Introduction

The high-spirited affirmation that “everything is awesome” – the hook from the LEGO Movie 's (2014) academy-award-winning theme song – is a message that itself could mean just about “everything” and anything. From “rocks, clocks and socks” to “wigs and twigs,” the lyrics express not only one minifigure's positive attitude toward work, but also the seemingly random, recombinatory mechanism behind the plot, its construction which relies on intermediality and media convergence, and the narrative's very self-conscious intertextuality. At the same time, the movie offers what I will argue is a complex, self-reflexive view of many of the current global predicaments with which we are confronted on a daily basis. The larger implication is that, while it is goes without saying that The LEGO Movie concept derives from various media, including the interlocking bricks, and borrows characters from any number of other narrative franchises, it also foregrounds the kinds of monetary and economic systems through which the film was produced and disseminated.

Importantly, while the film does all of the aforementioned, it also holds up a comedic view of labor and creativity to contemporary Western neoliberalized audiences that remains, as I want to suggest, profitably and productively ambiguous in the film.

Introduction

During the publicity surrounding the screening of series three of Sherlock, the BBC's modernized adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes stories, in January 2014, a great deal was heard from the show's co-creators, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat. Moffat in particular appeared in several public fora, defending the show's new direction. Series three marked a turning point for Sherlock where the actors’ off-screen lives suddenly became much more visible on-screen: in addition to lead writer Gatiss also playing Sherlock's brother Mycroft, Martin Freeman (John Watson)'s then-wife in real life, Amanda Abbington, joined the cast as John's wife Mary, and the real-life parents of Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock), Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham, made cameo appearances as Sherlock and Mycroft's parents. In addition, this was the first series to feature a final villain who was not Jim Moriarty. Gatiss and Moffat chose a media magnate, Charles Augustus Magnussen, as their designated super-villain, a character based on a blackmailer in the Conan Doyle stories, Charles Augustus Milverton. Such a modernizing character adaptation was bound to attract interest for its topicality, especially given the recently concluded Leveson Inquiry, set up by the British government to investigate the ethics and practices of the British press. To underline this connection, Magnussen is first seen on screen giving evidence in front of some kind of official inquiry.

Introduction

Cinema, video games, comics, and novels continue to deal with the Second World War, National Socialism (NS), and the Holocaust. The foci of these media products range widely from historical documentation aimed at enlightening the audience about the inhumanity of the Holocaust (e.g. Maus; Schindler's List ), to films spicing their plot with Nazi antagonists (e.g. Raiders of the Lost Ark; Captain America ), to mere “Nazisploitation” that amplifies exploitation and splatter with “factual horror” (e.g. Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS; Inglourious Basterds ).

Regardless of exploitative characteristics, any such media products offer an interpretation of the past. Due to their distinctive influence on popular culture, the Wolfenstein video games have been argued to be a “site of mass-schooling” about the Second World War. Despite their use of retro science fiction elements, the games also feature many historically accurate elements and a meticulously designed Second World War backdrop. The games’ production company filters these factuality signals in two ways. Firstly, when games are designed or redesigned for a broader audience (in the case of the Wolfenstein 3D SNES version and Wolfenstein RPG ), and secondly when they are localized for the German market, where legal restrictions exist regarding the display of NS symbols and NS rule. This process can be called institutional filtering, meaning that production companies and social institutions set constraints on media content.

Introduction

On June 1, 2012, one day after the premiere of the film Prometheus in London, the BBC conducted a radio interview with the film's director Ridley Scott. In the course of the interview, the radio host asked Scott whether the film, although clearly being “in the same constellation, the same galaxy,” was a direct prequel to Scott's 1979 film Alien, to which Scott replied “absolutely not.” The comment prompted a lively debate in numerous fanzines, magazines, and newspapers (e.g. The Guardian, New York Post, Scientific American, and Huffington Post). Whether or not one considers Prometheus a prequel to Alien wholly depends, of course, on one's definition of “prequel.” A general definition of a prequel, as a fiction chronologically situated prior to, but in the same fictional universe as, that of another (already released/published) text's storyworld would make Prometheus a prequel. A specified definition of prequel that additionally requires fairly close temporal proximity between the two narratives, a (logical or causal) connection of their plots, and the inclusion of some key characters at an earlier age/stage (say, the young Ellen Ripley or Bishop), would make Prometheus indeed part of “the same constellation, the same galaxy” as Alien, but not a prequel.

As inconsequential as it is, this little quibble illustrates a number of interesting points, authorial intention not being chief among them. For one, by adding textual storyworld upon storyworld, franchises inevitably create fictional universes.

Introduction

In 2012 Walk off the Earth (WOTE), a rock band based in Canada uploaded on YouTube a video of their cover of the hit single “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye. The playful combination of the vocal and musical abilities of the band members and their staging in front of the camera (five musicians playing one guitar) as well as the deadpan performance of one of the members of the band (Mike Taylor, also known as the Beard Guy) made the video go viral within days. The same arrangement was later presented on The Ellen DeGeneres Show . However, the replication of the same arrangement in a TV studio was awkward in many ways. The transference of the WOTE arrangement from the Between two Ferns -like décor of their do-it-ourselves (DIO) cover to the larger stage of the TV show inevitably restricted their otherwise novel and globally celebrated YouTube video to an old school variety-like act.

An increased interest in adaptation studies in the early 21st century has generated countless discussions about rethinking adaptations as well as the field of adaptation studies as a whole. The impression has often been voiced, for instance by Thomas Leitch in his essay for the inaugural issue of the journal Adaptation, that adaptation studies is “at a crossroads,” in which its methodology and material are in transition from the discipline’s humble novel-to-film-studies beginnings to a broader, if somewhat unclear, future. As part of a moment in the field's history, in which scholars repeatedly state ambitious research agendas, Linda Hutcheon has likewise described adaptation studies as moving “well beyond [its] familiar film/ performance focus” and on to readings that highlight the politics of our time, the “indigenization” of adaptations, and approaches that question notions of priority and anteriority in unprecedented ways.

There is, however, another major change – the elephant in the room of adaptation studies, so to speak: since adaptation, at least in its most common understanding, describes the transposition of a story or its elements from one medium to another, it is necessarily bound to questions of mediality and remediation. Therefore, one of the most important new developments in adaptation studies is constituted by the shift in the global mediascape in light of the rise of digital media since the 1980s and the spread of the internet since the 1990s. This transformation amounts to nothing less than a shift from a largely analog, localized, image- and text-based “Gutenberg Galaxy” to a more rapidly disseminating mixed analog-digital environment. It is a moment that forces us, once again, to re-examine notions of authorship, control, audiences, sources and adaptations, as well as interactions between medium and consumer, or between consumers and producers. This volume sets out to explore how these shifts relate to adaptation studies and what they mean for the field. It does so by examining new forms of adaptations and their cultural embeddedness both theoretically and analytically, with the help of a range of texts constituting some of the major new forms of adaptations and adaptation environments that have arisen in the wake of the rise of digital media.

Abstract

Applying broad notions of adaptation, this chapter seeks to bring “recombinant adaptation” – mashups and remixes on digital platforms – in dialogue with Gerard Genette's idea of the paratext as a text's “relations with the public.” It takes four steps towards investigating how literary publishing houses such as Quirk Books respond to recombinant adaptation. Firstly, it delineates the paratexts of mashup novels as performative zones of transaction. Secondly, it examines the question of how paratexts regulate the quasi-religious textuality of fandom participation. Thirdly, it looks at the role of paratextual canonization within this textuality. And finally, it argues that printed products within the field attempt to perform a nostalgic authorization and re-materialization of literature, highlighting the haptic and material qualities of the book. Adapting the term “polytext,” the chapter calls these multifarious paratextual transactions the “polyprocess.”

Key words: Paratext; mashup novel; recombinant adaptation; fandom; polytext/polyprocess; remix

Introduction

This essay seeks to bring the field of “recombinant adaptation” – mashups and remixes on digital platforms – in dialogue with the Genettian idea of the paratext. Genette held that paratexts shape a given text's “relations with the public.” More recently, Jonathan Gray has applied the notion of paratext to media franchises, highlighting the active role of paratexts in creating and continuing franchise texts. Dorothee Birke and Birte Christ have elaborated Genette's ideas for a situation of convergence culture and transmedia storytelling, examining how paratexts fulfill interpretive, commercial, or navigational functions in determining contemporary readers’ transmedia experience of narratives.

This chapter takes four steps towards investigating how literary publishing houses respond to the ubiquitous remixes and mashups to be found on lowthreshold digital platforms of participation. It will, first, delineate paratexts as zones of transaction, shifting research emphases from textual towards performative concerns and highlighting the way cultures negotiate textual distribution and circulation. Secondly, it will examine the question of how paratexts regulate the quasi-religious textuality of fandom participation; thirdly, the role of paratextual canonization will be a special focus within this textuality. Finally, the chapter argues that printed products within the field attempt to perform a nostalgic authorization and re-materialization of literature, highlighting the haptic and material qualities of “bookishness.”

Introduction

After the Fifty Shades of Grey book series had sold more than 125 million copies worldwide, fans eagerly awaited the release of the movie adaptation in February of 2015. Building on the books’ success, the opening weekend of the movie alone grossed $248 million. The production and pre-production of the film was accompanied by media reports and PR announcements of the ways the narrative and specifically the BDSM scenes in the book were adapted to the screen, as well as which actors were cast as the central characters Christian and Ana. Throughout this renewed interest in Fifty Shades of Grey, the history of layered adaptation that the text had transitioned through before it was turned into a movie receded into the background.

An earlier version of Fifty Shades of Grey, the Twilight fanfiction Master of the Universe, had been widely read by fans online before the text was stripped of its direct references to Twilight and became a commercial success in its own right. Master of the Universe is not the only prominent text that evolved from the realms of fanfiction writing; with Sylvain Reynard’s Gabriel's Inferno and the writing duo Christina Lauren's Beautiful Bastard at least three other authors of erotic Twilight fanfiction made the New York Times bestseller list. Beyond easily adaptable “all human” fanfiction from the Twilight fandom, fanfictions from other fandoms, including texts that revel in fantastic supernatural worlds, have successfully transitioned from the communal online and free writing context to the book market.