I admit that my feelings on the matter are influenced by the fact that my 12 year old knew about _The Journey to the West_ and Monkey when I told her what the blog entry I was reading was about. Our local library has lots of children's books with Monkey (translated into English)as well as the abridged English version.
From what I understand the basics _Journey to the West_ and it's adaptions *are* as ubiquitous in China as Macbeth is here which is one reason why I used it as an example (the other is that "Throne of Blood" or Kumonosu-jō is a truly great and memorable film which comes easily to mind).
I agree that it would be a severe loss if the first wide-spread media adaptation was badly done but my feelings would be close to how I feel about an bad adaptation of Beowulf (to pick a western tale more know about then known), it's more of a loss for the audience rather then a cultural loss unless the adaptation was particularly offensively wrong.
Although now that I'm thinking about that adaptation of Beowulf Gaiman was involved with....um... , disregard all my theories about what should or shouldn't be free game for adaption. I'm in complete agreement that someone who loves and understands Monkey have final approval of the script, not Gaiman! [Changing Grendel's mother to an demonic seductress, who seduces rather then trying to kill her son's killer aaarrrrggghhhh.]
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Date: 21 Mar 2011 10:21 pm (UTC)From what I understand the basics _Journey to the West_ and it's adaptions *are* as ubiquitous in China as Macbeth is here which is one reason why I used it as an example (the other is that "Throne of Blood" or Kumonosu-jō is a truly great and memorable film which comes easily to mind).
I agree that it would be a severe loss if the first wide-spread media adaptation was badly done but my feelings would be close to how I feel about an bad adaptation of Beowulf (to pick a western tale more know about then known), it's more of a loss for the audience rather then a cultural loss unless the adaptation was particularly offensively wrong.
Although now that I'm thinking about that adaptation of Beowulf Gaiman was involved with....um... , disregard all my theories about what should or shouldn't be free game for adaption. I'm in complete agreement that someone who loves and understands Monkey have final approval of the script, not Gaiman! [Changing Grendel's mother to an demonic seductress, who seduces rather then trying to kill her son's killer aaarrrrggghhhh.]
Kat