HyperCultura (Aug 2021)
Gender, Genre, and Thematic Expectation in Logan Thomas’ The Yellow Wallpaper: How Filmmakers Can Use Palimpsest against the Audience
Abstract
In A Theory of Adaptation, Linda Hutcheon posits that adaptations give audiences the best of both worlds: something familiar and recognizable while also presenting something new and unexpected. Media makers can play on audiences’ expectations, creating a “palimpsestuous” relationship between the original and adaptive texts. Director Logan Thomas depends on his audience’s prior engagement with Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” in his 2012 film of the same name. While the film is a clear departure from Gilman’s text, acting as the origin story of the author’s experience in writing the story, Thomas’ reliance on the viewers’ familiarity with Gilman is necessary to his larger trans-genre project. Thomas expects that his viewers will expect Gilman’s gothic setting, tone, and language and delivers those expectations for much of the film. This palimpsest of genre expectation however becomes a perfect way for him to enhance audience fear when the film turns out to be a horror. Thomas’ technique of using the palimpsest against the audience changes his adaptation of a text from one genre to another, revealing the shock that can be garnered from working with popular canonical texts.
