The Power of the Auteur : The Case of the Anna Myth (1870-1999)

Abstract

The critically acclaimed musical The King and I (1951), which has been immortalized by R & H music and the legendary Yul Brynner, originated from four articles published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1870, by a woman commonly known as Anna Leonowens.

Contrary to the general belief that the narrative of the legendary Anna is the factual account of the battle between Anna, an English governess, and a Siamese king and his court, the musical is actually an American cultural production aimed to engage American audiences. They are unaware that the narrative is embedded with American idealism, which is crucial to the popularization and immortalization of this narrative, so much so that it has been reproduced time and again with financial successes. American audiences did, and some still do, believe in the alleged historical facts presented in the musical.

The crux of this article focuses on the strategies employed in the productions of this popular American-made myth and the re-creation of the legendary Anna character, i.e., the various manipulative methods of the media industry to authenticate their fabricated versions of the Anna narrative, such as the ‘reality-show effect' and the ‘eye-witness effect’. The paper discusses the real auteur of all versions, from the 1870 original articles and book, to its 1951 musical and the latest and most historically disputed 1999 movie version.