"Real Women Have Bodies": A Study in Adaptation

Author(s)

Madison EphlinFollow

Abstract

The art of adaptation is a difficult process, and is often hard to please general audiences that have a connection to the source material. As a student who studies both English Literature and Film Production, the question asked through this study is what does it take to write a “successful” adaptation? What qualifies as “successful”? How does an adaptation balance the themes, characterization, and plot of a piece of literature with the continuous momentum and visual complexity that the medium of film requires, all in 120 pages or less? This study engages with these questions by actively practicing adaptation, adapting Carmen Maria Machado’s “Real Women Have Bodies” from her short story collection Her Body and Other Parties into a short film screenplay of approximately 33 pages. Regarding the story’s themes, the question was also asked about how queer identity intersects with horror, and what tropes should be avoided. This study concludes that adaptation is an ever-changing process that is more about the subjective experience of the writer with the text. Adaptation has evolved over time to prioritize the writer’s artistic evaluation of the text instead of prioritizing complete faithfulness to the text.

Department

Honors Program

Major

English

First Advisor

Dr. Heath Diehl

First Advisor Department

Honors Program

Second Advisor

Professor Sara Chambers

Second Advisor Department

Theatre and Film

Publication Date

Spring 4-2023

Repository Citation

Ephlin, Madison, ""Real Women Have Bodies": A Study in Adaptation" (2023). Honors Projects. 901.
https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/honorsprojects/901