True Histories of the Elephant Man: Storytelling and Theatricality in Adaptations of the Life of Joseph Merrick

TY - CHAP

T1 - True Histories of the Elephant Man

T2 - Storytelling and Theatricality in Adaptations of the Life of Joseph Merrick

AU - Poore, Benjamin

PY - 2017/7/24

Y1 - 2017/7/24

N2 - Bernard Pomerance’s play The Elephant Man (1977) and David Lynch’s 1980 film The Elephant Man can be regarded as twin foundational texts in the modern-day repurposing of the story of Joseph Merrick. The film, originally adapted in part from the surgeon Frederick Treves’ The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923) was subsequently adapted back into a film novelization by Christine Sparks. Pomerance’s play – often mistaken for the source of Lynch’s film - has been regularly revived in Britain and North America since, and is due to premiere in December 2014 in a new Broadway production starring Bradley Cooper.Since the early 1980s, Merrick’s story in its various iterations has become a popular way to view nineteenth-century mores and to speculate on how far ‘we’ have come. However, this essay will argue that there is a series of tensions between the lip-service paid to the condemnation of Victorian freak shows and the uses to which Merrick’s image and story are put. The solemnity with which Merrick’s condition is treated has been undercut by jokey references in popular films, radio and television. In addition, as neo-Victorianists such as Helen Davies have argued, popular culture in the 21st century retains some strong features of the 19th century freak show. Moreover, the staging of Merrick’s life by a handsome Hollywood actor carries its own contradictions. Perhaps most powerfully, the recent rise of media fans as active creators and distributors of culture has, I suggest, resulted in historical figures like Merrick being sucked into a vortex of Victorian characters who become usable in fan art and fiction, from Jack the Ripper to Doctor Moreau. How does the contemporary fascination with neo-Victorian body-horror sit with the ethics of historical representation?

AB - Bernard Pomerance’s play The Elephant Man (1977) and David Lynch’s 1980 film The Elephant Man can be regarded as twin foundational texts in the modern-day repurposing of the story of Joseph Merrick. The film, originally adapted in part from the surgeon Frederick Treves’ The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923) was subsequently adapted back into a film novelization by Christine Sparks. Pomerance’s play – often mistaken for the source of Lynch’s film - has been regularly revived in Britain and North America since, and is due to premiere in December 2014 in a new Broadway production starring Bradley Cooper.Since the early 1980s, Merrick’s story in its various iterations has become a popular way to view nineteenth-century mores and to speculate on how far ‘we’ have come. However, this essay will argue that there is a series of tensions between the lip-service paid to the condemnation of Victorian freak shows and the uses to which Merrick’s image and story are put. The solemnity with which Merrick’s condition is treated has been undercut by jokey references in popular films, radio and television. In addition, as neo-Victorianists such as Helen Davies have argued, popular culture in the 21st century retains some strong features of the 19th century freak show. Moreover, the staging of Merrick’s life by a handsome Hollywood actor carries its own contradictions. Perhaps most powerfully, the recent rise of media fans as active creators and distributors of culture has, I suggest, resulted in historical figures like Merrick being sucked into a vortex of Victorian characters who become usable in fan art and fiction, from Jack the Ripper to Doctor Moreau. How does the contemporary fascination with neo-Victorian body-horror sit with the ethics of historical representation?

M3 - Chapter

SN - 978-1-7849-9510-2

T3 - Rethinking the Nineteenth Century

SP - 207

EP - 224

BT - Rethinking the Nineteenth Century

A2 - Barton, Anna

A2 - Smith, Andrew

PB - Manchester University Press

CY - Manchester

ER -