Let’s Discuss: Literary Manners

Let’s discuss: Have you noticed these books and movies that take characters from another author and do something completely different?

I recently took Little Sir to see the movie Peter Rabbit. And I’m no expert on Beatrix Potter, but I know a little, and I have to think she’d be disappointed (horrified) by this movie. And it wasn’t a BAD movie (James Corden is really talented) and I loved Benjamin Bunny’s story arc, but I think there was a way to make that movie and not involve (debase) Ms. Potter’s charming menagerie. I even know how they could have done it. In the movie, they have this running joke with a group of songbirds. At the beginning, they are singing a la’ Snow White– you know, epic, soaring, and warm-hearted. And then the birds break the 4th wall to tell you, “This isn’t that kind of movie.”  That would have been the perfect way to let the audience know, “This movie isn’t about that Peter Rabbit.” And while they were at it, they could apologize to Ms. Potter.

There is one scene where the main character, a struggling artist named “Beatrice” (I have no idea why they didn’t just use the “x”) shows off these “little” “silly” drawings she does of her woodland friends and, of course, they’re the original Potter images. And I kind of ached for what had been done with those charming watercolors in creating this movie.

And in an effort at representing both sides here, Little Sir loved the movie. I asked him about this issue and he looked at me like I had suddenly morphed into a talking rabbit. “It doesn’t bother me at all.” There you have it. We can discuss my failures as a parent another time.

There are plenty more examples of this technique:

Wicked (a different take on Wizard of Oz)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (the undead at Pimberly)

Jane Austen’s characters seem to be a fave for this treatment. There’s a new book about Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennett and Sherlock Holmes teaming up.

Off the cuff, I want to say, I don’t like it. At all. As a writer, It feels cheap. Something you might do as a writing exercise or perhaps some fan fiction. And as a reader, viewer, it feels disrespectful to other (often dead) authors’ creative work.

It feels like bad manners. Here’s a napkin, you’ve dribbled some plagiarism on your chin there. No there. No, it’s still there.

But…

I did like that old Peter Pan movie with Robin Williams. And the new movie coming out about Winnie the Pooh and an adult Christopher Robin looks good.

I liked the BBC series, Sherlock set in modern times. It is obvious the creators were big fans of the original series. The movie about Charles Dickens and Scrooge could be good but I’m still annoyed with Dan Stevens (who plays Dickens) for bailing on Downton Abby…

I guess, if it feels like the work is more a tribute to the original, I’m okay. If it’s keeping with the spirit of the original and feels like it does the original justice, I’m mollified. And even, entertained. Okay, yes, I can even like it.

But I STILL wonder what those authors’ feel.

So…your turn, tell me your thoughts on etiquette at the literary table.