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Cultural Takeover? 3 Body Problem and Other Adaptations · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding.
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  Now I'm an author and also a director of the Centre and today I wanted to talk to you
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  about the three-body problem because there has arisen a problem quite fittingly with the
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  three-body problem and this is about the question that's out there, absolutely in an article
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  in the Times and an article on Forbes saying that the many people are angry particularly
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  over in China that the adaptation has moved the novel away from its Chinese roots and made
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  a more global cast and one of its obvious changes is a lot of the mystery, well the mystery moves
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  on to Oxford and London, places like that which for a Western audience are more familiar.
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  There has of course been several other adaptations of this novel which is I've also read the novel
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  and from the adaptations of it in China which I've not seen. I think there was a film made that
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  never came out and then a TV series which apparently was very good but I haven't seen that
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  and it got me thinking about what happens when we do adapt a much beloved novel like this and we
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  move it sideways is it successful or not is it are we allowed to do that kind of thing or not
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  or are the critics right that moving such a book like this away from its Chinese roots is somehow
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  I suppose the word we've heard before is cultural appropriation or dishonoured it in some way.
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  So rather run straight at the three-body problem I thought I would just do a little kind of
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  two around the universe first which if you've read the novel is quite appropriate because things
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  do not move in a linear fashion. So let's look at the different things that happen when an adaptation
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  of a fantasy novel in particular moves the location. Now it could be just quite a sort of simple
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  thing where you change one American city for another for filming reasons. I'm not talking
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  about that I'm talking about big shifts and so I think there is one thing which is really to be
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  encouraged and that's when an adaptation takes the source idea and spins it off into
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  something completely new with a whole different kind of tone. So in this adaptation your source
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  material it's not really an adaptation of that it's inspired by which I do know is how Netflix
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  have described on the front cover of the book that inspired the series which gives you a little
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  bit more room. So what happens when you do that? Well you can get some amazing things that come
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  out of that and the one that immediately came to my mind was Blade Runner. Now if you've read the
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  original short story Do Androids Dream of Electric Shape it's absolutely delightful it is also very
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  funny it has much more of a sort of I don't know almost Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy feel to
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  it because there are absurdities like trying to hide the fact that whether or not the pet is real or not
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  because there is a premium on real organic creatures as opposed to the Androids that are
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  proliferating through society so funny things like that tonally very different so it does actually
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  also move location in that in that case I think technically it's moved by look at my notes here
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  it's moved from move to LA from San Francisco not big shift for those of us outside the states but
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  that's not the important thing that shifted it's the freedom that they thought well here's a really
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  interesting idea here's an outline of a story let's go make something very different with it
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  and so both the original story and then the film are both excellent in their own categories
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  and that's great I think that's really creative and it means that the filmmakers have exploited
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  their craft the full and I'm sure that the source material doesn't suffer as a result
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  what about so that's one one category where the change is so big that is something new emerges
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  and in that case there isn't the it still remains within America so you don't have that cultural
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  appropriation problem but this is where it gets a little bit tricky isn't it is when the change
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  is made to make something more accessible however that is understood for an international
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  audience and when people say an international audience they very often mean a US audience
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  who have well they are a dominant market obviously and where lost the funding comes from so you
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  can see this particularly in children's films so if you read the Matilda books roll diales obviously
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  from a sort of British sensibility when you get to the Matilda film like the 1996 and the more modern
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  update which is how musical isn't it you get to sort of unidentified America
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  it means that the accents are all over the place some of the characters of British accents
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  some have American accents it becomes this sort of everywhere the same is true in the prequel
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  of Wonka that came out this Christmas which exists in a no-wearsville it feels more American but
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  it could be a bit Paris um the accents are very mixed and in a way it's saying don't worry about it
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  just understand it to be some kind of western town but it does mean the specifics of where the
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  story came from in Waldole's imagination are lost is that a problem I don't know I think that it's
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  under valuing maybe the understanding of the audience the same team who's made the Wonka film
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  also made Paddington and Paddington never forgets that is a London-based story
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  I guess that maybe because the really when this is sort of you know trying to follow the thought
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  process is here the most dominant film in the Charlie and the chocolate factory universe is the one
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  that's Starding Hackman so you've got a sort of Americanization back in the 70s which has kind of
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  fed through to making that like the the place most people meet it rather than the book so you can
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  see how the shift has come and of course Charlie and the chocolate factory isn't specific it does
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  have a feel of every city anyway so is any damage done probably not I think that's fine
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  but I would also want to sort of do a shout out for those films which actually lean into where
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  they're from for children one of the big decisions made when they were thinking of the Harry Potter
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  films of course was they were going to cast and this was a JK Rowling lead initiative they wanted
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  to have a sort of British cast British children playing the main roles and it seems as though the
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  world has accepted that without struggling in fact they've almost enjoyed the weirdness that
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  has come out of the idea of a British boarding school which isn't immediately understandable in
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  other education systems so sometimes you can lose what actually is charming about a work if you do
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  take it away from its roots the sort of de-racination effect but maybe with films which doesn't which
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  are floating free in a sort of magic world like Wonka and Matilda yeah maybe we can live with that
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  I don't know be interested to hear what you think of it do leave any do some messages and let me
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  know what you think and then we've got the kind of takeover which does feel feel a bit more like
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  an accultural appropriation very much to make the American culture dominant not always
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  but I was thinking in a non fantasy context you remember there was that very popular psychological
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  thriller called Girl on a Train now if you read that in the UK it's very much a London commuter book
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  probably was written for that market when it came to be made into a film though the main character
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  think it's Emily Plunt isn't it though the main character remains English it's moved to I think New
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  York I don't get why why it wasn't necessary for the story and it does seem as though it's
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  almost as though well we maybe it was to make it cheaper to film I don't know but it seems as though
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  sometimes don't worry America is what everybody understands feels as though other English speaking
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  cultures are being sort of pushed down yeah it's weird isn't it though I have seen it the other
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  way around I was recently watching it came out a couple of years ago now there's a thriller that's
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  based on the the Harlan Coban series and it's called For Me Once and it's set in the UK I was
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  watching this and the main character there is a ex-military female soldier who has gotten to
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  trouble and left under a serve cloud and then we've got this psychological thriller about her
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  and members of her family being bumped off as I was watching it and it was particularly her
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  particularly her relationship of gun with guns having a sort of very upmarket gun safe in the house
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  being really keen on the whole carrying lots of guns somebody like that in the UK is really
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  strange really unusual really stands out but it wasn't treated as being a particularly problematic
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  thing and then I went and had a look at where the story comes from and the original setting of
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  the story was America where indeed rules are different about gun ownership it doesn't set you
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  apart it ended up being a kind of red herring because somebody was such a sort of gun culture
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  gun fixation immediately felt it gave a motive which wasn't actually an original story so it skewed
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  the story which is important in a psychological thriller when you're looking for clues so yeah it can
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  really change how you receive the story when you find that the furniture around it has been moved
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  so very oddly what's the word it so disorientating and as soon as I found out oh yeah this really
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  was set in America originally it kind of all fell into place so I wonder why they chose to make it
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  in the UK I imagine that was to do with some sort of deal about where it was cheapest to film but it
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  was odd really odd so let's turn to what I was thinking about which is the three-body problem
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  so what has happened the original novel was set in mainly in China and the sort of plot this
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  it's a very complicated novel to follow by the way so I'm not going to attempt to explain the
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  story but there is a sort of phase that's set in the aftermath of the cultural revolution
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  that remains in the Netflix series and then there's a plot about a number of contemporary
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  scientists are being bumped off that's a bit that's been moved into a Western world into a British
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  world in fact that's a bit that is causing the problems now one of the things that's lost from
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  that of course is there's an added interest in the novel of how in the Chinese society that has
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  recovered of sorts from the cultural revolution how it goes about investigating scientific
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  what looks like self-termination so there's like suicide and so it was actually quite interesting
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  reading a Chinese detective story which is basically what it is with a fantasy element that is lost
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  though the main detective in this is of a Chinese origin I'm just looking at yeah Benedict Wong
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  who I think I think he's been in the Marvel films so maybe he's based in America anyway his
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  so they have kept some of the ethnicities if not the origins if you see what I mean
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  um I actually as as a western person for whom this was probably intended one of the many
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  audience I actually found it helpful as much as I enjoyed the novel I found the novel quite a
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  tough read I had to really concentrate it was actually helped me understand the scientific story
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  and the different scientists with this simple change to basically my backyard but I can see why
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  a Chinese viewer might be annoyed I'm just hoping that the adaptation in the Chinese language
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  that was made is good enough for them not to feel they need this and it might have been a decision
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  that in order to make this excellent story and there's two more books following on which hopefully
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  they'll also do that if we do it this way we'll get the global audience who might not go for a
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  slightly more difficult subject matter so I find myself thinking actually they've done a good job
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  and there is some ways in which they may have actually even improved on the novel which sometimes
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  happens in terms of the relatability of the characters there was a certain
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  and I was talking about this with my son who told me to who was one who put me onto watching
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  this and we were discussing the characters in the novel the characters are quite cold it's the
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  sort of lack of familial warmth and friendship it was a very sort of suspicious world and you by
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  moving it to the context they have in the UK it's much more a group of friends who aren't
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  perfect to any means and they all have their own little backstory but they are sort of warmer
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  and you can relate to them and I think and sympathize with them and that isn't to do with the
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  fact it's moved from China to the UK it's much more to do with what the characters have been
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  warmed up they've been made more relatable with more love between them I think is where it comes
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  down so basically they love each other which is nice because that was a bit lacking from the novel
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  so in this case I would say there is a defence to be made by Netflix if they care to do so
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  which is we know there's been a good Chinese version this made we're not trying to remake that
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  and we are actually thinking that this is something that could bring this story to a wider audience
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  by reinterpreting it this way and taking our slice through the material
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  and there are times when you just have to say well the book is one thing and the adaptation is
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  another it's trying to do something different but like the argument about Blade Runner
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  that you may actually end up with something which is better in its own category so the novel
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  can be a good novel and this can be a good series adaptation and just to say of course
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  that this whole idea of cultural appropriation let's go back to where we started with this
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  this is something as old as old as time we've been doing this with the stories of other nations
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  forever just think of the number of reinterpretations of greatness we've talked about Percy Jackson
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  in the last episode but the retellings of old stories Shakespeare all his plays are other people's
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  stories which he's reimagined and reworked and yeah that's good because it's created something
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  new and vibrant in his own voice and in more recent times there has been this shift to a sort of
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  culturally dominant dominant America just think about what happened to the stories of HG Wells so
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  I'm going back to the beginning of cinema originally HG Wells wrote in a British context because
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  the British Empire were you know top dog at that time and as the the century of cinema really
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  got going and you've got people making HG Wells stories such as the time machine which
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  has been in 2002 with a not a London but a New York setting and then you've got the versions
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  of War of the Worlds it's been moved to America and that in a way is an interesting I suppose it
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  shows us the cultural moment we're living in so by reworking and adapting these stories we find
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  out more about how we frame and shape our own moment so that's what I was thinking about the
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  three-body problem it is a problem when we take material but I assume they've taken this material
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  for the three-body problem with the full consent of the author because they are living it's not
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  so very old novel so they would have signed on the line that they're okay with this it's not like
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  it's been ripped away from them and shifted without any say so so as long as there's consent from
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  the person who originally thought up the material I think actually this isn't a case of the wrong
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  form of cultural appropriation I think is a nice form of cultural reinterpretation and I look forward
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  to watching further series of three-body problem anyway I'm sure there are many views on this
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  subject particularly if you're passionate about the novel you may disagree with what I've said because
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  you've been missing things in the series which you love from the novel but do let me know
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  because I think this is a very lively ongoing debate about how we use this
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  cauldron of stories that the world gives us and what we dip in and take out as that's what how
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  Tolkien phrased it thank you very much for listening
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