Introduction and Background Information
             The 2001 feature film Ghost World is one of only a few comic book-to-film adaptations that centers on a female protagonist, and it contains one of the first comic-to-film protagonists, male or female, to be a non-action character-in other words, the protagonist is not a super hero. Several changes were made in the translation of this protagonist, Enid Coleslaw, and her best friend, Rebecca Doppelmeyer, from the pages of Daniel Clowes's comic-cum-graphic novel to the Terry Zwigoff-directed film. A high number of these changes involve the alteration (and, in many cases, extraction) of narratives involving female sexuality (specifically young-adult female sexuality, since
             Enid and Rebecca are 18-year-olds), relationships, and desire. The revisions made to the Ghost World narrative are reminiscent of revisions the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has requested-unfairly, many feminists would argue-of various female-focused films, such as But I'm A Cheerleader (1999) and Coming Soon (1999). These two movies contain more sexual subject matter than either version of Ghost World, but Clowes's characters address issues common to these films (lesbianism, masturbation, the female libido) in greater detail in the comic than in the film. This paper seeks to recognize and analyze changes of this nature between the two Ghost World texts and to assess whether or not this example provides evidence for a pattern of female sexual repression in films focusing on young adults. This paper does not attempt to call into question whether or not the nature of cinema as a form is, on the whole, sexist. For every Laura Mulvey essay, arguing that cinema identifies with the male ego and objectifies women by way of the "gaze" (Mulvey 833), other compelling arguments (Miriam Hansen's essay on Rudolph Valentino, for example) indicate that female spectators have as much to gain from a...