By: Declan Hertel Entertainment Editor
With a new (pretty dope) film adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” in theatres, it is time once again to face some difficult questions, presented by our rapidly changing world.
The problem is this: people have been making art since time immemorial. People have been imbuing that art with their personal worldviews for just as long. Some of those worldviews, while acceptable in their time, are … well, some are examples o
f an outdated zeitgeist: relics of their time. Some are especially disgusting by modern standards, and others still were extreme even for their time. But a lot of the art that contains such reprehensible views is really great.
From my own experience: one of my favorite authors is H.P. Lovecraft, whom Stephen King called “the Twentieth Century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.” I totally agree: his tales of the unfathomable monstrosities that lie just outside of our comprehension bring me running back time and time again.
He was also really, really racist. Lovecraft was anti-immigration, highly xenophobic, and viewed Anglo-Saxon whites as superior (there are some interesting nuances to his racism if one wants to read up on him, like he was actively positive about Jews and Hispanics, but really didn’t like African-Americans or Irish Catholics). “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” my favorite story of his, has some pretty obvious subtext about the dangers of interracial breeding.
We run into similar problems with Kipling. While I love a lot of his work, it is undeniably steeped in late-19th Century imperialistic attitudes. While Kipling’s relationship with imperialism and Britain is a more complex one than most folks realize (yeah, we all read “The White Man’s Burden” in high school, good job), he did view darker-complexioned folks as generally inferior, and was absolutely for imperialism. But, it remains, he was great. He was massively influential, and I believe that his works still hold up artistically today.
So, what do we do about this stuff? How do we reconcile great art with the not-so-great attitudes beneath it? And if we want to adapt this stuff for a modern audience, how do we address it?
One of the best handlings of this I’ve ever seen came from Warner Bros. releasing a collection of “Tom and Jerry” classics, which features Tom’s owner, Mammy Two Shoes, alongside other Jim Crow caricatures of black people. WB included a disclaimer that said, basically, these depictions were/are/will continue to be wrong, but censorship would be the same as pretending that those prejudices never existed.
But what about new adaptations of these works? Do we ignore the themes? Do we run disclaimers? Do we just not adapt these works anymore?
I don’t know what the answer is. Personally, I’m for a responsibly laissez-faire attitude about it, but a more measured approach could be argued very reasonably. All we can do at this point is discuss and share our thoughts. It begins with accepting that sometimes great art doesn’t impart good ideas, but from there? I don’t know. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Contact the author at journalentertainment@wou.edu or on Twitter @journalfuntimes
