Neo-Victorianism on Screen: Postfeminism and Contemporary Adaptations of Victorian Women

206 Pages·2018·2.74 MB·English

by  Antonija Primorac (auth.)

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN ADAPTATION

AND VISUAL CULTURE
Neo-Victorianism
on Screen
Postfeminism and Contemporary
Adaptations of Victorian Women
Antonija Primorac
Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture
Series Editors
Julie Grossman
Le Moyne College
Syracuse, NY, USA
R. Barton Palmer
Department of English
Clemson University
Clemson, SC, USA
This new series addresses how adaptation functions as a principal mode
of text production in visual culture. What makes the series distinctive is
its focus on visual culture as both targets and sources for adaptations,
and a vision to include media forms beyond film and television such as
videogames, mobile applications, interactive fiction and film, print and
nonprint media, and the avant-garde. As such, the series will contribute
to an expansive understanding of adaptation as a central, but only one,
form of a larger phenomenon within visual culture. Adaptations are texts
that are not singular but complexly multiple, connecting them to other
pervasive plural forms: sequels, series, genres, trilogies, authorial oeuvres,
appropriations, remakes, reboots, cycles and franchises. This series espe-
cially welcomes studies that, in some form, treat the connection between
adaptation and these other forms of multiplicity. We also welcome pro-
posals that focus on aspects of theory that are relevant to the importance
of adaptation as connected to various forms of visual culture.
Editorial Board
Sarah Cardwell, University of Kent, UK
Deborah Cartmell, De Montfort University, UK
Timothy Corrigan, University of Pennsylvania, US
Lars Ellestrom, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Kamilla Elliott, Lancaster University, UK
Christine Geraghty, University of Glasgow, UK
Helen Hanson, University of Exeter, UK
Linda Hutcheon, University of Toronto, Canada
Glenn Jellenik, University of Central Arkansas, US
Thomas Leitch, University of Delaware, US
Brian McFarlane, Monash University, Australia
Simone Murray, Monash University, Australia
James Naremore, Indiana University, US
Kate Newell, Savannah College of Art and Design, US
Laurence Raw, Baskent University, Turkey
Robert Stam, New York University, US
Constantine Verevis, Monash University, Australia
Imelda Whelehan, Australian National University, Australia
Shannon Wells-Lassagne, Universite de Bretagne Sud, France
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/14654
Antonija Primorac
Neo-Victorianism
on Screen
Postfeminism and Contemporary Adaptations
of Victorian Women
Antonija Primorac
Faculty of Humanities and Social
Sciences
University of Split
Split, Croatia
Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture
ISBN 978-3-319-64558-2 ISBN 978-3-319-64559-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64559-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017949208
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
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A
cknowledgements
This book has been long in the making, and I would therefore like to
thank my family, friends, and colleagues for their patience and sup-
port. The seeds were sown at the 2nd Annual Association of Adaptation
Studies conference held in 2007 at Oglethorpe University, Atlanta,
USA, where a panel on nineteenth century on film brought a wide-
eyed and somewhat opinionated PhD candidate together with inspira-
tional academics pursuing research on adaptation studies. It was the start
of many a conversation on the shape-shifting beast that is adaptation,
leading eventually to fruitful work collaborations, university exchange
programmes and the organisation of an international conference, Neo-
Victorian Networks, held in Amsterdam in 2012. Had that cross- Atlantic
trip not been possible, my life would certainly have taken a different
turn, so I am immensely grateful to the Croatian Ministry of Science for
its generous funding programme for young researchers’ international
conference attendance (sadly no longer available).
I would like to thank the US Department of State for awarding
me the Fulbright scholarship that enabled me to spend a year at New
York University’s English Department in 2008–2009 where, with the
generous help of Rajeswari Sunder Rajan and John Maynard, I started
to develop my initial musings on film adaptations of Henry James’
novels. I was also fortunate enough to be awarded the Fulbright Alumni
Grant that went towards academic journal subscriptions n ecessary
for a continuation of research at my home institution. The resulting
PhD, written in Croatian and defended at Zagreb University’s English
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Department, was supervised by Borislav Knežević, to whom I am
indebted for his guidance and support. I would also like to thank the
head of my PhD committee, Nikica Gilić, for his constructive comments
and encouragement.
A huge thank you goes to Eve Patten whose invitation in early 2013
to use the library facilities at Trinity College Dublin was a turning
point that made the idea of this particular book project plausible. The
Visiting Fellowship at TCD enabled the much needed access to valuable
resources and helped me to develop some already published articles into
a full-blown book written in English.
The completion of this project would not have been possible without
the non-stipendiary Visiting Fellowship at the Institute of English
Studies, University of London from July to September 2013. The
lengthy stay in London was made possible thanks to the generosity
and hospitality of Wendy Bracewell and Robert Shoemaker, Andrew
Asibong, Zoran Milutinović and Alan Kennedy, to whom I offer my
deepest thanks. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Faculty
of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split, for the short-term
research trip grants that made holding the Visiting Fellowships at IES
and TCD financially feasible.
While in Split, my research often relied on the comradeship of
colleagues at universities abroad with better access to databases and j ournal
subscriptions. Thank you Erik Steinskog, Ana Franjić, Christine Ferguson,
Emily Elizabeth Direen, Joyce Goggin, Tara MacDonald, Monika Pietrzak-
Franger, Ivan Lupić, Lejla Kučukalić, Linda Warley, Sarah Artt and Eckart
Voigts—without you the completion of this book would have been
well-nigh impossible.
I am indebted to my editors at Palgrave Macmillan, Lina Aboujieb
and Karina Jakupsdottir, for their continuing support and assistance.
A special thank you goes to my husband Aidan for patiently reading
through the different drafts and offering his insightful editorial advice—
all this despite his heartfelt dislike for costume drama (and heritage
cinema in particular).
Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents, Slavka and
Ljubo, and my sister Jaka for their unwavering faith in me and my work.
Od srca hvala.
A version of the chapter on the adaptations of Irene Adler was pre-
viously published as ‘The Naked Truth: The Postfeminist Afterlives of
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
Irene Adler’ (2013) and is here revisited with the kind permission of the
general editor of Neo-Victorian Studies, Marie-Luise Kohlke. A shorter
version of the chapter entitled ‘In the Grip of the Corset’ was published
in the inaugural issue of Film, Fashion & Consumption as ‘Corsets, Cages
and Embowered Women in Contemporary Victoriana on Film’, and is
rewritten here with the journal’s approval. A smaller part of the chap-
ter on the representations of colonial space and gender roles was previ-
ously published by Palgrave Macmillan as ‘Cultural Nostalgia, Orientalist
Ideology and Heritage Film’ in The Politics of Adaptation: Media
Convergence and Ideology (2015) edited by Dan Hassler-Forest and
Pascal Nicklas.
c
ontents
1 Introduction: Neo-Victorianism on Screen
and Postfeminist Media Culture 1
2 Postfeminism and Screen Adaptations of Sherlock
Holmes Stories: The Case of Irene Adler 27
3 Re-presenting the Past: Gender, Colonial Space
and Cultural Nostalgia in Neo-Victorianism on Screen 55
4 In the Grip of the Corset: Women as Caged Birds
in Contemporary Victoriana on Screen 97
5 Re-fashioning Victorian Heroines and Family Relations:
Tailoring and Shape-Shifting as Queer Adaptation
and Appropriation 133
6 Conclusion: No Country for Old Women 177
Index 191
ix
l f
ist of igures
Fig. 3.1 Caught between two worlds: woman as exotic spectacle
in Ripper Street’s Season 2, Episode 1, ‘Pure
as the Driven’ (detail). BBC 84
Fig. 4.1 Victoria being tight-laced in Tim Burton’s
The Corpse Bride (2005), Warner Bros. Pictures 100
Fig. 4.2 a, b The corseted centre of the film. Stills from
The Portrait of a Lady (1996), dir. Jane Campion.
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment 105
Fig. 4.3 Nicole Kidman as Satine performing ‘Diamonds
are a Girl’s Best Friend’. Moulin Rouge! (2001), Bazmark
Pictures/Twentieth Century Fox 112
Fig. 4.4 Caged birds. Joanna singing ‘Green Finch and Linnet
Bird’ in Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd (2007), DreamWorks
Pictures 114
Fig. 4.5 Crinoline as shelter: Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993).
Australian Film Commission/CiBy 2000/Jan Chapman
Productions 116
Fig. 4.6 Dressed up for the part of a Victorian wife. Jane
Campion’s The Piano (1993). Australian Film
Commission/CiBy 2000/Jan Chapman Productions 117
Fig. 5.1 Hosing down the sins of the body. Still from ‘Closer
than Sisters’ (2014 Series One Episode 5), Penny Dreadful.
Sky Atlantic/Showtime 152
xi