I read a comment from the director of the tv adaption of my brilliant friend. He said, more or less; rather than gender being an important factor the story is about about education being the vehicle to escape poverty and that's the basis of his adaption. Do you have an opinion on that, like can you see that influence manifest itself in what's been presented or do you agree w the director's thoughts or disagree ??
Hi, where did you read it? Yesterday evening I was watching the director being interviewed at “Che tempo che fa” (it’s like the biggest Italian talk show, video here) and he really stressed how it was a female story and how the two protagonists being girls is such a defining aspect of it. He literally said it’s a story about female emancipation.
It’s possible that written interviews leave out some things or stuff gets lost in translation. He did say multiple times that it’s a story about education as a vehicle for social emancipation (which is especially important in Italian history), but I wouldn’t say gender is not an important factor too. I’ve only seen the first two episodes but they clearly show, for example, how Lila cannot go to middle school because she’s a girl, and her brothers have precedence, so if they don’t go, she won’t go. I think they do treat the fact that they are girls and later women as a central part of the story just like the books do – also because Ferrante supervised all the scripts.
