No need to reboot Anne
Apparently Anne of Green Gables needs a dark makeover. Or so the CBC thinks. It is hard to see how it will do us, them or Anne any good.
We’ re assured it won’t be Fifty Shades of Green Gables. But the author the CBC has chosen to create a modern version of the beloved classic, Moira Walley-Beckett, is noted for the great skill with which she conveys bleak horror.
She won an Emmy for an episode of television’s grisly Breaking Bad that many people consider the best in that series. And she is also acclaimed for the TV miniseries Flesh and Bone, a grim fictionalization of the world of ballet complete with tortured personal lives and a great deal of what she called “coercive, transactional, or self- destructive” sex. You know. The usual.
When the new Anne of Dark Gables project was announced, Walley- Beckett said, “I’m thrilled to delve deeply into this resonant story, push the boundaries and give it new life.” We feel no such emotion.
For starters, Anne of Green Gables doesn’t need “new life,” unlike the CBC. The story has been im- mensely popular since it first appeared in 1908 and tourists flock to Prince Edward Island to see the endless “Anne- related attractions” that Tourism P. E. I. proudly touts. As for “pushing the boundaries,” such a clichéd ambition implies the original story is stale, which is hard to reconcile with its enduring appeal over more than a century.
As this newspaper noted, Anne’s relatively minor comic misadventures — like dying her hair green — take place against a backdrop of bankruptcy, sudden death and, above all, the peril of rejection — by her class- mates, the town, even her adoptive family. There is intense drama here. Otherwise the story would not be popular.
The modern mindset is f ar too prone to assume people knew nothing of life until we sophisticates came along and tore the hypocritical veil of decency and restraint off the cesspit of human existence. It does not grasp that throughout history, men and women have grappled with t he darkness threatening to engulf them, and that the distinctive mark of modernity is abandoning the hope of escape, not discovering the peril of entrapment.
If Anne of Green Gables was so naive, goody- goody and out of touch with reality that it needed a “gritty reboot ,” it wouldn’ t be worth revisiting. One should simply create a fresh story with genuine depth, resonance and really bad sex.
If, on the other hand, it is so marvellous that millions of people continue to come from around the world to P. E. I. just to see where Anne’s story is set, and eagerly await the time their children are old enough to share this treasure from their own childhoods, it won’t be improved by darkening it, transvaluing it or otherwise spray- painting the lily.
According to Walley-Beckett, “Anne’s issues are contemporary issues: feminism, prejudice, bullying and a desire to belong. The stakes are high and her emotional journey is tumultuous .” Well, yes. People knew all about that sort of thing 100 years ago and more. They don’t need didactic lectures from us. And to imagine that Lucy Maud Montgomery couldn’t possibly have shared our luminous grasp of her subject matter is to show that we do not understand why Anne of Green Gables became a classic in the first place.
The original story is not naive, saccharine or mindless. Anne is not Dora the Explorer. She encounters heartbreak, malice and fear. But she encounters them in a way that is ultimately redemptive. If the CBC misses this point, the remake will amount to petty vandalism.
If so, it won’t really hurt Anne. But it will betray her audience and damage the vandal in public esteem.
Make it uplifting or don’t make it at all.
IT’S HARD TO SEE HOW THE CBC’S NEW SHOW WILL DO US, THEM OR ANNE OF GREEN GABLES ANY GOOD.