Frankenstein Performed - Midwest PCA/ACA PDF
Preview Frankenstein Performed - Midwest PCA/ACA
THE POPULAR CULTURE STUDIES JOURNAL VOLUME 2 NUMBERS 1 & 2 2014 Editor BOB BATCHELOR Thiel College Associate Editor NORMA JONES Kent State University Associate Editor KATHLEEN TURNER Aurora University Book Review Editor JENNIFER C. DUNN Dominican University Assistant Editor MYC WIATROWSKI Indiana University Assistant Editor MAJA BAJAC-CARTER Kent State University Please visit the PCSJ at: http://mpcaaca.org/the-popular-culture-studies-journal/ The Popular Culture Studies Journal is the official journal of the Midwest Popular and American Culture Association. Copyright © 2014 Midwest Popular and American Culture Association. All rights reserved. Cover photo credits Cover Artwork “Living Popular Culture” by Brent Jones © 2014 “Selfie for Peace” by Savannah Jones © 2014 “Party People” by Roob9 licensed by PhotoDune iPhone frame: Creative Commons “iPhone 5S” by Karlis Dambrans is licensed under CC BY 2.0 E A B DITORIAL DVISORY OARD ANTHONY ADAH JUSTIN GARCIA Minnesota State University, Moorhead Millersville University AARON BARLOW ART HERBIG New York City College of Technology (CUNY) Indiana University - Faculty Editor, Academe, the magazine of the AAUP Purdue University, Fort Wayne JOSEF BENSON ANDREW F. HERRMANN University of Wisconsin Parkside East Tennessee State University PAUL BOOTH JARED JOHNSON DePaul University Thiel College GARY BURNS JESSE KAVADLO Northern Illinois University Maryville University of St. Louis KELLI S. BURNS KATHLEEN A. KENNEDY University of South Florida Missouri State University ANNE M. CANAVAN WILLIAM KIST Emporia State University Kent State University ERIN MAE CLARK LARRY Z. LESLIE Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota University of South Florida BRIAN COGAN MATTHEW MIHALKA Molloy College University of Arkansas - Fayetteville ASHLEY M. DONNELLY LAURIE MOROCO Ball State University Thiel College LEIGH H. EDWARDS CARLOS D. MORRISON Florida State University Alabama State University VICTOR EVANS SALVADOR MURGUIA Thiel College Akita International University ANGELA M. NELSON SARAH MCFARLAND TAYLOR Bowling Green State University Northwestern University PAUL PETROVIC KATHLEEN TURNER Independent Scholar Aurora University LAUREANO RALON MARYAN WHERRY Figure/Ground Communication Western Illinois University Quad-Cities PHIL SIMPSON SHAWN DAVID YOUNG Eastern Florida State College York College of Pennsylvania THE POPULAR CULTURE STUDIES JOURNAL VOLUME 2 NUMBERS 1 & 2 2014 CONTENTS Editorial: All Me…All the Time 1 Bob Batchelor ARTICLES Relational Aggression on Film: An Intersectional Analysis of Mean 5 Girls Michaela D. E. Meyer, Linda M. Waldron, and Danielle M. Stern No Face: Implied Author and Masculine Construct in the Fiction 35 of Junot Díaz Josef Benson Frankenstein Performed: The Monster Who Will Not Die 65 Jeanne Tiehen Discipline and Policing: HBO’s The Wire as a Critique of Modern 87 American Culture Morgan Shipley and Jack Taylor Performing Ordinary: Politicians, Celebrity, & the Politics of 109 Representation on Entertainment Talk Sue Collins Communication Deficiencies Provide Incongruities for Humor: 140 The Asperger’s-like Case of The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper Karen McGrath Influence of Popular Television Programming on Students’ 172 Perception about Course Selection, Major, and Career Kristy Tucciarone Partisan Pop Cultural Awareness: Disclosing the Metaphoric 193 Rhetoric of the “Culture Wars” Jeremy V. Adolphson ‘Social’ TV: Pretty Little Liars, Casual Fandom, Celebrity 215 Instagramming, and Media Life Cory Barker INTERVIEW The Popular Culture Studies Journal Interview with 243 GEORGE EDWARD CHENEY BOOK REVIEWS THE STUART HALL FORUM 256 Stuart Hall: Relevance and Remembrance Jennifer C. Dunn Considering Hall and Reconsidering Foundations of the Popular “Notes On Deconstructing ‘The Popular’” Jules Wight Still Getting Us a Little Further Down the Road “The Narrative Construction of Reality: An Interview with Stuart Hall” Linda Baughman Reviewing and Reflecting: Representations Adam W. Tyma THE POPULAR CULTURE STUDIES JOURNAL BOOK REVIEWS 274 Introductions Jennifer C. Dunn Where the Aunts Are: Family, Feminism & Kinship in Popular Culture Rachel E. Silverman Love and Money: Queers, Class, and Cultural Production Vanessa Campagna Pranksters: Making Mischief in the Modern World Aaron Barlow Renegade Hero or Faux Rogue: The Secret Traditionalism of Television Bad Boys Bob Batchelor Cable Guys: Television and Masculinities in the 21st Century CarrieLynn D. Reinhard Motorsports and American Culture: From Demolition Derbies to NASCAR Norma Jones Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot Adam Perry Feeling Mediated: A History of Media Technology and Emotion in America William Kist Screening the Undead: Vampires and Zombies in Film and Television Jesse Kavadlo My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles L. Lelaine Bonine Twitter: Social Communication in the Twitter Age. Digital Media and Society Series La Royce Batchelor The United States of Paranoia Ted Remington The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth Janelle Applequist The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Chrys Egan and John Egan ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS 323 Frankenstein Performed: The Monster Who Will Not Die JEANNE TIEHEN At first there is only darkness. The sound of a loud heartbeat fills the theatre. In a flash of light, there is a glimpse of what appears to be a naked man suspended from the ceiling. Before the eyes can make sense of what they are seeing, the stage goes dark again. There is another flash of light. The man-like creature groans painfully as he struggles to free himself. He finally succeeds, and he falls to the floor. He appears unable to stand. Blood seeps from his multiple sutures. He cowers on the floor. It is dark again. The London audience anxiously waits for another flash of light to witness the Creature come to life in the National Theatre’s 2011 production of Frankenstein. Nearly two hundred years after Mary Shelley first anonymously published her novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, playwright Nick Dear and director Danny Boyle created a new adaptation of Frankenstein for the National Theatre. Despite countless film and stage dramatizations of Frankenstein the production created a “high-decibel buzz” that led to advanced ticket sellouts, due in part to Boyle’s return to directing for the stage and the alternation of leading parts between actors Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch (Brantley). Critics unanimously praised the show, claiming it achieved the “truly spectacular” by taking the familiar Frankenstein tale and making “the old story seem fresh” (Spencer). In their reviews, critics did not forget Shelley or the play’s indebtedness to her characters and story. After all, Shelley crafted an engrossing novel composed of complicated characters, strange events, The Popular Culture Studies Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1&2 Copyright © 2014 65 66 Jeanne Tiehen and philosophical questions about what it means to be human. Mary Shelley wrote, “And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper” in an introduction to her 1831 text, years after she saw the novel capture the public’s imagination in numerous stage adaptations (“Introduction” 25). She could not have anticipated that her story would continue to “go forth and prosper” in such a celebrated fashion. The story of Frankenstein, much like the Creature itself, has taken on a life of its own There is something particular about the story of Frankenstein. Playwrights and screenwriters claim that their adaptations are based on Shelley’s novel. However, early adaptations immediately diverged from the novel and created unique patterns that recur throughout the history of dramatizations. The 2011 production owes as much to previous Frankenstein plays and films as it does to Shelley’s novel. Even more so than retellings of Jekyll and Hyde and Dracula, Frankenstein as a story has often undergone severe modifications in its many incarnations. The story is staged year after year, but there is no singular or established adaptation. Instead the story has shifted over time, responding to variations in popular taste, medium, and to the world outside the theatre doors. Each adaptation has made changes to the narrative of the novel, and Dr. Frankenstein and his Creature are often uniquely characterized through each major adaptation. The question remains: why is Frankenstein continually dramatized? I contend it is the mythology of Frankenstein, perpetuated by the fears of progress, which continues to give the story its relevance and potential for new dramatic reinterpretations. Comparing Shelley’s novel with trends in dramatizations and utilizing Roland Barthes’ Mythologies, it is evident that adaptations have perpetuated a fear of progress and created a myth that we culturally understand and embrace. The very word Frankenstein conjures distinct images: the mad scientist, the strange laboratory, the unstoppable Monster, and a path of destruction where fears of progress are Frankenstein Performed 67 based. Through these components, the story of Frankenstein reflects social anxieties and mirrors a hope for returning to normative conditions through the demise or punishment of the Creature and Dr. Frankenstein in almost every adaptation. By explaining the mythic relevance of Frankenstein, it will be apparent why adaptations have continued to transform the story and why Frankenstein will resurface on our stages and screens for years to come. Paul O’Flinn in his essay “Production and Reproduction: The Case of Frankenstein” writes, “There is no such thing as Frankenstein, there are only Frankensteins, as the text is ceaselessly rewritten, reproduced, refilmed, and redesigned” (22). Despite the absence of a definitive adaptation of Frankenstein, the 1930s Universal films Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein perhaps possess the most iconic hold on the public’s imagination with Boris Karloff’s monster. Yet, the silent monster Karloff crafted was indebted to the Frankenstein plays that were performed in England and France nearly a hundred years prior. In 1823, five years after Shelley published her novel, Richard Brinsley Peake’s adaptation Presumption; or, The Fate of Frankenstein became a popular success on the London stage. By 1826 there were over fifteen different stage adaptations of Shelley’s novel performed in England and France. The public excitedly devoured the popular story of Frankenstein as a dramatization. The early melodramas were an immediate departure from Shelley’s controversial novel, particularly in the characterization of Dr. Frankenstein and the Creature. Over the past two hundred years, writers and literary theorists have analyzed Shelley’s novel. In Harold Bloom’s examination of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein he writes, “it is only a strong, flawed novel with frequent clumsiness in its narrative and characterization,” but it possesses “one of the most vivid versions we have of the Romantic mythology of the self” (4). Bloom’s use of the word “vivid” is striking. Where Shelley’s novel may fail in technique and consistency, she makes
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