I love Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland but I loathe how edgy subcultures have turned it into some one dimensional thing associated with psychedelics and other drugs.
Like, I wanna talk about the recurring presence of logic and mathematics, the cross language (primarily French) puns, I want to talk to people about their interpretations and thoughts but everyone’s so stuck on “haha yeah she’s on shrooms” like come on there’s so much going on don’t let it just be the easiest, weakest response, you’re smarter than that
It’s probably one of my favourite books and I have the exact same problem
My favourite take: Alice in Wonderland adaptations all all dysfunctional because both stories are a hellish amalgamation of victorian pop culture.
Turns of phrase, tourism in-jokes, children’s songs, academia at the time, popular figures in media, all of these are huge contributing factors to the characters and world of alice in wonderland/the looking glass. Reading the Annotated Alice is a trip and a half. Most of it isn’t actually nonsense, it’s an out-of-the-box joke on things most people when the book came out would have instantly recognized. They’re comedy pieces. Even as a modern reader it can get me to laugh, and the more I learn about what the time period was like when the book was released, the funnier it is. Caroll’s vicious deconstruction of mathematics was simply him cracking one one amongst many.
AiW adaptations are always going to be empty products unless you’re entirely willing to either double down on the time period or update it for modern times with commentary on things instantly recognizable to the modern audience.
AiW adaptations with modern settings are like “what if it’s a DYSTOPIA and the animals are all HUMAN and it’s DARK and FOR ADULTS” like…we still have animated movies starring animals? Kid media is more identifiable for the whole family than ever?? There’s a better way????? Turn the dancing mock turtle into a ninja turtle who paints masterpieces you cowards
I like this take.
So what you’re saying is that Alice in Wonderland is basically Victorian Shrek
Actually, yeah, kinda. There’s no real way to say, it’s never been fully explained by Charles Dodgson, it’s all truly interpretation. But in the way it’s written, I’d be willing to call it a literary version of Shrek. It has layers.
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