“What Kind of an Ending is That?” Adapting Shakespeare for a Young Audience: The Case of Gnomeo and Juliet (2011)

Abstract

The article discusses adapting William Shakespeare’s plays for young viewers. It aims to present the adaptive strategies taken up by the creators of an animated feature film based on Romeo and Juliet and to discuss how the production engages its audience in a cultural dialogue. One of the main points of consideration is that adaptations of literary classics into film productions addressed to young audiences can be analyzed as enriching the source texts with new dimensions, which might shed a sometimes surprisingly new light on the source text. The genre-change-induced modifications and intertextuality of Gnomeo and Juliet (2011) are discussed, focusing on how the production maneuvers between the source text and requirements of the genre, on the dialogue it involves its viewers in, and on its possible cultural role.