Teens, Shakespeare, and the Dumbing Down Cliché: The Case of "The Animated Tales"

• Published in: Shakespeare bulletin 2008-07, Vol.26 (2), p.37-68
• Main Author: Semenza, Gregory M. Colón
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptations; Animated cartoons; Animated films; Animation; Artistic expression; British television; Cartoons; Criticism; Film criticism; Film theory; Literary characters; Montage; Movies; Narrative style; Shakespeare, William; Shakespearean plays; Tales; Teenagers; Television series; Television viewing; Theater; Versions
• ISSN: 0748-2558; 1931-1427; 1931-1427
• DOI: 10.1353/shb.0.0006

Existing criticism of teen Shakespeare films - and of Shakespeare adaptation more generally - is overwhelmingly preoccupied with the matter of fidelity to the text. It is widely assumed that cutting material is the same as reducing complexity, 'dumbing down' the plays for a teenage or pre-teen audience who are presumed incapable of digesting multi-layered texts. This article seeks to challenge this view by examining Shakespeare: The Animated Tales - an extreme case, in that each episode runs less than 30 minutes and animation is frequently deemed 'dumbed down' in itself. By re-orientating the focus of criticism from the story (fabula) to the form in which it is told (syuzhet), it is revealed that The Animated Tales not only employs various evocative visual languages to compensate for lost dialogue, but does so in deliberate resistance to the illusory realism of mainstream (e.g. Disney) animation. Instead, the series draws attention to its own material processes, encouraging intelligent and critical responses from its young audience. The importance of medium-specific cultural criticism is here demonstrated convincingly, as is the folly of relying on condescending assumptions about teenage audiences and teen Shakespeare.