From Cheerful Bedtime Story to Sad Christmas Film: How Medium, Mode, and Genre Reshape We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

Abstract

Despite a largely positive reception, the 2016 film adaptation of the widely popular and acclaimed picturebook We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (Rosen and Oxenbury 1989) has also received criticism. A number of parents have even taken to the internet to share their experiences of children being very upset, and even crying. Indeed, the film has been deemed sadder and more depressing than the picturebook, particularly in relation to its treatment of the character of the bear. Using these critiques as a springboard, this paper argues that they are—in large part—caused by the change of medium and genre. Drawing from Klaus Kaindl’s mode—medium—genre taxonomy (Kaindl 2013), this paper investigates the changes in the medial, modal, and generic dimensions between the two works as being closely intertwined. In order to gain a better understanding of those dynamics, this paper will provide a thorough multimodal breakdown of one scene from the picturebook and the film (textual, visual, and aural modes), and examine how the new medium affordances, multimodal arrangement, and generic conventions reshape the work and its subsequent reception.