Adaptations Then vs. Now

Just last night my sister and I were bumming it on the couch and in a moment of desperation to find something to watch (there was literally nothing on) I changed the channel to a Quad Cities Ballet adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. At first I thought it was cool, ballet is a really beautiful art form, but as the performance went on… Not so cool. It was confusing and didn’t make sense and the dancers weren’t the best ever but it got me thinking: am I supposed to understand what’s going on or is it simply supposed to be entertaining? How much of this is supposed to be meaningful versus just entertainment and how often does this occur in modern film adaptations of older texts/plays/etc.?

            Sitting in a Shakespeare class, reading lines from our anthologies, we’re allowed to pick apart lines to gauge what’s really happening and why and what the historical meaning is behind something. In Twelfth Night, we can observe the historical and cultural context of cross-dressing during Shakespeare’s time. Cross-dressing was often found in comedies and was nearly always a function of female characters taking on more masculine qualities to get around some sort of convention or dupe the system, all of which have important historical meaning.

            However, when it comes to watching a movie like She’s the Man, are we really able to do the same thing? Can we truly apply a critical eye to a film that for all intents and purposes is entertainment for a rather specific crowd? I know that I found it quite funny and entertaining when I first watched it back when I was thirteen, and I still laugh at it now (for other reasons though) but I don’t see it as a really culturally valuable film or art form that begs for interpretation. Of course, we can pick apart differences and ask why the producer changed what and why the script was written in this way, but do the same devices used in Twelfth Night such as cross-dressing with Viola carry the same weight and meaning as they do when translated into She’s the Man? Or is She’s the Man just using the cross-dressing as a mode of entertainment and not really as a cultural or social statement? If that makes sense…