Sin is derivative. Evil is unoriginal. I am not alone in this observation, which is backed by church fathers and theologians and anyone who has endured a bad adaptation of a favorite story. C.S. Lewis, drawing on Augustine, famously describes sin as a parasite in Mere Christianity. Sin cannot create, so it latches onto what is good.
The parasitic nature of sin is apparent not just in our morals but our media. The last decade has been rife with remakes and adaptations in which directors do their best to be unorthodox by adhering strictly to the orthodoxy of secular culture. These provocative remakes are painfully predictable. Gender bend wherever possible. Let feminism banish chivalry. Girl boss it up.
When Greta Gerwig decided to emasculate Aslan, I was annoyed but unsurprised. When I saw an advertisement for Netflix’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden that describes Cathy Ames as “charming,” I rolled my eyes. With a yawn, I guessed that she would be portrayed not as evil personified but another sympathetic girl boss who just needed to be true to her authentic self.
I was right.
Florence Pugh, who served as executive producer for the limited series, terrifies me almost as much as the character she plays. Pugh suggests that Cathy is complex, even iconic, a compelling representation of the female struggle for equality and dignity. Describing her artistic process and decisions, Pugh expresses nothing but admiration for the woman who abandons her children, ruins mens lives, and embraces a career as the madame of the most depraved brothel in the Salinas Valley.
Pugh is a great actress. I don’t deny that. But her progressivism is almost unbearably prosaic. I could have predicted every word of her article. Lauding Cathy Ames—who Steinbeck describes as a monster and portrays only as a child-abandoning, husband-hating, sex-trafficker—as a “fiercely independent woman” who discovers success on her own terms isn’t complex. It isn’t clever. It’s just regurgitating the cultural catechism. It sidesteps the real questions about good and evil presented in Steinbeck’s masterpiece.
But moving on. This isn’t a seminar on East of Eden. We’re living there, surrounded by the fallout. Netflix is a lost cause. I’m not going to spend more time arguing in vain against the predictably perverted adaptations it insists on pumping out. Instead, I’d like to offer a few suggestions for other books the streaming service might want to desiccate to win cheap applause. (Proceed with caution as there are spoilers ahead!)
- Pride and Prejudice, but in the end, Lizzy realizes that she’s been a victim of prejudice and therefore has no culpability. Her character arc is a line. Meanwhile, Darcy embraces pride as a virtue by throwing a parade at Pemberley.
- Jane Eyre, but Jane and Rochester’s secret wife rendezvous in the attic and run away together, seeking refuge with the forward-thinking clergywoman, St. Joan Rivers.
- Anna Karenina, but the whole train thing is arranged by the patriarchy to keep Anna quiet about how fun it is for women to destroy their lives.
- War and Peace, but Helene and Anatole are the protagonists. Pierre’s quest for truth and goodness? Boring. Cut that subplot entirely!
- Lord of the Rings, but—oh wait, Amazon already took care of that one.
- Hamlet, but the young prince of Denmark is genuinely happy for his mother and uncle because he knows that the best thing for a troubled child is to see his parent pursue romantic satisfaction at all costs.
- The Picture of Dorian Gray, but his portrait grows more and more handsome as he learns to boldly live out his inner sense of self. But also, beauty and goodness are purely social constructs. Resolve this dissonance? What dissonance?
- Fahrenheit 451, but instead of burning books because they stopped reading them, people start turning books into fantastically warped television shows because they stopped reading them well. Oh wait…
What do you think? Are there any other bad adaptations I missed that you think might interest our friends over at Netflix? Seriously, these people are scraping the bottom of the barrel. The least we can do is send them some ideas!
