply real, emotional, and taps into something fundamentally human – flawed, yet naively beautiful – in all of us. In short, Amy Heckerling, like Jane Austen before her, is a genius, and this is the film you should know her by. With Stephanie and Jimmy I chat about what makes this film so special, some of the fascinating facts behind its creation and production, and what makes it such a successful adaptation of Austen, let alone a successful film in its own right. Listen to our full discussion of the film and its adaptation of Emma below:
Link to this podcast episode: https://www.fromthelighthouse.org/2020/classic-teendaptation-3-clueless-as-if
#4 – Easy A
An adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is considered one of the American classics, but its seemingly antiquated concerns and plot make it difficult to translate into modern film adaptations… that is, unless you send it to high school. The teen world of a 2010 California public high school is an interesting and potentially challenging choice of context for an adaptation of The Scarlet Letter, and yet the 2010 film Easy A, starring Emma Stone in all her intelligent, quirky, hilarious and lovable glory, pulls it off perfectly. An intelligent, fast-paced script filled with nuance and believable – if off-the-wall – characters, Easy A is plays fast and loose with its source material, but this is perhaps precisely what makes it such a good adaptation. The film is constantly aware of itself as an adaptation of both The Scarlet Letter and of the genre of “Teen Film” more generally, and much of its humour lies in the way it confidently and intelligently acknowledges and references these texts (“I’m not a gossip girl in the sweet valley of the travelling pants” is one of my favourite of these characteristically mixed references that highlight both the sameness and yet also the formative power of teen television and film). With some smart parallels to be drawn with the earlier 10 Things I Hate About You, this film tackles the issue of female (and male, and teen, and homo-) sexuality, the hypocrisy of public policing and judgement of women’s bodies, the power of words, narrative and misinformation, and a host of other provocative questions still apt a decade later. Listen to our podcast chat below to find out everything we had to say about Easy A:
Link to this podcast episode: https://www.fromthelighthouse.org/2020/classic-teendaptation-4-easy-a
#5 – She’s All That
An adaptation of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (and My Fair Lady)
She’s All That was released in 1999, the same year as 10 Things I Hate About You, but it couldn’t be more different in its style and approach to adapting its source text(s) – George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, and the famous film adaptation of this play, My Fair Lady. Unlike 10 Things and the other films discussed so far in this podcast series, She’s All That plays its adaptation relatively straight and irony-free, with the exception of a brief and uncomplicated reference to Pretty Woman (another adaptation of the Pygmalion/My Fair Lady story). In many ways it is a classic ‘teen film’, from its American high school setting and its ‘jocks’ vs ‘nerds’ social strata, to its adolescent angst over appearances, personal vs public identity, first romances, sexual conquests and – that height of teen rights of passage – the Homecoming Dance. While it attempts to argue that appearances can be deceiving and it’s what’s inside that counts, this film actually seems to end up promoting the exact opposite, with some very questionable moments and character motivation (if it is a product of its time, it’s one that makes 10 Things and the earlier Clueless all the more commendable for their intelligent deviation from the norm in this regard). I remember seeing this at the cinema when it came out – complete with popcorn and an awkward first date of my own (it didn’t last) – and while the iconic Fat Boy Slim choreographed dance number remains memorable (it even achieves a reference in Easy A!), there is much about the rest of the film that deserves some serious critical reflection. So, with our podcast hats on, that’s exactly what we did! Listen to our chat below to find out everything we had to say about She’s All That:
Link to this podcast episode: https://www.fromthelighthouse.org/2020/classic-teendaptation-5-shes-all-that
#6 – Get Over It
An adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
I had never heard of Get Over It before searching for teen film adaptations of classic literature for this podcast series. This surprised me because the film was released in 2001 – the height of my teenage years – and it stars Kirsten Dunst at arguably the peak of her teen Hollywood career (Bring It On was released the year before, and Spiderman would quickly follow). So, in 2020, I sat down to watch this film for the first time, and boy was it a nostalgic, quirky, dream-like delight! From the opening credit sequence (a huge, hilarious, self-aware dance number complete with marching band) to the early ’00s fashion, the outlandish comedy (including the recurring gag of an over-excited dog), the play-within-a-film ploy, and the dreamy shifts between real and imagined scenes, this film was a cornucopia of playful, self-aware, bacchanalian and – yes, really – Shakespearean oddities. This film perhaps stretched our definitions of adaptation the most, but I really loved the creative, playful and self-aware approach it took to capturing and recreating the spirit rather than the exact plot of Shakespeare’s famous story of moonlit, midnight forest fairy capers, mistaken identities and bewitched lovers. Listen to our chat below to hear me make my case for Get Over It as a successful adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (and see if I managed to convince Stephanie!):
Link to this podcast episode: https://www.fromthelighthouse.org/2020/classic-teendaptation-6-get-over-it
More episodes coming soon!
