What is significant about fanfiction is that it often spins the kind of stories that showrunners wouldn’t think to tell, because fanficcers often come from a different demographic. The discomfort seems to be not that the shows are being reinterpreted by fans, but that they are being reinterpreted by the wrong sorts of fans—women, people of colour, queer kids, horny teenagers, people who are not professional writers, people who actually care about continuity (sorry). The proper way for cultural mythmaking to progress, it is implied, is for privileged men to recreate the works of privileged men from previous generations whilst everyone else listens quietly.
Sherlock and the Adventure of the Overzealous Fanbase by Laurie Penny (via cypress-tree)
THAT LAST SENTENCE
modern day shakespeare adaptions that should exist
- southern gothic macbeth. the bloody, brutal themes of the play in the suffocating atmosphere of the genre. the imagery of lady macbeth’s hands dripping with blood! the witches! macbeth’s madness when he believes the swamp has actually come to life to kill him! it’s like it was made for this play
- political othello. make him secretary of defense or state. imagine a house of cards like environment. addresses issues of current racism and misogyny in politics, and Iago’s jealous/obsessive love for Othello with very clear homo-erotic undertones. like extremely explicit and how that translates in such a masculine setting to understand Iago’s intent.
- police hamlet. hamlet senior as the deputy in nyc. his mysterious death draws his son home from stanford/harvard/what-have-you. a modern day noir-like detective mystery. emphasis on ophelia’s depression and subsequent decent into madness by popping too many pills. the way the “respectful” upper-class tear themselves apart splashed all across the media.
- the tempest as lost.
- titus andronicus as a proper horror movie, set in the current war in the middle east.
- college midsummer nights dream. the fairyland is a popular night club. lots of dubstep music and drugs slipped in dark corners of the dance floor.
