Reimagining the horror genre in children’s animated film
It is very common for children’s films to adapt, rework, or otherwise re-imagine existing cultural material. Such re-imaginings are potential candidates for fidelity criticism: a mode of analysis whereby an adaptation is judged according to its degree of faithfulness to the source text. Indeed, it is interesting that while fidelity criticism is now considered outdated and problematic by adaptation theorists (see Stam; Leitch; and Whelehan) the issue of fidelity has tended to linger in the discussions that form around material adapted for children. In particular, it is often assumed that the re-imagining of cultural material for children will involve a process of “dumbing down” that strips the original text of its complexity so that it is more easily consumed by young audiences (see Semenza; Kellogg; Hastings; and Napolitano). This is especially the case when children’s films draw from texts—or genres—that are specifically associated with an adult readership.
This paper explores such an interplay between children’s and adult’s culture with reference to the re-imagining of the horror genre in children’s animated film.
History
Publication title
M / C JournalVolume
18Issue
6Pagination
1-3ISSN
1441-2616Department/School
School of Social SciencesPublisher
Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of TechnologyPlace of publication
AustraliaRights statement
Copyright 2015 The Author. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Repository Status
- Open