“Anne of Green Gables” is one of my favorite books. The 1985 television adaption starring Megan Follows was a constant in my house. So when I heard that Netflix was doing their own version I was thrilled.
Anne of Green Gables and its sequels are set in the fictional town of Avonlea at the end of the 19th- century and follow the story of Anne Shirley, a wildly imaginative and talkative orphan, who is adopted by middle-aged siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. The Cuthberts initially send for a boy so Matthew can have help around the farm, Green Gables, but when Anne arrives by mistake, they decide to raise her instead. The books tell of Anne’s misadventures with her best friend, Diana, her rivalry with the immature but brilliant, Gilbert Blythe, and her coming-of-age as an intelligent and capable young woman.
The 1985 adaption follows the books precisely. Anne is whimsical (upon her first arrival to her new home she proceeds to name the nearby pond ‘The Lake of Shining Waters’ and a row of apple trees ‘The White Way of Delight’) but she is charming and is largely accepted by Avonlea. Her sense for the dramatic frequently leads her to trouble—she almost drowns pretending to be the Lady of Shallot, for example. She also develops close relationships to her guardians, Marilla and Matthew, whose steadfastness and practicality ground her. It is, in short, a comedic tale about youth and family.
“Anne with an E” is an entirely different creature. It begins very much the same. Anne (played by Amybeth McNulty) is left alone at the Prince Edward Island train station, hopeful for a new home. The first episode follows the story faithfully: Anne immediately charms Matthew and is distraught upon realizing Marilla’s dismay at the mistake in Anne’s gender. Though Marilla is skeptical, the Cuthberts maintain custody of Anne until they can rectify the error. There are initial troubles as Anne lashes out at Marilla’s friend, Rachel Lynde, who insults Anne’s appearance. It ultimately ends with Marilla deciding to keep Anne on a temporary basis and see if she fits in at Green Gables. In many ways, this beginning is more believable than the Megan Follows’ version. McNulty looks younger, for one. Anne, at the beginning of the series, is only supposed to be eleven. The 1985 miniseries traced the story through Anne’s teenaged years and so Follows looks significantly older in these early scenes. This Anne was also tempered with flashbacks to traumatic incidents that occurred throughout Anne’s time in the orphanage and in the employment of harsh guardians, in particular the Hammonds, who Anne worked as a quasi-nanny before coming to Green Gables. These incidents are implied but glossed over in both book and television adaption and their explicit inclusion here helped to cut through the sometimes syrupy sunshine of Anne’s wonderment and began to add depth to her character.
After a promising start, the series suddenly veers into the realm of the unbelievable. After Anne loses Marilla’s favorite broach, Marilla accuses her of stealing sends her back to the orphanage with little comment from a sad Matthew. By the time Marilla realizes that Anne did not take the broach it is too late and Matthew is resigned to a madcap chase across Canada (well, from Prince Edward Island to Halifax but still) which involves changing horses, being trampled, a ferry-crossing with a head wound, and a climax in the Halifax train station in which the typically silent Matthew declares loudly that Anne is his daughter. It was the first of several bizarre attempts to insert over-the-top drama into a story that is ultimately about the courage of overcoming the everyday. It also undermined Marilla’s character in a pretty significant way—Marilla does threaten to send Anne away because she believes she has stolen the broach but never does and upon discovering the broach is greatly chastened by the episode. Anne thrives at the Cuthberts, mainly because they are rock-solid—always sure, always pragmatic. Anne adds joy to their lives but they give her a sense of safety that she has not felt elsewhere. Their iterations in this version—so emotionally-driven, tragic, and uncertain—would not have been able to give Anne the security that allows her to succeed in the original.
This is not the only portrayal that rankled. Diana Barry, Anne’s ‘bosom friend’, is rendered completely lifeless and boring. Her original ditzy, giggly manner is replaced by a wise mediator who is friends with the mean girls at school. She, as a result, fades into the background. Gilbert Blythe, Anne’s enemy and eventual love interest, is a complete reversal as well. Gilbert is supposed to be presented as the only person at school who can meet Anne’s intellectual capabilities but is too immature to funnel his simultaneous admiration and jealousy of her into anything but schoolyard taunts. He grows up as Anne’s rival and their progression from enemies to friends is one of the markers of both his and Anne’s development. Her eventual acceptance of him as an imperfect romantic partner shows Anne’s ability to finally move beyond her childhood dreaming into adulthood. In this, Gilbert is the tragic hero that Anne would have loved right away. His family is all dead and he is running the family farm at age twelve. He is noble and kind. The initial incident that sets Anne to hate him right away is completely reinterpreted. In the original Gilbert makes fun of Anne’s red hair (he pulls her braid and calls her ‘Carrots’) and she breaks her slate over his head. In this, calling Anne ‘Carrots’ is merely an affectionate plea to get her attention so he can share his snack. It is never clear in this version why she is so attracted to Diana and why she so hates Gilbert and it takes away from the story.
This gets at the main issue with the series—it strips the gentleness and comedic spirit of the original in favor of something darker and harsher. The original could be criticized for presenting an overly optimistic portrayal of an orphan coming into a small community at the end of the 19th-century. However, this adaption shows a community brimming with melodrama and prejudice and a child more damaged than spirited. It is always hinted that Anne’s big personality is due to her difficult childhood but in this her imaginings seem symptomatic of serious post-traumatic stress disorder. She talks to pinecones, sings to ladybugs while dancing on a shed roof, and has delusions that carry her so far from reality that she almost burns Green Gables down. This is deeply problematic and the show is unable to resolve the fact that they have introduced Anne as being seriously troubled by her experiences and by the end, the whole circumstance seems dismissed. It is also suggested that she was privy to sexual abuse in her previous homes, a plot point that also seemed poorly handled and gratuitous. It was as if the writers were saying that the naiveté of the original was bad and unrealistic. Which begs the question: Why is innocence perceived as a character flaw?
Most importantly, the strong feminist message of the original has become warped. The female characters of the novel are strong and independent. Anne is spunky and incredibly smart. She has wonderful role models—both male and female—that support her. Though Matthew and Marilla’s roles on the farm are gender specific neither is considered more or less important than the other. If anything, Marilla is the true head of house. Miss Stacy is Anne’s successful and inspiring teacher. Josephine Baker, Diana’s wealthy aunt, is seen as a force to be reckoned with. Anne goes to college and is surrounded by intelligent and ambitious women. Eventually she becomes a school principal. She writes stories. She enters a healthy and supportive marriage. Her successes are credits to herself. The female characters in “Anne with an E” are reduced to pale versions of themselves. Marilla weeps over a marriage that never was and has no control over the finances of Green Gables. Miss Stacy has yet to be introduced. The town minister and his wife, supporters of Anne, have been condensed to an elderly one-dimensional foil for Marilla’s newfangled modern feminist ideas. Only Aunt Josephine demonstrates any of the independence of the original. Ironically, this version speaks more openly about the concept of feminism than any other version. But it’s a lot more talking than doing.
“Anne with an E” was a disappointment. It took a tale which relied on lightheartedness and humor to tell a story about ordinary people and applied the anachronistic logic that everything has to be fast-paced to be fun and everything has to be dark to mean something.