It is a truth universally acknowledged that all movie adaptations of literary classics must be in want of a purist reader's satisfaction. However, some of them turn appalling enough to distort the very essence of the author, key themes and motives, even aesthetic, to the point of earning socio-political criticism instead of five-star reviews. But not all is lost in doom and gloom, for a few squiggle their way up to the contemporary audience's pseudo-elitist top four. The trick they use is to delete the source material's complexities, not to adapt to the format, but to the commerce.

Look at Netflix's Frankenstein, or the upcoming Wuthering Heights. Hollywood boasts an insatiable appetite for taking these Gothic classics by women authors and reprocessing their themes out of existence.

Emerald Fennell has strongly argued that Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is "primal, sexual," per BBC, and her polarizing lens enhances the nuances of sadomasochism in the novel like never before. However, Brontë's classic is a twisted tale of psychological tragedy, not page after page of horse-saddled BDSM. When a canonical piece of literature is stripped of its layered narrative of gender, race, class, eco-criticism of civilization, and human psyche, only an unrelatable salacious imagery-in-motion remains. Social media wishes Fennell could have created a new sensual Gothic love story instead of axing most of Brontë's dimensions. 

Margot Robbie, who spearheaded a pink mini-wave of Barbie feminism, leads Fennell's eroticized adaptation alongside Jacob Elordi as the not-so-dark-skinned Heathcliff. Liberties taken from literary classics have also drilled a feminism-sized hole in Elordi's newest blockbuster, Frankenstein. Mary Shelley's book critiques patriarchal oppression and violence, whereas Guillermo del Toro's interpretation forgets all those heavy-handed nuances. It offers an enjoyable yet melodramatic disillusionment of the creator and his babied monster, as cautioned by the director beforehand. Hollywood has a habit of downsizing feminist literature for the sake of commercial ease.

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The visually breathtaking movie, forgetting Shelley's profound moral and existential dilemma, is not new, but thankfully, no longer Mrs. Shelley; she earns credit as Mary. Meanwhile, several other classics have been the victims of Hollywood’s literary distortions. 

Daphne du Maurier's 1938 Gothic novel Rebecca met a tragic fate in Lily James and Armie Hammer's romantic thriller in 2020. Forgetting the psychologically probing characteristics, Ben Wheatley’s direction pushed a steamy romance onto the screens, occasionally sprinkling some scares for the sake of it. Similarly, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter suffered an acute case of melodrama in the 1995 adaptation starring Demi Moore. Dorian Gray (2009) also has to be the straightest mistake a Hollywood literary adaptation has ever made, completely missing Oscar Wilde's point.

Hyperse-----zation peaked in Endless Love (1981), which differs greatly from the Scott Spencer book, with Brooke Shields's infamous accounts of what went behind the lens to record the erotic scenes. Spencer called Franco Zeffirelli’s 1981 painful adaptation of his book, "botched—misquoted," in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. While purists may cringe at Hollywood's treatment of classics, the arguments in favor of reinvention through sexualized screen adaptations remain weak. Mary Shelley might not squirm in her grave because the jaw-droppingly beautiful and sappy Frankenstein at least shunned AI, but excessive creative liberties with literature may cross a troubling line.

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