A complaint about ‘in-your-face multiculturalism’ in the new Great Expectations led to some hard times on Twitter
Sunday night saw the BBC air the first episode of its new adaptation of Charles Dickens‘ Great Expectations.
Starring Olivia Colman as the emotionally damaged and damaging reclusive Miss Havisham and Fionn Whitehead and Shalom Brune-Franklin as the adult Pip and Estella, Steven Knight‘s new look at the old favourite features levels of swearing, drug-taking and sex that wouldn’t have been an option for Dickens.
New adaptation of Great Expectations also includes sex, drugs and madnesshttps://t.co/S3pVAiXNhD
— Newstuk-News (@n_newstuk) March 25, 2023
It also takes a more critical view of colonialism.
A new adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations includes an anti-colonial message not found in the iconic Victorian novel. https://t.co/5OsPdVhvTm
— LBC (@LBC) March 18, 2023
Without seeing it, some people took to Twitter to register their outrage – much of it recycled from when the National Trust announced it would be telling visitors more about the history of objects in their care.
Daily Mail columnist Peter Hitchens took great exception to the TV show diverting from Dickens’ original text.
He let his imagination run feverishly through the potential for ever more ‘woke’ versions of the writer’s works.
‘Oliver Twist might be re-imagined as a victim of sexual abuse by paedophile priests, or perhaps as a transgender teenager. A Tale Of Two Cities could be adjusted so that it takes place during the Nazi occupation of Paris, or even transferred to Vladimir Putin’s Moscow. Hard Times could be modified to deal with the problems of the NHS, or Arthur Scargill’s coal strike, or moved to the U.S. to take in the OxyContin opioid catastrophe.’
His review drew a fair amount of agreement …
There was also plenty of dissent.
The book is still there for you to read and enjoy at your leisure, as it is for everyone else, just as Dickens intended
However, if you wish to see a variety of adaptations of a great story, you can do that also.
This is culture war nonsense.
— PaulShilly 🌹🌹 (@shillcock_paul) March 23, 2023
Hitchens, the bloke who's spent 10 days and counting doubling down that Hitler was a socialist, without a hint of irony gets his baggy y-fronts in a twist about an interpretation. https://t.co/s3zbyoNAxG
— Skew Spew Barmy Hairdo Curmudgeon Bigot and Smug (@SkewSmug) March 24, 2023
There have been dozens of ‘adaptations’ of Great Expectations for the screen and dozens of ‘editions’ of the novel, too. Each adaptation and edition adjusted the original to make it more appealing to a contemporary audience to sell books, tickets or ads. That’s how the business…
— McGuffin (@guffynicola) March 23, 2023
Author Paul Embery shared what he obviously thought was an apt analogy – and he wasn’t just annoyed at the drug-taking and swearing, but also at the ‘in-your-face multiculturalism’.
His hot take got the reactions it deserved.
1.
I have to admit it was really weird how the BBC burned every extant copy of the original. I wouldn't have thought they would have to do that but it would be the only way Paul's analogy here would make sense so they must have https://t.co/ZtlzbHick9
— WikiHow to say goodbye (@WikiHowToLogout) March 25, 2023
2.
19th century London famously had no drugs, swearing or black people in it. https://t.co/l5sDoORaSS
— jonny (@sensiblehuman96) March 24, 2023
3.
Paul doesn't like Great Expectations, because there's some drug use (common and legal in Victorian Britain), some swearing, and some non-white actors.
Don't be like Paul. https://t.co/XWPnuso7mt
— Tom Adlam (@TomAdlam53) March 25, 2023
4.
Yeah, imagine if people started making weird adaptational theme choices on other Dickens works… https://t.co/xlUyCo0N96 pic.twitter.com/qBjc4bdVMr
— Alex Cruikshanks 🇺🇦 (@alexcruik) March 25, 2023
5.
Wait till Paul hears they used to do Shakespeare with the women's roles played by men, he'll be absolutely furious! https://t.co/bFEvDvax1u
— Kevin Shaw 🇬🇧 #GTTO #JoinAUnion (@kevshaw99) March 26, 2023
6.
In Victorian Kent, people of colour were plentiful. As was Laudanum and Opium taking. Gin palaces were in every big town.
Also, Dickens’s work was trying to drag Society into a new era.
Imagine being pissed off that your adaptation reflects that. pic.twitter.com/t9iYhf75T3— Dáibhí The Scottish Yorkshireman (@itsDaibhi) March 26, 2023
7.
I was watching a production of Hamlet the other week, and the cast weren't even wearing hose and ruffs. IT'S WOKENESS GONE MAD. I AM POSITIVELY TUMESCENT WITH FURY. https://t.co/ije61VOYhu
— Tom Doran 🇺🇦🏴🇬🇧 (@portraitinflesh) March 25, 2023
9.
No, it's like allowing kids to paint their own version of a Da Vinci that's more relatable to their lives in 2023.
The original Great Expectations by Charles Dickens still exists.
If a blue-eyed, blonde-haired actor can play Jesus, a black actress can play Estella. Get over it. https://t.co/Cg5Ggbd46q
— Frank Owen's Legendary Paintbrush🥀🇵🇸🇾🇪 (@OwenPaintbrush) March 25, 2023
We’ll let Sorcha Ní Nia have the last word.
Dickens struggled with an opium addiction, had 12 children that we know of, several great loves outside of his marriage, was *passionate* throughout his life about reforming the conditions that the working class and the very poorest of society lived and died in, 1/2 pic.twitter.com/GmJVLUHVBH
— Sorcha Ní Nia (@Luiseach) March 25, 2023
including people who were not white because shocker, London was a multicultural city then as it is now, and he also did a lot of travelling, and I guarantee you will have sworn. ‘past authors were perfect paragons’ are incredibly odd, they were human. hope that helps Paul x
— Sorcha Ní Nia (@Luiseach) March 25, 2023
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Some right-wingers are getting their knickers in a twist over a Dickens audiobook cast
Source Paul Emberry Image National Library of Wales
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