With our second week focusing on audio adaptations and adapting artefacts from the Crawford Collection at the ASRC, I wanted to choose an artefact that allowed for a more creative audio piece. I decided to adapt a 1980s TV WEEK magazine featuring a ‘Saucy Sally’ mug set advertisement (TV WEEK, 1980, p. 72). The magazine contained many sexist stories and columns, and the ad—promoting mug sets with breasts that “wobble” and a butt that “wiggles”—was both entertaining as a novelty item and reflective of the widespread objectification of women’s bodies throughout the magazine.

I considered the relationship between adaptations and parodies, as they can critique and amplify ideas (Hutcheon, 2012, p. 3). Rather than simply retelling the ad or highlighting the patterns of sexism in the magazine, I wanted my adaptation to expose the issues present in both the 1980s and today. Using Venuti’s concept of “the formulation of the hermeneutic relation and its interrogative” (2007, p. 41), I approached the adaptation as an interpretation of the source text, creating an audio piece in the form of a 1980s-style radio ad for a “Saucy Steve” mug set instead.

By incorporating over-the-top sound effects and narration that objectified the mug in relation to men, I transformed the source material into a new text open to interpretation and critique. As Hand highlights the importance of engaging audio pieces in creating a “cocreative process between artist and audience” (2018, p. 374), I used 80s-style music, exaggerated flirtatious commentary, voice effects, and descriptive language to make the piece more immersive. This allowed listeners to visualise and reflect on the themes in their own way, much like how I engaged with the magazine when first encountering it.

 

References 

Hand, R. J. (2018). Sound stories: Audio drama and adaptation. In Richard J. Hand, The Routledge Companion to Adaptation (pp. 372–381). https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315690254

Hutcheon, L. (2012). Beginning to Theorize Adaptation: What? Who? Why? How? When? In S. O’Flynn (Ed.), A Theory of Adaptation (2nd ed., pp. 1–32). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203095010

TV WEEK. (1980, May 31). Saucy Sally Mug Set [Advertisement]. TV WEEK, p. 72. Crawford Collection, RMIT University ASRC.

Venuti, L. (2007). Adaptation, Translation, Critique. Journal of Visual Culture, 6(1), 25–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470412907075066