cory anotado

Originally published at The Fast Money Round. You can comment here or there.

This paper was written for Prof. Phyllis Betz’s Pop Culture Literature class. It was rushed, it’s not terribly good, but since people want 15 pages on zombies, then by the grace of Wordpress, they’ll have 15 pages on zombies. I’m taking out all the parenthetical citations and just throwing the works cited in a comment below, since this thing is a shade under 4,000 words.

Literary Appropriation, Popular Culture, and
Brain-Eating Zombies

A wise sage from the Internet once stated that there were 7 main plots in storytelling: man vs. nature; man vs. man; man vs. the environment; man vs. technology; man vs. the supernatural; man vs. self; and man vs. God. Montana State University Professor Ronald B. Tobias, in his book 20 Master Plots: And How to Build Them, increases the number to 20. Italian dramatist Count Carlo Gozzi, according to Georges Polti in the book The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, increases the number to 36. Rudyard Kipling is presumed to have had a list of 69 different plots. Cecil Adams, of the syndicated newspaper column The Straight Dope, narrows it down to one:

“…all stories can be summed up as Exposition/Rising Action/Climax/Falling Action/Denouement or to simplify it even further, Stuff Happens, although even at this level of generality we seem to have left out Proust.”

The number of plots in storytelling may be limited, but the amount of stories in the world seems limitless. Since the dawn of the printing press, authors have been transcribing their stories into novels, novellas, magazine installations, Reader’s Digest features, blogs and websites. Authors get ideas from different points in their life, whether it be Edgar Allan Poe and the wicked, dreary conditions of the city of Philadelphia, or J.R.R. Tolkien and the backdrop of the Second World War. Even the best storytellers sometimes run out of creative juices and rely heavily, either consciously or subconsciously, on the abilities of others for the words needed to continue. Famous African-American author Alex Haley, who wrote the novel Roots, settled a lawsuit out-of-court for $650,000 after an author claimed that Haley plagiarized over 80 passages from his novel published 9 years before Roots.

What if, however, a storyteller used an existing work and revised it in such a way to create an entirely new piece? Would it be wrong? Would it serve a purpose? Can a piece that is heavily appropriated from an original source to create a seemingly-new story serve to enhance and clarify the original work? It can. Literary appropriation serves many different functions, including satire and political statements. In the case of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a 2009 satire of the Regency classic, this appropriation not only creates a new story using a familiar story line, but the changes and additions made to the story help to amplify and clarify the intentions and the meanings behind Jane Austen’s work.

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No matter what happens with people, whether it be stress over tests, strife over relationships, troubles with teachers, or anger over life, here at La Salle, there's one thing that unites everyone together, even if only for a few hours.

That thing is Charter Dinner.

What is the Charter I speak of? Well, when La Salle was started, a charter was signed and the university was officially founded. Well, every March we celebrate that occasion with a giant dinner. Engulfing our ballroom and the outer patio, food is everywhere, people are talking, a lot of the faculty serves food to the students and everyone has a great time.

People who I don't normally see smile are jovial and happy. People I haven't seen all semester I am able to talk to with glee. For one fleeting moment, everyone drops their prejudices for one meal.

And there's a chocolate fountain. Yes sir.

Management always has the right to change the list. This is the final list!

1. Suzanne
Suzanne, my lovely girlfriend, obviously tops my list again. Throughout struggles and fights, ups and downs, happy moments and trying times, we’ve grown as a couple and as people, and I know that I truly love her. Even through struggles like moving off to college and the difficulties of a long-distance relationship, we’ve managed to be stronger than ever. I appreciate what she does for me, I treasure her in my life and I love her to pieces.

2. Lolo and Lola
My grandparents, Rev. Paquito M. Anotado and Mrs. Lilia G. Anotado (I like formally typing their names out like that. It’s fun), retired this summer. Their initial plan was to take things slow and retire and move back to the Philippines after I graduated from college. An eager homebuyer in the States and extremely cheap land in the Philippines sped up the plan. It really was difficult seeing Lolo and Lola (the Tagalog words for grandpa and grandma) leave. They had essentially raised me; watching me while my mom and dad were at work. I’m glad that they’re happy in their giant house in the Philippines.

3. St. Basil Court
This was the year I moved on campus and started living at La Salle University. It was a pretty drastic change, moving from home where I had complete privacy but detachment from campus to being connected to campus but having someone (namely, my roommate Tim) being around when I’m trying to masturbate. Tim and I had a rough adjustment, but I think we’re OK now. And my floor really isn’t all that bad, except for Fucking Donna who lives across the hall. Those who live on the floor know what I’m talking about.

4. Deal or No Deal
Every so often, I create a game that generates a little traffic to my website. And usually, it’s something people usually don’t see online. When Deal or No Deal hit it big in the states, I took it upon myself to create the online version, as I am wont to do. It actually turned out pretty well, despite some coding flaws with the banker, but those were fixed rather quickly. I put it on Newgrounds.com and it ended up with Daily 3rd Place, front-page honors, and a metric fuck-ton of views. Addicting Games wanted it on their website, and as soon as you know it, the game has had over 1.5 million plays in the course of a month. Then Endemol Holdings found out and struck the game out all over the Internet.

5. Meal or No Meal
Well, Addicting Games saw the amazing potential that this stupid little game of luck had, and the advertising revenue that it brought in, and decided to say, “Hey, Cory. We’ll pay you money if you convert Deal or No Deal into a game that we can keep onto the website without fear of death by the hands of Endemol.” That was a good enough deal (no pun intended) for me to officially become a professional video game programmer. At this rate, Pacdude Games, an official game house produces about 2 officially published games a year. Crazy!

6. Wilson College
Suzanne goes there. I visit every so often. It is 3 hours away. I love it. I love the atmosphere. I love the class structure. I love my friends up there. The food is awesome, and hey, they have a big screen TV and no one complains when I watch ESPN. Beth, Karen, Yeip, Alicia, Rosa… Gah, so many people! It really has shaped me going up there. I’m learning to love the small-town feel that Chambersburg, PA has, and hey, I love the drive.

7. La Salle University Class of 2006
Specifically, the friends I made in that class. George, Ray, Fay, Ed, Renee, Doc, Terry, Pat and Ben come immediately to mind as people I knew, hung out with, trusted and became good friends with. Graduation also made me realize that friends in college are fleeting. Treasure them, collegiate friends. They won’t be around forever. Or they’ll become sports anchors for a small market in Wyoming.

8. Ken Jennings
Or, more specifically, Ken’s book, Brainiac. I am in the book, spouting off gibberish about Family Feud lights and stuff. More importantly, it showed me that yes, some of the thing that I do online actually make a difference. (I founded buzzerblog.com and because of the quick traffic growth we had, Ken Jennings interviewed me. As if I have credibility.) No one’s really said much of anything to me without me showing them the book, so well, it’s just a little reminder of who I was, always with me in print.

9. The Programming Center
My job in the programming center is one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. The pay is good, the hours are great, and I’ve made a couple new friends due to the job and the stuff I’ve had to do with it. I work Late Night events and get to hang out with awesome people (like Jo Anna, so shut up, you’re in the stupid Pacdude 10) and do fun stuff. It’s a big job, too, so it’s not like I’m taking stuff lightly, but it really is a lot of fun. Speaking of which, I wonder what my hours are this semester…

10. WEXP
True, it’s only a college radio station. True, it’s no big deal. But hey, when I didn’t get elected as program manager and stupid Douche got elected as GM, it hurt. The whole ordeal was trying emotionally and mentally, because I put so much of my heart and soul into the station, and I could see it slipping away. I’ve slowed my role with the station, and it’s calmed me and really given me time to do other stuff, and the station’s management is realizing that Douche was a bad choice, so that’s good. Maybe I’ll run for program manager in the Spring. Who knows?