Charlotte Moore, the chief content officer of BBC, defend her network’s choice to feature a BDSM scene in the mini-series adaptation of Charles Dickens’ "Great Expectations."
Viewers were recently shocked by a scene in the second episode that featured the character Mr. Pumblechook being spanked over a bed by Mrs. Gargery. Amid viewers and fans of the original novel criticized this scene and other dark moments in the show, Moore stated that she "believes absolutely everything [in the show] comes from what was alluded to"
"[Y]ou have to really understanding what [Dickens] would have felt able to write about [in the Victorian era] and read between the lines," Moore told the Broadcasting Press Guild in London on Thursday.
A general view shows the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Television Centre in west London. (REUTERS/Toby Melville)
When asked why the network decided to adapt the classic novel in this way, Moore responded, "Because I think it’s a great way to bring loved texts to new audiences, and to find new interpretations," and that it can "push the boundaries of storytelling," and "reinvent [classic novels] for a modern age."
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The show also portrayed the character Miss Havisham, played by Olivia Coleman, as an opium addict.
In an interview with the BBC, the show’s screenwriter Steven Knight similarly defended the creative choice by claiming that Dickens was restricted by the elements of his time.
"You couldn’t write about certain things in Dickens’ time: certain elements of sexuality, crime, disobedience against the crown and state. What I tried to do was imagine if Dickens was writing the story now and had the freedom to go to those darker places, what would he do? If he had been liberated to write the things that were going on that he wasn’t allowed to write about," Knight said.
An employee at Sothebys holds an 1843 first edition of the classic "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens in London, U.K., Tuesday, December 5, 2006. (Photo by Suzanne Plunkett/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Regarding the scene itself, Knight also defended the racy undertones, arguing for a deeper reading into the text.
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"So I think if you take a microscope to the text of Dickens – for example, Pumblechook and Mrs Gargery, there are a couple of lines in there where they disappear together," Knight said. "And I think that a Victorian readership were a bit more forensic about what was going on."
The Dickens Fellowship, however, criticized this reading as a way to "generate viewership" by shocking the audience. Honorary General Secretary Paul Graham referred to Knight as "disingenuous" while calling his argument "slightly ridiculous."
British novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1870) sat in his study in Gads Hill near Rochester, Kent circa 1860. (Photo by Epics/Getty Images)
"How can he put himself in Dickens’ place and say what he would have done? I think the scenes would just seem unnecessary. I don’t know if Dickens would have included a spanking scene! …Pumblechook is essentially a comic book character without a hint of sexual deviance…" Graham said to The Daily Mail.
He added, "If people are entertained by it then fair enough, but it's a distorted version of what Dickens wrote."