Felipe Rodriguez

Graduate student at Texas A&M International University. BA in English, minor in Philosophy.

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Do television or film adaptations of literature and novels underestimate the intelligence or capacity for understanding of their viewers?

When it comes to film and and television adaptations of literature and novel mediums, it is largely understood that the omission of certain details or scenes is due to constrictions of budget or time. However, another method of adaptation has been the combination of certain characters, dialogues, and plot points/events to 'ease' the understanding of the adaptation under the guise of the aforementioned. For example, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss's adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, made the choice of changing the names of certain characters so that the audience would not get confused by the extensive catalog of main characters. George R.R. Martin's original purpose for including character's of the same name or namesakes is because that is a quality of real-life. This is a small example, but I am interested in reading where other writers and readers can identify where a seemingly harmless change or omission of detail is actually a veiled attempt at maintaining an audience's attention and therefore their wallet.

Interesting premise, though I feel like it might be just a tad cynical. To use your GoT example, the reasoning for changing Asha Greyjoy's name to Yara (due to the original's similarity to the completely different character of Osha), never seemed to me as being "because the audience isn't smart enough to tell these two characters apart," but rather out of media-specificity. On the page, one can clearly see the difference of the "A" and the "O" that might easily be missed when television viewers are relying only on auditory signifiers, with phonetic similarities potentially being harder to parse than ink-on-page. Also keep in mind that if the reader gets confused, they can temporarily stop reading and flip to the genealogy charts in the back of the book. Though most viewers can arguably pause the show to pull up a fan-wiki, film and television (and especially the commercial-less HBO) are principally designed to be consumed without interruption, which would have been the experience of anyone watching the series live as it premiered. I don't think the creators' awareness of these differences and their decision to edit accordingly really constitute insults to the audience's intelligence -- not to defend D&D, there's certainly more than enough BS in the later seasons to merit that label. It's also worth noting the inverse scenarios, wherein equally similar names (such as Bran and Bronn) and even identical ones (Robb Stark and Robert Baratheon or Jon Snow and Jon Arryn) made it into the show unaltered, suggesting that thought WAS put into which ones were deemed worth changing and which needed to be kept intact. The latter examples of the Robs and Jons are more meaningful than the rather arbitrary closeness of Asha and Osha (two characters who have nothing to do with each other and never interact), since it subtextually hints to the audience the degree of Ned Stark's reverence for his allies from the rebellion, via his decision to name his sons after them. I guess this is a long way of me saying that onomastics alone might not be substantial enough of a basis to justify to severity of your central claim. If I may propose a slightly more contentious counterexample: do we see Zack Snyder removing the alien vagina-squid from his 2009 film adaptation of Watchman as being motivated by fear that the audience wouldn't understand? I've seen valid arguments on both sides of this one, so let's discuss! – ProtoCanon 3 years ago
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I think they are just trying to accomplish something different, which often times means they have to "do away" with a lot in order to (essentially) stay within budget – JuanGomez 3 years ago
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Jul 27, 2021 Felipe Rodriguez Quick note on one of the cited images, that is not Ridley Scott’s face, it is Daisy Ridley’s face that is superimposed on the performer. The comment from the “r/changemyview” raises a concern in addition to the non-consent. Given that the consumption of underage material is illegal, and that Reddit user claims it is “a natural progression of technology” to eventually be able to have “virtual reality sex with […] [teenagers]”, I cannot help but wonder if it is not until the issue of minors and pornographic deepfakes is brought to the forefront of the public eye, that legislation will actually take some sort of action against it. I can only hope its not something that does nothing about the deepfake issue and only extends to preventing it being about minors. Great read.	Issues of Consent, Representation, and Exploitation in Deepfake Pornography
Jul 20, 2021 Felipe Rodriguez Another potential noteworthy thing is Stoker’s implementation of technology and modern science applications as tools in the fight against the outsider. Could this count, no pun intended, as a promotion of the ‘benefits’ of modernity alongside the modern Englishman? I am not trying to say the Stoker is promoting the use of technology to oust and remove foreigners, but rather that it is the ingenuity of the modern Englishman and woman that could devise ways to sort of match the supernatural abilities of Dracula. Let me know your thoughts.	Gothic Fiction and the 'Regressive Evolution' Anxiety
Jul 8, 2021 Felipe Rodriguez I agree with your observations in this article. I think the thing that surprises me the most is that, for example, Jane Eyre (or other pieces of Bronte’s corpus for that matter), still has a solid “fan” and reader base that produces things like fan-fiction and fan-art.	The Persistent Allure of Victorian Literature
Feb 2, 2020 Felipe Rodriguez I am not too sure if your goal was to do an analyze the theme of Hope in these texts, but your article felt more like a specific synopsis with mentions of how hope either exists or does not according to specific events.	Dystopia: Hope in the Face of a Seemingly Impenetrable System
Feb 1, 2020 Felipe Rodriguez Interesting read, I fear for the possible (though unlikely) inspiration of serial killers that could arise from reading these.	Scary Stories: In Defense of Horror for Children