Theory of Adaptation

Linda Hutcheon’s first chapter on adaptation begins with the statement, “[a]dapting is a bit like redecorating,” which is an apt description of what is happening across the media landscape today. Interior design shows have revitalized countless homes with new paint and selective staging, bestselling novels have revisited familiar characters and settings without their original authors, film narratives move from the screen to the stage then back to the screen in a few short years, and video games extend classic films and television programs in order to allow gamers to navigate (and often shoot their way) through familiar cinematic environments. With an understanding of this new terrain, A Theory of Adaptation supplements comparative adaptation theory with a critical overview of the entire process of adaptation—the what, who, why, how, where, and when of media incarnations based on previous works. In doing so, Hutcheon stages a new approach to evaluating the adaptation that considers not only narrative strategies, but also the mediums in which they are presented.

The structure of the book provides a concise overview of the exchanges that occur during the process of adaptation across various media forms. Following the lead of Robert Stam, Hutcheon moves the argument about adaptation beyond fidelity, which seems primarily invested in chasing loss, into far more productive critical territory. The first section of the book addresses issues of audience reception related to adapted works. What makes this approach unique is that Hutcheon is interested in understanding the experience of adaptation. She notes: “Part of this pleasure, I want to argue, comes simply from repetition with variation, from the comfort of ritual combined with the piquancy of surprise” (4). Hutcheon identifies a primary industrial imperative within the contemporary entertainment industry, which is a pattern of repetitive media consumption across a range of forms. For this reason, adaptations dominate the media landscape from video games to television spin-offs to web-isodes, establishing what producers hope will be an ongoing entertainment experience without boundaries. Hutcheon draws us into a study of the “politics of intertextuality” (xii) in order to understand that adaptations exist not in a hierarchy of source material and recreation, but rather as works that are in dialogue.