THEY BUTCHERED JANE AUSTEN LIKE A KOSHER COW

[gogmagog]

I'm currently watching the recent film adaptation of Mansfield Park. I'm sorry, but this is quite possibly the worst Austen adaptation I've ever seen EVAR IN THE WORLD EVAR. First off, Fanny (who in the book starts out as like the mousiest of mouses) has suddenly become this rebellious grrl heroine, which...NONONONO. And they bizarrely try to conflate her with Austen herself - they make Fanny a wannabe writer, and use snippets of Austen's juvenilia as Fanny's writing.

The other characters are equally horrific - Sir Thomas is hitting on Fanny, Lady Bertram is a laudanum-addicted space cadet, Mary Crawford is a raging nympho who has very unsubtle lesbian subtext with Fanny, which...NO. And the other characters fare equally poorly.

And, of course, they hammer home "the Bertram wealth is built on slaves!!1!" point ridiculously. They bring up slavery in like every other scene, and in general take something that was subtly implied in Austen's book and make it the ZOMG MORAL OF THE STORY.

And those are just a few of the ways they've absolutely slaughtered the story, and I'm only halfway through the movie. Personally, I'm just waiting for the part where Fanny runs off to London and becomes a tuppenny whore and gets attacked by Jack the Ripper (sixty-five years too early) and gets saved by Edmund, who brings her out of her life of depravity. Then we see their big, glorious wedding right before the eight-minute wedding night sex scene. (Or something along those lines.)

...Here's a little editorial on Thanksgiving from the Iowa City paper. It's complete with the traditional "Squanto helped the Pilgrims, and then they were all happy and friendful and aren't we glad for friendship, tra la la!"

Now, maybe it's just the fact that I'm now into the postcolonial section of my theory course, but I find myself asking, "but...where's the part where all the Indians die horribly of disease, etc.?" (I suppose that could be a bit of a downer for the kiddies, but I do find it disturbing that no one even pays any attention to it. I mean, what essentially amounts to genocide always gets shoved under the rug, which kinda irritates me.)

Personally, I prefer to think of Thanksgiving the same way Anya from Buffy does - it's basically just a ritual sacrifice with pie. Tasty pie.

Comments

[ryuusama.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the recent version of MP is pretty bad. I try to pretend it isn't based off a Jane Austen book when I watch it; it makes it much more tolerable. Also, I comfort myself that at the very least Fanny Price gets a better actress in this version than the old BBC miniseries from the 80s. I know you like that one, but I watched it a year ago, and the actress is really bad. She manages to make Fanny into a priggish, holier-than-thou brat instead of the shy, sensible, principled girl Jane Austen intended.

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Well, like I said I saw the BBC MP when I was like 8, so I probably need to watch it again now that I've read the book.

It's kinda funny, I was just thinking the same thing about the new MP - it might not be half-bad if I weren't constantly thinking "But, but, this is supposed to be Jane Austen..." The really sad thing is that they did really good casting (that even would have been good if they'd intended to do a faithful adaptation), but good GOD was it wasted.

[jantalaimon.livejournal.com]

that's about how i view Thanksgiving, too. XD

yeah, shoving it under the rug was about what they did. rugs, blankets...six of one, half a dozen of the other...hey, infected blankets = convenient wrappings for easier disposal! :P

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

See, I kind of hate coming off like Willow in the Buffy episode "Pangs" - all "would you like some genocide with that turkey?" - but I can't avoid it. I'm the same way about Columbus.

And you should be proud of me, I restrained myself from pointing out that the article, like just about everything else, has gotten to the point where they'll acknowledge his factual error in that he was convinced till his death that he'd discovered India, but again nothing about the enslavement and genocide. >_<

[jantalaimon.livejournal.com]

XD that's a whole lotta restraint, oh yes.

i am also minded of the turkey song in Addams Family Values. are you familiar with it, perchance? XD

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. (Though I preferred the bit afterwards where Pocahontas!Wednesday leads a massacre of the white settlers. XD)

A quick Google brought up this:

Campers (singing): Eat us, hey! It’s Thanksgiving Day! Eat us! We make a nice buffet!
We lost the race with Farmer Ed, so eat us, because we’re good and dead!
White man or red man, from east, north, or south, chop off our legs, and put ’em in your mouth.
Turkey: Eat me!
Campers (singing): Sautéd or barbequed!
Turkey: Eat me!
Campers (singing): We once were pets, but now we’re food! We won’t stay fresh for very long, so eat us before we finish this song! Eat us before we finish this song!

...ahhh, I loved that movie. XD