From Page to Screen / Vom Buch zum Film. Группа авторов
she describes the reimagining of secondary characters as an index to the strategies used by producers and filmmakers to reproduce patriarchal mechanisms in the construction of gender.
2 The Fantastic: From Past to Future
In the literature for children, mentioned in the previous section, the element of fantasy was frequently found, but in contrast to certain children’s stories in the so-called fantasy literature we can very often find a vast territory in which to indulge in all kinds of possibilities which our worldly reality does not offer, or which it limits with its strict physical and natural laws. Sometimes, this literature allows us to delve, from the security that the textual distance imposes, into the investigation of our fears and the things that cause us a conscious or unconscious horror. At other times, fantasy literature allows us to explore the limits of that reality which readers and authors inhabit and from which we can escape thanks to the quality of the fabulous elements in those narratives.
It is also relevant for our purpose here to mention that brand of fantasy literature which deals with the investigation of alternative worlds in which the laws, both cultural and material, of the societies in which we live simply do not apply. With its sometimes extravagant but always original and creative proposals, this type of fantasy literature allows us to consider that it might be possible for alternative worlds to exist, and that the one that we have created is only one among the many possibilities of which we have no knowledge. It would be something like taking to it utmost limits the simple question: What if?
Finally, we should mention two varieties of fantasy literature which have lately become cultural trends. On the one hand, the narratives in which we find historical recreations which amount to alternative versions of what we may have learnt in the more conventional history books. On the other hand, there are those stories which function as maps for all the different versions of possible dystopian societies. These narratives can fill us with horror in anticipation of the dark possibilities of social evolution in the not so distant future, while at the same time, albeit in passing, they offer the opportunity to reconsider the ways and mores of contemporary societies, and send implicitly a warning as to the importance of certain values and their fragility in times of uncertainty,
Marta Mariño-Mexuto analyzes the adaptation of an E.A. Poe’s story, a well-known writer of fantasy literature, by Roger Corman, an also well-known and rather versatile filmmaker who had also his own place in the tradition of horror movies. After a brief review of the history of horror cinema, Mariño-Mexuto dissects a number of different aspects in Corman’s version of Poe’s story, and more particularly the differences in the representation of the female characters, by explaining the social and ideological circumstances of not only the filmmaker but also of the mentality which Corman believes his target audience may have. Thus, for example, the intelligence of the female character in the original story is toned down in the film version in a clear nod not only to the expectations of the audience in the portrayal of a female character but also as a way of standing in line with the tradition of horror films as a genre.
Miguel Ayerbe-Linares’s contribution focuses on J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel The Lord of the Rings, and specifically on the character of Éowyn, who is portrayed as one of the female figures who are concerned with their identity and the meaning of their life. In the third part of The Return of the King two especially significant scenes take place, but, unfortunately, in the film version the dialogue from those scenes has hardly been respected. The first of the scenes has been reduced to Éowyn’s lament for Aragorn’s departure and the awareness that he does not love her, while in the second scene it is a brief and insignificant exchange of words. For Ayerbe-Linares, these two scenes are essential to determine who Éowyn is and who she would like to become, and thus this drastic reduction is difficult to understand, as it profoundly limits the meaning of this character, even more so when the film is usually accorded a great value by critics for its special promotion of female roles.
Christiane Limbach’s essay begins by acknowledging the fact that much has already been written about the role of women in Game of Thrones, as they are first portrayed in the original text by George R.R. Martin and as they are represented in the version which we can watch in the TV series. Thus, for example, characters like Cersei Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen, and Catelyn Stark, or their daughters Sansa and Arya Stark, have been frequently analyzed. For Limbach, however, there are also other female characters of interest, such as Asha Greyjoy, Brienne of Tarth or Missandei, which should deserve the attention of the reader, viewer and critic. Her study concentrates specifically on Missandei, a character that appears for the first time in the third volume of the series but becomes increasingly more and more important. Limbach’s essay is an attempt to thoroughly scrutinize the differences between her representation in the series in contrast to her appearance in the original text.
Pedro Alemany-Navarro begins his essay by discussing the Ship of Theseus, the well-known story which from a paradoxical and even metaphysical perspective discusses issues of change and identity, and how a given object might remain being what it is in spite of its being subjected to modifications conditioned by time and/or space. Alemany-Navarro, following Hobbes, considers the possibility of the endless substitution of fragments to the point that a perfect replica of the original might be achieved. And at this point we are only a step away from the very contemporary questions raised within the posthuman paradigm by transhumanist doctrines. Against this background, full of paradoxes and issues hard to settle once and for all, Alemany-Navarro focuses on a fictional story, Ghost in the Shell, and its subsequent film versions, in order to speculate on the mutability of the notion of identity, particularly human identity, and to consider the way in which subsequent changes in the fragments or pieces of the human hardware will eventually bring about changes in the way we look upon the concepts of change and identity which come under scrutiny in the Ship of Theseus paradox.
In the last contribution of this section, Sergio Cobo-Durán and Irene Raya Bravo concentrate in their essay on the character of Wonder Woman, an ambivalent figure which has been widely criticized in her capacity to become a role model, and who, on the contrary, has been praised as a representation of the process of the empowerment of women, even to the point of being adopted as an icon of feminism. Cobo-Durán and Raya Bravo trace the legacy of Wonder Woman in terms of the social impact which this character has produced in many different areas of popular culture, from the world of comics to TV series, not to mention the controversial decision of nominating her as honorary ambassador to the United Nations, a move that had the opportunity to merge the world of politics with the politics of gender, but which was criticized by many as inconsistent, because of its individualism, with women’s long collective struggle for their rights. In their analysis, Cobo-Durán and Raya Bravo follow the different stages (comic-books, TV series, and finally its reinvention for the big screen) in the journey of this superheroine.
3 For Women War is Never Over
In a conventional and simplistic view, it would seem that women are not directly affected by war, because war, traditionally, as we are used to seeing in novels, movies and history books, is something that only men experience. It is men who are part of the armies, who go to fight other men, who wait in terror in the trenches for the assault of the enemy, or leave them to kill their equally terrified enemies, or ride their horses in the mad frenzy of a cavalry charge, or are shot down from their planes during a bombardment by an anti-aircraft battery manned also by other men. If we think of the many stories of war in any format that we have been told, and with very few exceptions such as the presence of women in the Red Army in World War II, we will only remember the presence of men and their heroic deeds, their cowardice, misery, bravery, etc., alone or in a group with other men.
But, undoubtedly, this is a version that clearly falsifies the reality of things. Because if History is, so to speak, a huge canvas, what is shown in those stories is only a part of that canvas, and, in that sense, it is true that there are no women in that section of the image. But if only we shift our gaze a little towards the margins of the canvas, or towards less illuminated parts of the canvas, then we will begin to perceive that indeed women have been there all along, and that the problem was not that they were not there but that we were simply incapable of seeing them. Or even worse, we didn’t want to see them. Or even worse than that, we weren’t allowed to see