You can read this on my substack as well.
From lavish big-screen productions like this year’s The Odyssey (dir. Christopher Nolan) and the controversial Wuthering Heights (dir. Emerald Fennell), to streaming smashes such as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (HBO) and the endlessly discussed Heated Rivalry (Crave), much of what audiences are fed on their screens nowadays lived somewhere else first. The entertainment industry seems to have become overly dependent on pre-existing material, banking on familiar ties and the power of a recognizable title rather than taking a leap by trusting in new ideas. Everything is recycled; hardly anything is new.
This overwhelming wave of adaptations begs more questions than simply whether Hollywood has run out of ideas (though, that is a fair point).
Yet this overwhelming wave of adaptations begs more questions than simply whether Hollywood has run out of ideas (though, that is a fair point). Namely, can we really call those adaptations, or have we unknowingly been watching fanfictions all this time? Are those the same things? Where exactly do we draw the line between adaptation and fanfiction?
Think about it: Both rely on pre-existing characters and worlds. Both reinterpret source material via some new creative lens. Both often alter characterization, themes, timelines, and even endings and other plot details, depending on things like target audience or the author’s artistic vision for that specific rendition. In many cases the distinction between “adaptation” and “fanfiction” seems pretty arbitrary, and largely has to do with things like legal jibber jabber and budgetary resources.
But whereas screenwriters and directors are praised and considered real, serious artists when they take someone else’s story and make it their own, fanfiction writers are shrouded in stigma and dismissed as frivolous, derivative amateurs who must hide their hobby from family and coworkers.
But is that right? Are they actually doing different things? Or are all adaptations really just fanfiction?
Is it all about semantics?
Finding surface-level definitions of adaptation and fanfiction is fairly easy.
An adaptation is simply a transfer of a work of art from one form to another. It has been common for millennia—when myths and other oral narratives would be adapted on stage in Ancient Greece on the regular—and always remained a frequent custom among artists. Before the advent of Romanticism in the 18th century, for instance, authors in Western literature habitually reworked, reinterpreted, and retold existing stories by fashioning them in their own writing style. Even Shakespeare himself was often dipping his toes in adaptations, as several of his works draw heavily from pre-existing sources.
Nowadays, adapting something has come to mean taking a work of art and translating it into a different medium, usually from a written source to a screen (film, television, video game) or a stage (play or musical).
I fail to see any real distinction between the two. Seriously.
These adaptations can have varying degrees of fidelity, aka how much they stray from the source material. You have close adaptations, which include most details from the original into the new medium, with only a few minor tweaks that don’t affect the overall story (e.g., The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001). Then there are loose adaptations, which involve the same overarching narrative but liberties are taken with characters and setting, such as Clueless (1995) being loosely adapted from Jane Austen’s 1815 novel Emma. And finally you have the middle ground with intermediate adaptations, which follow the source fairly closely in themes and story but still take liberties at times (e.g., the 1996 movie Romeo + Juliet narrowly resembles the original play in its narrative, but modern stylistic elements are added to spruce things up a bit).
Fanfiction, on the other hand, consists of written works of fiction which build upon pre-existing characters and/or worlds, penned and published by fans of the source material, often for free on the Internet. They also can differ on levels of fidelity—some fan works abide to the original narrative but alter minor details (such as the gender of the protagonist) to deliver a different final product, whereas others completely change the setting or storyline or add whole new characters.
Now, aside from semantics and different financial goals (adaptations make money vs. fanfiction is posted for free), I fail to see any real distinction between the two. Seriously.
Is it because adaptation involve going from one medium to another? Well, no, because while fanfiction commonly refers to written works, a great deal of fanfiction is inspired by non-written source material. Besides, as mentioned, the notion that adaptation involves the transfer from one medium to another is a modern feat rather than a must. Is it because fanfiction refers to works authored by fans? Uhm, also no, as I presume most screenwriters and directors who make adaptations were fans of the source material to begin with. Is it because fanfiction stories are self-indulgent works? Still no, since isn’t most (if not all) art born out of self-indulgence anyway?
The behind-the-scenes stigma
Let’s face it: Adaptations and fanfictions are the exact same thing.
If you bring this up, most people would turn their noses in dismissal and derision. “It’s not the same thing!” they will cry. Yet, when you ask them to distinguish the two, they will stare at you with their mouth agape and then babble a whole bunch of nothing.
Many will undoubtedly argue that the difference between adaptation and fanfiction is that the former “simply feels more official,” but even that doesn’t mean anything. The truth is that it only “feels more official” because it is advertised as such.
Studios are nowhere close to associating a project with the term fanfiction, given the baggage it carries
Let’s be honest, no studio is going to publicly announce that a movie they are about to release is a fanfiction. For starters so they can be free to milk the original IP and leverage the existing fanbase of the source material to sell more tickets. Audiences are more likely to watch a film or series when it’s already attached to a name they recognize—calling something “the adaptation of [popular thing]” is ultimately going to be better for the deep pockets. And we also must admit that studios calling a project a fanfiction instead of an adaptation would just be very, very embarrassing.
Although recently there has been a bizarre surge of interest from mainstream media, fanfiction is still considered a weird little hobby by people who aren’t active participants within fandom spaces (and sometimes even then). While writing such stories is now seen as something slightly more dignified compared to whatever it was in the early 2010s, if you ask a random stranger to picture a fanfiction writer, there’s a good chance they will concoct an image of an awkward, cringe-worthy middle-schooler (even though the average age of the fanfiction enthusiasts is found to be somewhere around 30 years old) who gets their jollies from writing goofy, perverted stories about their celebrity crush (despite the fact that fanfiction about real people is merely a one-horse subsection of the genre, and a very controversial one). It’s understandable studios are nowhere close to associating a project with the term fanfiction, given the baggage it carries. And so, they prefer to shiver away and cower behind the safer word adaptation.
Think about it: Would you rather go watch a movie publicized as the “Wuthering Heights ADAPTATION” or one called a “Wuthering Heights FANFICTION“? Chances are you grimaced at the latter and went all sparkly eyed at the former, even though fundamentally they mean the exact same thing. At their core, both are reinterpretations of an existing story. Both take bits of the original and mold them to their liking. The difference lies entirely in the name.
Titles & dangerous deceptions
Problem is the word “adaptation” carries certain assumptions with it. When audiences hear that term, they expect a certain level of fidelity to the source material, and even more so when the adaptation keeps the same title as the original work.
The word “adaptation” carries certain assumptions with it […], and even more so when the adaptation keeps the same title as the original work.
When people go see a movie titled Frankenstein advertised as the adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, they expect to see… well, Frankenstein. Not necessarily a scene-by-scene recreation, but something that at least keeps the same characters, setting, and overall narrative (and doesn’t throw in random dudes nobody knows and sets the story in a whole different time period).
Of course, it goes without saying that it’s asinine to expect an adaptation to be an exact carbon copy of the original work, since a lot can change between versions. Difference in audiences, for instance, can play a key role here, especially when it comes to adapting classics—something enjoyed in the 1800s is probably not going to hit the same among the 21st century public. Plus, keeping close fidelity down to the tiniest detail is impossible sometimes, particularly if we’re talking about long-form pieces being translated into a medium with a shorter span (e.g., novel of several hundred pages turned into two-hour film).
Still, if the title is the same and the movie got broadcast as an adaptation, there’s this unspoken promise that the new rendition won’t be that much different from the original. Switching a little something here and there is fine, but once you change aspects that are fundamental to the story (such as taking a character whose racial discrimination is integral to the narrative and making them white… I’m looking at you, Miss Fennell) you should stop and ask yourself if what you’re doing is fair or if it’s simply misleading audiences for your own gain. And while that may work, doesn’t it cheapen your artistry just a little bit? Do you really need to trick people to get them to see your project? What does that say about your work?
Giving it a different title (and/or calling it a fanfiction) would not impact whether audiences enjoy the adaptation in question, but it would change their exceptions for it. It would let them know beforehand that what they’ll see is the artist’s take on the story, NOT the actual thing. They would already know there’s no use in comparing the adaptation to the original and play a game of “spot the difference” between them because what the new version is doing is building upon the source material, not trying to wear its skin. Nobody is being lied to, and the new work has the chance to have a life of its own without being compared to what once was—it’s a win-win!
It might even positively impact whether certain audiences enjoy the adaptation in question—namely, people who decide to watch it because they’re fans of the source material. If they go in expecting the same story as the original but end up sitting there confused because they don’t know what’s happening on the screen, they will leave the adaptation with a sour taste lingering in their mouth, wondering what the heck they just saw even if they did effectively enjoy the new rendition as its own work. And needless to say, no one enjoys that feeling.
So, where’s the line?
The line between adaptation and fanfiction is not just blurry, it’s nonexistent. We simply like one better because of the stigma attached to the other, but at the end of the day they are the same beast in different hairdos. Their main (and perhaps only) difference consists in whether they’ve been granted copyright authorization and were allowed to become cogs in the capitalist enterprise (i.e., were permitted to make money), but aren’t those merely legal technicalities? Then, aren’t adaptations just licensed, studio-backed fanfictions? I happen to think so, and I also believe that to be just fine.
Fanfiction isn’t a bad word! It isn’t an insult! It doesn’t diminish the value or quality that a project may have! We tend to believe the opposite only because modern society conditions us to see fandoms as something to outgrow, to believe that no meaningful art can emerge while identifying oneself as a fan, and to feel relentless shame for creating fan works of any kind. But is that fair, or are those nothing more than social norms shackled around our wrists?
I can already see all the dissenters and protesters furiously shaking their heads at my words. “You can NOT be serious! Adaptations and fanfictions are two VERY different things! Are you seriously comparing fanfiction writers to brilliant filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro?!“
For every Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein there is one Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights.
No, I am not comparing fanfiction writers to filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro. Or at least, not ALL of them! I am very aware there’s some real stinkers out there, who only publish fanfiction for funsies, with little to no regard to grammar or structure or narrative consistency (or quality whatsoever) and with nothing of substance to say. But once upon a time, you do find a diamond in the rough, that one fanfiction that is so beautifully heartfelt it makes you stop and gasp and stare in silent adoration, wondering why one of the Shakespeares of our time is publishing for free on AO3 instead of being a multi-millionaire author adulated by the masses. Sure, not all fan works are like that, but some still are.
And just like not all pieces of fanfiction are bad, not all adaptations are good. Sometimes an adaptation is the lovechild between the auteur’s meticulous work and their admiration for the source material; other times it just feels like a borderline insult to the original artist. For every beautiful and well-intended adaptation there is at least one who is just bastardizing the source material, yet forces an association with the original work for some marketing gimmick. Simply put, for every Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein there is one Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights.
Adaptation and fanfiction are just like all other art forms: there’s good in both and bad in either. Neither should be dismissed, neither is lesser than the other, and neither should be treated like a naughty word meant to be whispered in the dark in fear of offending anyone or being laughed at, because they mean the exact same thing.
Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT suggesting that film studios should now start scouring all over the web to find fanfiction to bring to life, nor am I saying we need to abolish adaptations altogether (though, it might not be a terrible idea to ease up a little). I simply believe we should stop trying to draw such a harsh line between the two labels and ought to no longer see them as separate realms with no intersection or of unequal artistic value by default. If anything, the Venn diagram of adaptation and fanfiction might be just a circle.
