Alice and Paddington: Digital Migrants From Book to Film

The films Alice in Wonderland (2010) directed by Tim Burton and Paddington (2014) directed by Paul King, are re-workings of two established and well-known English children’s books. The contemporary re-birth of these texts as films make extensive use of digital techniques which visually and ideologically take the texts in new directions. A central consideration which arises on analysis of these films is the re-construction and re-positioning of the characters of nineteenth-century Alice and twentieth century Paddington in the digital age of the twenty-first century. Both Alice and Paddington are migrants: Alice into the fantasy world of Burton’s ‘Underland’ and Paddington the anthropomorphized bear who travels from the rain forests of Peru to central London. Each of these box office successes has an underlying theme of the experience of the migrant. Notably both films were released when migration and immigration were, and unfortunately still are, bitterly divisive subjects in the UK, Europe and America. This chapter analyses the experiences of the migrant characters and the influence of digital film making upon such construction. The case is made that literature for children when translated into media formats has ideological and moral themes relevant to the contemporary world.