The consensus around literary adaptations has calcified into something predictable: films and shows are either "faithful to the source material" or they're not, and this fidelity determines their moral and artistic standing. We've heard this argument rehearsed endlessly, from debates about translators and their word choices to filmmakers choosing which beloved plot points to preserve. The real question we should be asking is messier and more important: What does our obsession with faithfulness actually cost us?
Consider what happens when we make fidelity the primary measure of success. We lock creators into a defensive posture, constantly explaining their choices rather than exploring what those choices reveal about how stories actually work across different mediums. A novel and a film are not the same animal. A translator's voice is not an obstacle to overcome but a creative decision baked into the work itself. When we demand adaptations "follow the book," we're often asking them to solve an impossible problem: be something they cannot be while also being what you are.
This framework also creates strange hierarchies. Books become sacred texts. The adaptation becomes a supplement, judged primarily on how well it genuflects to its source. But this inverts what should matter most: Is the adapted work itself coherent? Does it earn its emotional moments? Can it stand on its own merits rather than merely as a footnote to another art form?
Here's what troubles me more. The faithfulness debate obscures a harder conversation about what gets adapted and why. We're seeing a particular category of books dominate Hollywood's attention: established bestsellers with existing fan bases, stories that already proved marketable. This isn't a problem of adaptation technique. It's a problem of which stories get resources, which voices get amplified, which narratives get to live in multiple mediums.
When we spend our critical energy arguing about whether an adaptation matched the book precisely enough, we're not asking whether the book deserved adaptation in the first place, or whether that money and talent could have been spent differently. We're not interrogating the economics of cultural production. We're just reinforcing the existing pecking order.
The faithfulness framework also lets bad adaptations off the hook by making them someone else's fault. "The source material was too complex," or "We had to streamline for film." Sometimes that's fair. But it can also become an excuse for lazy storytelling dressed up as necessary compromise.
What breaks when we move past this obsession? First, we might actually evaluate adaptations on what they accomplish rather than what they preserve. Second, we might ask harder questions about which stories Hollywood chooses to tell and why. Third, we might stop penalizing artists for making creative choices in a different medium.
There's still a legitimate conversation about interpretation and respect. A translator's voice matters. A filmmaker's vision matters. But the conversation should be about what new thing is being created, not about how faithfully it bows to something else.
The better questions are these: What does this adaptation reveal that the original didn't? What does it lose, and is that loss intentional or careless? Is the work itself alive on its own terms? Does it say something new or does it just worship at the altar of what came before?
Until we stop treating adaptations as inherently secondary, we'll keep having the same circular argument. And we'll keep missing the chance to ask what they actually break, what they might remake, and whether that matters more than whether they got every detail right.