Specifically, it interrogates the intersections of my own writing as part of my PhD candidature that explores the queer potential of revisionist adaptations for the screen. While film and television are relatively accessible mediums to facilitate the dissemination of ideas through thematic storytelling, the screenplay itself is an undervalued creative output that is often relegated to a technical document that merely provides the blueprint for an end product. Utilising queer methodological approaches, screenwriting enhances the need to normalise the inclusion and appreciation of seemingly subaltern creative practices beyond capitalistic industrial standards, echoing the call for a more progressive and accepting society found in the work itself. This project has seen me navigating my creative practice as a RESEARCHER, a WRITER, and ultimately a FAN with these personas appearing as the three characters in the following screenplay.
By acknowledging and incorporating subversive fan fiction techniques that I have been developing since I was a teenager into my creative practice research, my writing outcomes have been led down novel paths. These familiar thought processes encourage me to imagine more progressive and inclusive worlds for my adaptation without losing sight of the original text, successfully taking up a queer methodological approach characteristic of certain fan fiction rewritings of canonical narratives. This navigation of a dedicated fan’s love and a critical researcher’s dissatisfaction combine fan fiction practices and academic rigour, a dynamic that plays out in ‘Degrees of separation’ as mediated by the writer’s task to explicate knowledge learned through creative practice research. This screenplay offers a creative-critical reflection on the multifaceted approach writers can embody as they work, articulated as an interaction between various selves at the commencement of a PhD candidature utilising screenwriting practice research.
Read the screenplay
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Dante DeBono is a PhD candidate at the University of South Australia with the goal of promoting social inclusivity and equality through work focussed on diversifying queer representation in research and creative outputs. Her current thesis is focused on the queer potential of revisionist adaptations in fiction through screenwriting-based practice-led research that has seen the development of a queered modernisation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. She has been on the central committee for the Gender, Sex and Sexualities Conference since 2021, and is an advisory team member for the UniSA Oral History Hub.