Dana's cleverness and resourcefulness is so key to the story! Part of the point of the book, at least as I read it, is that Dana can be completely aware of her situation and still not be able to escape its horror, she can do everything right and still be face to face with unimaginable cruelty. Its pointing out how systemic problems can't be "won" by outsmarting them, thats part of the tradgedy, if anyone should be able to traverse the plot of kindred, its Dana, but even she ends the story with a tremendous amount of trauma (both physical and mental)
Ugh. If anything that makes the changes make more sense, from a 'media' standpoint. 😕 The idea that problems are about the individual (rather than systems that have been put into place and that can, and should, be changed); and the idea that you can 'work hard' and 'be smart' and you will always succeed (rather than a lot of things about life being completely out of control and therefore not your fault)....these are like linchpins to our current society. Can't have people actually coming to understand their world via narrative. Because then people might challenge those foundational ideas that the current power structure is based (and falsely justified) on.
Something I’ve noticed with a lot of modern adaptations, whether it’s film or movie, I feel like the show runners don’t trust their audiences to be able to relate to a story if it doesn’t take place in the “now”. I get that this allows the story to have obvious real life parallels but it’s like can we let the audience get that aha moment for themselves? I wish there was someone in the writing room for all of those adaptations that would be willing to question why everything needs to be modernized and what effect it has on the actual story being told.
I totally agree with you, but also feel like FX told him he whatnt gettin no money to produce a double period-piece, so he lazily leaned into a modern setting, instead of committing to the presence of our current era.
Something to add onto with your note, it may be hard to let audience think for themselves with now being more emphasis on either 'us vs them' thinking. Or showrunners having us walk with them to every. single. point. they. were. thinking. Which is very annoying, yet all of us being so open to resources and informations. What may scare writers and showrunners even more now, compare to back then could be lost in translation. and how deep is the translation being lost. (misconstruing, overanalyzing, being used in bad faith, ect.)
I first read Kindred in 1999 for a Black women writers class when I was in college. Our professor was able to get Ms. Butler to come to campus and she gave a talk about the initial motivation in writing the story . How would a person with a 20th century mindset fare if they suddenly found themselves in the midst of the slavery? This book and her description of the writing process touched me for life. I was excited to see an adaptation had been made and had high hopes based on the trailer. Ultimately I couldn't make it past the first episode. Adding the mom storyline and making Kevin just some bartender made me never tune back in. Your video showed me things I was avoiding. Nonetheless, great job!
19:40 I find this insistence on calling any piece of art "dated" the moment it's older than 10 years to be infuriating. Calling Kindred "dated" doesn't really make sense; When the book was written and when the book takes place does not make it "dated." What do people even really mean by "dated?" That something isn't taking place in the exact here and now moment? Okay??? That makes the art ineffective or in need of change how?? It's bad faith "criticism" and shows such a deep disrespect for art itself. This attitude towards art from the very distant past is so obviously capitalist propaganda. Buy new, new, new. Do not care about what's old, what's "dated," what "needs" to be replaced by a worse version of itself. I'm so sick of these attitudes. Thank you for the video
Never mind the inclusion of Dana’s mother, I knew it was gonna be crummy when Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins claimed his change of the marriage to a “hookup” was based in his inability to have been able to imagine a Black woman compromising herself for love (i.e. a partner who is currently incapable of fully comprehend her). That is literally the basis of so many great literary works by Black women and his refusal to sit with that made me truly believe he hadn’t actually (spiritually) sat with Butler herself; internalizing and processing her remarks and intentions in creating the novel. Also, the fact that the protagonist’s name (nickname for Edana) is actually intended to be pronounced Donna and not Dayna, lead be to fully believe he hadn’t bothered to actually listen to Butler’s discuss her own work and mastermind ways to fold back in the aspects of her writing that the publishing industry continues to erase. It’s these things that actually display how much disregard was enacted not only byway of capitalism (from FX) but Jacob-Jenkins ego. You can’t imagine a Black woman putting up with a man like Kevin, yet you alter the whole story so that you, the show runner, and we, the audience, then have to sit with Kevin on-end, but also making it so that Dana’s whole story now becomes worrying over a man she doesn’t know as opposed to what Butler intended- displaying the reality of insecurity that still remains for women while even in a supposedly safe secure love/partnership. Bravo.
for real, Dana going back to the present and seeing Kevin in a different light every time and being scared of him changing due to the things he was forced to do and say in the 1800s added soooo much tension to the novel and depth to their relationship
The whole situation is so intellectually and emotionally insulting. Like, you don’t believe a Black woman of today would tolerate a Kevin, so you mastermind retelling her as a Black woman of today, who is internally-guilted into decentering her wellbeing and feelin indebted to a sadboy Kevin, who she met the day before her life literally spirals? And then you say that they won’t actually fall in love for two seasons? Like, instead of bein concerned bout makin us interested in their love story over three years Jacob-Jenkins should’ve been concerned with makin us interested in committing to watchin the first season.
Yes to all of this! But I thought it was very strange that they weren’t married. I felt that Kevin being her husband added depth to the story and more of an anchor for Dana. It was such a strange change.
I thought his perspective was filled with misogynoir. Where does he get off saying what Black women do/don't do/haven't done or have done for love? Our foremothers endured slavery, some went back again and again to rescue others, some ended their infants lives to spare them to suffering, some bowed their heads lower than is humanly possible for the survival of their children. Truly, relationships are what kept enslavement going for generations. They knew that people would do anything to save their loved ones...that human trafficking/pedo monster Jefferson said it himself. Look at that little baby girl who was forced to be a concubine for Jefferson. She could have been free in Paris as a teen but she chose to come back into enslavement because Jefferson said he would free her children. GET OUT OF HERE dude. "I can't imagine a Black woman..." You don't seem to be able to imagine a Black woman at all, sir. You don't know anything about us. His ego was absolutely out of control and FX found the right one to help them desecrate Butler's sacred work.
My favorite part of the novel was the main characters' supportive and loving relationship with each other. It was really refreshing to have a married couple who didn't bicker, who had mutual trust and faith. The only drama that happens between them is the result of trauma they go through, and even then they don't harbor any feelings of resentment towards each other. In the show they aren't even a couple, they've known each other for a few days, and they argue and bicker all the time.
It also provides a foil for the past mixed race relationship, to see how one in the future works out, but how they also deal with racism in the future at a deeper level and it didn’t just “go away”. Kevin having to learn about this, and still deal with his tendency to excuse the excesses of it when he can empathize with enslavers at first despite being married to Dana, adds a lot of complexity to the novel
I think you missed the tension that existed between them when her husband was able to adapt to the past so well. He didn’t experience the jumps to the past the same way, and there was a disconnect there that Dana was resentful of
@Toughmittens Fair point, I don't remember that being a point of tension between the two of them. Dana still crept into Kevin's room at night, I don't recall a fight or argument about it, just a simple observation. Plus being in the past takes a huge toll on Kevin when he's left behind. That's the "drama" I was referring to. He chooses not to come with her the next time because he can't go through it all again, but there wasn't any ill feelings between them, just a barrier that needed to be overcome.
Rufus and dana's relationship is genuinely one of the most interesting and complex relationships i've read in fiction. the way Octavia butler writes their characters is just so engaging. So the fact that they didn't even show that confuses me because what the hell were they even adapting then 😭😭 Anyways i hope we get the xenogenesis series adapted by someone who actually loves the source material
yes! like their timey-wimey causal loop-y, history runs in circles and are things predestined or not, etc, and all of the other questions that their super complex relationship dynamic raises is kind of one of the main points of the book, like what were they thinking?!
The relationship between Dana and Kevin is so key to Kindred, and the novel was SO CINEMATIC to begin with...I hadn't heard of the adaptation, and I'm glad I didn't catch it when it was produced, because it would have been so discouraging to see what they did with that story.
It just made no sense to me in the show why a guy who she just met would go with her or believe her, in the book..its her partner so of course but I just didn't understand why they made the decisions they did in the show.
For real. Are they going to age up the main character to avoid the visual of adults being sexually attracted to a child body? After multiple Lolita adaptations, but especially the Cuties movie, you'd think they want to avoid the inevitable shitstorm. And there's so many other Butler stories to choose from?? I hope it stays in development hell.
I am so confused by "this savvy well read character is outdated and wouldn't work today so we made her dumb and passive" idea. What, exactly, was the problem they were fixing here?? Some of the other changes I can imagine being made with good intentions and merely suffering from bad execution, even turning the marriage into a meet-cute. But not rewriting Dana. That's just fucking baffling and sounds basically just kinda sexist to me tbh.
I just want to add that I think that having the couple already married was very intentional. Butler didn’t want to write a romance in this book. She was writing about her ancestors and generational trauma.
@@ToughmittensI can only imagine that choice was made thinking white audiences would balk at their relationship and thus it needed to be "justified" by showing it grow from the start.
On a personal note I had the opportunity to audition for this show. I got the notification for the audition while in a library. I hadn’t heard of the book prior so I borrowed it and fell in love. I didn’t book the part but it introduced me to Butler
I really hated this adaptation because I find one of the most interesting things in Octavia Butler's work is how she talks of the complexity of affection. The complexity of love and care being used as a weapon that prevents people from being able to escape, and the complexity of feeling affection for people that you know are using you and that you do not have the freedom or the ability to not feel tied to somehow. I feel like the anxiety of this knowledge is such an important part of her relationship with Rufus and the people at the plantation and it adds such an unease her relationship with Kevin, even though they both obviously genuinely love each other. I love how she explores the limits of consent in the face of lack of bodily autonomy. This is all gone in the show. The fact that she just grabbed Kevin without his consent and took him with her honestly felt to me like so illustrative of what a shallow, inadequate adaptation this series was.
this novel discusses a uniquely black American experience. ⚪️ ppl couldn't relate to butler's original story so I stg they changed it for that reason. her survival instincts, knowledge of history from a black pov, etc. like that was exactly what we need to breed empathy now. but also, like as a latina I can still understand the base message of grappling with the realization ur existence is the product of violence bc many Latin Americans are technically mixed race? like its such an important theme that does not get explored enough.
I listened to the kindred audiobook on a long drive and my heart was racing the whole time because butler's writing is SO vivid and its so sad to hear the series sucks bc it could have been amazing...great video tho ty for saving me a watch
The Dana/Kevin relationship was just such a writerly exercise - I always find it hard to immerse myself in adaptations when I’m familiar with the source material but it was hard not to constantly pull away and “I see what you did there” when the changes were mostly made just to stretch the plot over so many seasons
Thank you for this video, you expressed so much of my feelings about this mini series. I’ve only skimmed the show out of anger cause I can’t stand all of the changes but I think the biggest thing that the show fundamentally misunderstood about the novel is that Rufus is the main antagonist of the novel and Alice is the third main character, not Kevin. Watching Alice and Rufus’ “relationship” develop as adults and Dana’s role in being forced to facilitate it is the crux of the novel. For me at least, Alice’s story is the most heartbreaking off all of the characters. The decision to have Rufus and Alice be kids for the entirety the first season is a bad decision that forces the season to add a bunch of stupid timeline travel plot lines that don’t matter and it detracts from what the story is actually about.
I have yet to read the book so when Yara said that each time they would time travel, the time would jump in the past. That’s an amazing way to add a sense of urgency to an already tense situation! It is a shame that they chose to leave that cruical part out
It very much gave “I read part of the book for class” and “How can I disrespect Black women? My mother’s Black.” cause the literal basis to Butler developing the novel was erased or bastardized in full. I truly don’t believe Jacob-Jenkins actually read the novel. I think he read that comic book and got caught up with the visuals in his head. Cause ain’t no way one could read Kindred and value it, but then show such disregard to the women that comprise the actual story.
@@Taayooo highly recommend kindred it’s excellent, you’re right, essentially the way the time travel works is every time Dana comes back to the past, a certain amount of time has passed that she can’t control but it is much more then what she experiences in the present. One of those times she accidentally leaves Kevin in the past and he’s there for five years. It also means she gets to see Rufus, her white ancestor she keeps saving and has a good heart when he’s a kid, grow into this monster in part because she isn’t there very long and can’t have the long lasting influence she wants and because of the overall society he lives in. It’s really heartbreaking as well watching Dana attempt to form relationships in the past, be thrown back into the present for twelve hours (I’m exaggerating) and come back to see that six years have passed for them. It’s such an important part of the story and while I sort of understand wanting to make this book into multiple seasons, I don’t understand any of their decisions
Agreed! And the fact that it relates to dana with everyone talking about how similar she looks to Alice and maybe that's why rufus targeted her is so horrifying.
I almost want a parable series but i know no one will fully capture how heavy it truly is, love the reference to Bodyminds Reimagined, love Sami Schalk's work
I would have loved being in that writing room and/or FX's execs' one, when they decided these baffling changes to Dana's character?! Were they trying to make her a "YA" protagonist?! What was the reason???
My theory is that they wanted to leave her room to develop and mature over the course of multiple seasons, just more fallout from the misguided choice to make it an ongoing series in the first place.
I feel as though a lot of (meaning most of) media made is made for white audiences. This means that regardless of whether or not those creating the media are POC, the ultimate consideration has to be for those white audience members. Making Dana a less savvy, educated, and aware character makes her easier to empathize with for white audience members who aren't as familiar with the source material or with how heavily slavery still affects black people in America today. They need to learn alongside her character as opposed to those who could enter the situation with understanding. That also explains the emphasis on Kevin's character, he's a familiar face for white audience members to latch on to. Just my take tho.
Wow, my God, I never knew how soothing your voice was. I've always had shitty 5 dollar headphones that would break after a month and I'd buy another pair. For my birthday just passed I got given a really good pair and this is video / music that I've noticed the biggest change in.
Didn’t finish the series and now I’m glad I didn’t. I could see Dana being a challenging protagonist to an adaptation that isn’t utilizing her as a narrator, but, there’s something that feels sinister about the way they changed her. It’s like they decided that a smart, capable woman would never comply with slavery the way Dana does, which is such a slap in the face to not only her but the countless real people who did so for survival
Thank you for making this video! Kindred is one of the best books I've read and I couldn't finish the series. I hate starting something and not seeing it all the way to the end, but the characterization of Dana in the series was making it difficult. They made her so simple and impulsive. It's also pretty disturbing to see how the cast and crew spoke about the source material. Not the dude who plays Kevin giving "We live in a post-racial society" vibes...yikes. The fact that they didn't really do anything with setting the show in 2016 makes it clear that they just didn't want to deal with making things look like they were from the 1970s. Also, it still doesn't make sense why Dana and Kevin wouldn't be married. Them being a married couple who have an established relationship makes Kevin's willingness to go to the plantation make a lot more sense. I haven't read the book in years, but I'm not sure what Jacobs- Jenkins meant by a modern black woman not standing for the Kevin energy. I'm not quite sure what he meant by this statement. Him calling their relationship chaste gave me a good laugh. This just seemed like such a missed opportunity. Too busy worrying about setting things up for additional seasons that they butchered the story.
I read up on things before I go into them and so I went into the first episode already accepting he was playin round with Butler’s work as if it were play-dough, but it still took me three times to make it through that first episode cause it was so grating in its horribleness. Actual piping-hot dumpster juice bad. I honestly believe he erased the marriage thinking we’d actually like these two basic characters enough to want to sit through three seasons, watchin them fall in love, but LOL, nah. He easily could’ve mimicked the aspect of time-travel and AfAm literature’s use of jazz rhythm to have scenes (not the actual characters) jump back in time, where we see them fall in love and can understand their affinity for one another beyond “Oh, they married.” The show is just so horribly written that even his rando changes to the story aren’t uplifted in success. Such a unfortunate turnout and so unbecoming to what the fans but Butler’s herself deserves.
A straightforward adaptation could have made for a great 2hr movie, the need to stretch everything out into a miniseries for streaming is a serious detriment
I think a true limited series *intended* to last only 1 season would actually give a Kindred adaption the room to breathe and visualize an inherently introspective story. This show's goal of having multiple seasons failed it. A 1 season (and < 12 episodes) restriction forces a start and end like a movie does. This would have created a boundary to motivate the writers to keep up the pace and disincentivize them from creating unnecessary storylines. A multiple-episode format would provide more space than a movie could for the audience to see and become invested in all the complex relationships Dana forms on the plantation as well as the dynamics of her marriage. Because we can't be in her head the whole time since we're not reading her thoughts. But this adaptation wasted the extra time!! Nowadays, new shows are getting canceled left and right. Slowing down and bloating the story to force a future season was a big gamble that resulted in wasted potential.
@@guavacheesecake1055literally the way the story is separated into events is a perfect episode structure. I always felt the end was a tiny bit rushed and a last episode could help the epilogue breathe a little.
I wasn't able to watch past episode 2, but it made me curious and then found out about the novel (and other Octavia Butler's work) and now I'm obssessed, so I'm kinda grateful to the series as it made it more accessible to european/non-american audiences.
@@unathihlubi8192 That sounds so fun. I just had a small binge session with my mom. And then felt so dissatisfied by the show that I, too, had to make a video about it. 🤣
Haven’t watched this series or read the book but now I’m very inspired to read it. As I watched this I was wondering why they would ever make the decision to stretch the story out to a whole series. Then I realized one of Hulu’s biggest successes is The Handmaid’s Tale. That had to have been the inspiration behind that decision.
I feel like it also kinda frames their comments around the sex lives of the characters. It definitely feels like some executives were like “we need another Handmaid’s tale” and with that wanted some of those sexual dynamics that they had in that show. But I could be wrong idk
@@NapplePine Wasn't Margaret Atwood actually a consultant to the Handmaid's Tale show, which might have helped maintain a certain level of quality to it? Also the first season is the literally the whole book, so they're not trying to stretch it out and ruining the pacing.
@@saramoreira9847 I’m sure that was a huge factor in the quality of that show! And I didn’t know that the book is just the first season but that makes sense! I watched the first couple seasons but dropped off. Not for any reason in particular, I just have a hard time keeping up with shows
Kindred is one of those books that stays with you, I kept thinking about it for weeks the first time I read it. I was speechless deep in thought for 20 minutes after reading the ending
Having not seen the show or read the book, so much of what's wrong here seems like concessions to get it made. Pitching the show as a guaranteed multi-year hit is easier than pitching a one and done. The change to 2016 seems to be out of insecurity that a faithful adaptation would essentially be a double period piece. Will young people be able to relate if no one pulls out a smartphone??? Dana seems to have been rewritten primarily so white people can relate to her total naivety about the plantation, history, etc. She can't figure anything out for herself to give them excuses to further pad out every episode to stretch a novel pre-divided into the length of one season of a prestige tv show into a 3+ season story. Given that the showrunner's explanations for his changes don't align with what he actually wrote into the show, I assume they are simply lies so he didn’t have to say that the network "suggested" these changes or that he made them to make the show an easier sell to a bunch of white executives.
You've gotta be right! So many of the changes seem to be an effort not to offend ignorant Americans while still trying to slowfeed the audience history in the most milquetoast way possible so nobody's fragile ego gets bruised.
You always have a knack for talking about adaptations of novels i have recently read for the first time! Stoked to see this - Kindred is definitely the best novel ive read this year. Hope you're doing well and thanks! Love your work as always :))
The first time read/listened to Kindred (I’m a audiobook girly) I was in college getting my filmmaking degree. And I was so inspired to make the story visual. But not as a movie or show, as a play. I think certain stories of retold need to be done in a certain way. This one isn’t for screens. I think you need to be in a theater swept up and seeing the mechanisms that were created to make the retelling of it possible. It’s so intricate.
When I see Yhara, I click and like. Excited for you to talk about this. I am teaching a literary adaptations class in Spring which I am focusing on Black horror and fantasy. I am thinking about using Kindred because it's been adapted in several ways: graphic novel, radio play, television show, but I'd have to go back and finish the show, which I never did because after the first episode I was dumbfounded. I am not a book to screen purist and I understand that some things work better in a different format but I don't understand what is the need to change the story so dramatically. Making her seem so adrift and spoiled and making Kevin a one-night stand rather than her husband when they're about to go through all this intense stuff together made no sense to me.
I watched this with my family and the one thing we could not get over is her screaming every time she would start time traveling. I also personally didn’t like that Kevin is her booty call and not her husband in the show.
It feels like the writers really didn't like the source material, but also shows a gap in how younger Black generations are less versed in the history of slavery and its significance to our day-to-day. Anyone Gen Z and younger likely doesn't have elders who knew people who were enslaved or grew up around people who were, and so much of this history is passed orally. Like you say, Butler wrote Dana's prior knowledge through reading into the story. In the adaptation, the writers instead decide Dana needs to learn this from her mother who she's been disconnected with for decades. I don't think this is a successful telling of the story, but illuminates a deeper disconnect between young Black people and their family histories.
I’m not Gen Z or younger and my elders didn’t experience slavery and What “effect” is slavery supposed to have on me and each and every blk person, apparently?
I actually think its such a critical point in the story that, while coy, Dana and Kevin maintain an intimate relationship while at Weylin and Dana does feel conflicted about that under their guise as slave and master, especially as it exacerbates existing tensions in the relationship. I think what the show misses in making the characters strangers is the ability to legitimately examine how race and gender biases color our relationships.I think Jeremy O. Harris' Slave Play pulls heavily from Kindred and is intensely focused on this (to middling results).
I liked the show and was sad to see it cancelled. I absolutely love the book . I watched the show and judged it for what it is: An adaptation. Never would I think such a perfect work of writing could be replicated on mainstream media.
I really like this show but I also agree with all your points. Specifically about Kevin and Dana, when there was still a chance for the show to be renewed, I wondered how the hell they could spin it so that he'd still want to be around her after getting stuck in the past for ten years. I'd rather take my chances with the cops than risk being around this person anymore, especially since he didn't consent to coming back with her in the first place.
As soon as I saw that Kindred was set in modern times instead of when the book was actually written, I just my TV off. Good thing I didn’t waste my time
Oh yay, I have never met anyone else who saw this show. I have also ranted about it to a lot of people I was very excited because I love the book. And then I watched it and was confused. Because I remember really liking Dana and her husband and, like, crying when they were finally reunited when I read the book. But in the show I didn't really like them. And they weren't married or invested in each other. And if you don't like Dana... then part of me is rooting for the slaves to just kill Rufus for everything he does? Maybe the future would be better without her? Isn't the hope that Dana and her husband (whose name I keep forgetting even though I just watched this video where you say it multiple times) have a bond that is worth perserving and will make the future better? Conceptually, I can understand the idea that introducing her to Rufus and the Husband at the same time then their relationships could mirror each other in a way? Like her relationship with Kevin (ha! I remembered) gets better as her opinion of Rufus devolves but... the show didn't get to that. And wouldn't it be nice if the whole season wasn't set up? Like, you are taking all of the flashbacks out so you can make this whole season essentially a prologue? I also didn't understand the change with the mother being a time traveler and as well. It could be interesting, I guess, but they didn't do anything with it? I remember watching the season and feeling like it wasn't finished. But it was almost immediately cancelled. So it was frustrating.
I was interested in this show when I saw a trailer for it not knowing what it was about or based on a book. Now I'm glad I missed out on it. Butler's book has been added to my library list
The novel has been on my tbr list for ages. So when I saw this I thought I would watch a few episodes of this first as I’m often disappointed if I read the book first and watch an adaptation afterwards. I gave up a few episodes in though. I found a lot of it to be quite boring which is bizarre when you look at this premise and how gripping it should be. I also really struggled with the main character. I get what they’re saying about a modern day woman not putting up with certain things and all that but in reality it just came off as her being unnecessarily reckless. I felt like she was putting the other characters around her in danger. I was surprised that any of the slaves still tried to help Dana. It felt like she didn’t appreciate that they were actually putting their lives on the line to do so. It’s a shame. I’ll just stick with my original intention and read the book.
Yeah, I definitely think if you didn't read the book, you might find enjoyment in the show, but having read the book, I wasn't a fan of the major changes. Even though I read the book so long ago in high school, I was immediately struck by how off Dana's character was and likewise how much more they expanded Kevin's presence in the narrative -- even though he's essentially a stranger. This show could have been phenomenal, but the changes took so much away from the story, making it more dull. Not sure if it was officially cancelled, but this was not a good 1st season. I just hope whoever adapts Parable of the Sower, not only loves the source material but can give it the Denis Villennueve treatment, where changes made are small and impactful and world building is placed at the forefront. I saw a Parable musical and that was pretty fun, if they ever make an updated Kindred story podcast I would totally tune in!
So based off of what you've said about the story (I've never read it so I'm adding it to my list) i definitely think they could have kept it bejng placed in the 70s considering a lot of people don't know about actual history from that era or a lot of it gets overlooked i think it still would have been good and yeah a miniseries would have been a lot better then what happens hopefully they try to redo it and make it more faithful
I'm right there with you. It sounds like he's got some podcast-informed ideas about Black womanhood. I don't feel any love from him...he objectified us as he participated in exploiting her work for potential profit. "A Black decorated and honoured woman writer wrote about an interracially married Black woman character and grappled with those complexities in this committed interracial relationship? Nope! I can't imagine a Black woman married at all OR that a white man would be intrinsically committed to that Black woman's wellbeing despite the flaws of his whiteness. Let's get that crap out of here and instead write a ding bat who sleeps with a random white man the first day she meets him. Then he gets caught up and needs to stay with her just to save his own butt. Now THAT'S a Black woman I can imagine!" It's really dehumanising. We shouldn't have to be limited by anyone else's imaginations of who we are or are not. That's the central plot of Black women's liberation. He didn't read the mission statement and he's not on board. Kindred is literally the product of a Black woman imagining and writing about a Black woman and he said: "not possible, my imagination is obviously much more valid." It's a double slap in the face.
Maybe it's because it's a man who doesn't understand women thinking he can write a woman in complex relationship better than an actual woman in the name of feminism.
Great video. My personal opinion is that the omission of time unfolding with each flashback is the gravest sin of all. It eliminates completely the emphasis on historical trauma, and connection past and present have on one another, how disfigurement can cross generations, and it robs Butler's writing of its greatest strength: its three-dimensional characters. The fact that Rufus' mother becomes more sympathetic than Rufus himself, despite how they're both introduced, is an emotional gut punch. I get that this would have been the hardest to accomplish if you intended to have more seasons, but it's so essential to the story that I'd also argue that if you can't accomplish that, then you have no business adapting it (also, this could have been easily accomplished by exploring Kevin's time in the north). I'm starting to think I hate remakes as much as adaptations. Especially after seeing Man in the High Castle. Create your own f'ing classics, Hollywood.
I came to like this video simply off the title because I was so several disappointed by the adaptation and the writer room’s/studio’s choices. The quality of your analysis and research is definitely an added bonus.
I could write a whole essay on this, probably because I already wrote an essay on the book in college. A huge point the rewrites end up eliminating is the strain racism and sexism creates in Kevin and Dana's relationship. Dana is underestimated all her life because she is a Black woman. The book seems to imply she is a better writer and smarter person than Kevin, but Kevin is more successful because he is a White man. This creates a smoldering resentment that is only heightened due to the time travel. While my only exposure to the TV show is this video, it seems like they totally stripped away this really compelling subplot and the subplot I perhaps feel is still most applicable to today. Even worse, to me, this underestimation is a huge part of Dana's character and may be one of the main driving forces in her personality. Instead, the TV show makes her someone worthy of a low estimation. This is what happens when you adapt media without understanding its themes.
Great video! The book is beautiful yet frightening. The only book-to-film-adaptation I can think of that adds something meaningful to the original is American Psycho...but I tend not to watch adaptations in general. So there lies my bias...
Every Octavia Butler protagonist is resourceful, adaptable, smart, tough - it's infuriating to change that. What is interesting in her work is seeing these women deal with the intense constraints of their situations with all that skill and resourcefulness. It seems like the creators of this show did not understand anything about the book
Okay so gods so much to tackle but I think there are two things that I keep coming back to over and over again. First is the idea that by making them not married the bond is stronger because he doesn't "owe" her anything. And I just can't get past how utterly toxic a way that is to look at a marriage. You don't owe your partner. That's just wildly unhealthy to begin with. Sure its normalized, but it feels like its just yet another something that people didn't ultimately think through the implications of when making the show. Its not more meaningful, in the context of a show, if someone you don't know keeps to their beliefs in a society that pressures them to change. If this Kevin doesn't degrade under the pressures of the institutions around him its more a sign of who he is on his own, and less to do with, you know the woman he loves, who just so happens to the focus of the story. Which just feels like a weird thing to change in general. Why would you ever not want a big meaningful connection between two characters to be less impactful? Less meaningful? Its rare you find writing tips on how to make relationships less important for the audience. It makes no sense to me. And speaking too much of Kevin, look as a white amab queer, I really genuinely don't care about the tension someone like me (through straighter and cis) is put through in the narrative of the story. Its just... its not a good way of exploring whiteness, of what it is and does and how it harms people, white and otherwise. Any discussion of whiteness, of the relationship people have to it, feels distracting. We can talk all day about how the institutions that oppress us harm us all, and as an immigrant who no longer speaks my mother tongue I'm happy to have that talk, but that talk should never come at the expense of how others are harmed by it. Just as I wouldn't want a pause in A League of Our Own to talk about how patriarchy has harmed my agender ass, its a women's story, I don't want a pause in what is, at least for me, a black story to address the white experience with it. Which just leads me to ask again and again about this show, to an honestly distracting degree, why is Kevin around so much? Why is his role so expanded? And who heard the white dude talking about how the show needed to modernize the story's relationship to blackness and went "yeah he's a great person to talk about this"? Just so many choices I don't understand...
Great point! Although I do think we need more art that makes us as white people consider our unconscious/ passive complicity in structural racism, I don’t feel we should be eclipsing other peoples stories to do so. Obviously I can’t have a first hand understanding of what the true nature of this story is really about, but it seems to focus on an experience/ legacy specific to African American people, and women in particular. Not every story needs a white perspective. Especially one that seems to genuinely mean so much to so many people who relate directly to this stories themes and tensions. I’m not saying we can’t have both sit together in one film but this just seemed ill placed. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. It doesn’t help that so much of the time spent on Kevin was kind of boring and slowed the pace down unnecessarily.
Oh don't get me wrong, I do think space needs to be created to have white people examine what whiteness is and what it does to us. But that space needs to be made in white spaces and should never come at the cost of minority spaces. While I think minority voices are very important in helping to inform such a space, there are some aspects of how whiteness affects people that are hard to describe. For example, as a ginger I am often not given pain killers during any form of dental work. The VA will not prescribe me any pain killers for my chronic pains. I'm denied access to more VA care. All because my freckles mean to doctors that I don't feel pain. That's an aspect of anti-blackness that directly affects my life literally every moment of every day of my life. Its a conversation that is very important to me, and happens to intersect all kinds of lovely topics like ablism, just not a topic I think I want to have at someone else's expense. Ultimately I am still a beneficiary of a great number of systems, even if my whiteness is far more provisional than most.
Yeah, the whole "owes her" thing is puzzling to me because they were married and obviously loved each other. The book does explore the challenges of an interracial marriage through the time travel angle (although it's far from being the focus, ofc) but at the end of the day, they are together because they care about one another. After all, they love each other, how is that not interesting???
An honest exploration of whiteness in this show (if they had any interest in doing it) would show Kevin responding the way the VERY VAST majority of White men responded: accepting the privileges and becoming part of it. Kevin is unrealistic. Going back in time to all that power and just somehow genuinely rejecting it? That's not the present reality of White men at all, the majority of whom put that orange exploiter of women in office multiple times. His culture as a white American man is generally very okay with exploitation in all forms. Why would Kevin be any different since he's raised in a society that primarily excuses and primes him to empathize with that behavior from enslavers as just "trying to survive"? Nothing in the story explains how he would be able to resist it. Perhaps being married to and committed to a Black person might...but a stranger, no! It's dishonest.
@@seeing-real I couldn't agree more. Its utterly baffling. To not have a bunch of moments where he realizes how and what exploitation is, or how he benefits from it just feels off. And it feels like a wild thing to have potentially left for a second season, so I doubt it would have ever really gotten much screen time.
I've always dreamed of a movie adaptation of the Parable of the Sower but I'm so scared of they might do with her work that I'd rather just read it again.
Once I saw the iPhone in the first episode I bailed on it. Changing the relationship bothered me the most as well. It was a poor and offensive choice. I think the adaptation goes to show you how much people don’t have reading comprehension skills. They like the concept of the book but didn’t understand what actually was happening in this book or what Octavia was trying to convey.
You don't know how angry I was in real time realizing that Dana and Kevin's relationship got downgraded and replaced for a lackluster antebellum romance. That was indeed my #1 complaint. We had to spend so much time watching them get to know each other and fall in love 🙄when they could have just been married. I also got annoyed when I realized we were over half-way through the season and Rufus was still a child. I knew they were going to try to drag this out as long as possible. Even though 8 episodes should have been enough.
I don't understand this obsession with fixing older works. Modernize sure, explore characters more great, but to completely disregard the main character's personality to fit a new "better" narrative is wild. I was watching a video on Rachel Zegler's interviews about the new Snow White adaptation and it apparently being another girl boss adaptation that will be better than the original as a result and I was left wondering if anyone involved in the making of the movie even understood what the original Snow White even was about. Same with the new lighter more "nuanced" Color Purple adaptation where even Sir gets redeemed. I just wish these stories were adapted with more care. Rather than "fixing" the story just explore it in a new form. Stop trying to change its core and making it into a different story. In that case just make your own story and stop using an existing IP for the money/attention lol.
What's interesting is that a lot of these changes could've worked. I don't think they should've changed Dana to make her so dependent on others, however I'm kind of intrigued by the idea that she's more ignorant of her history than the book counterpart. That could've been a commentary on how frankly many black peoplr today - millenial and younger are far more disconnected from our history than older generations. Less passing these stories down, less interest, the school system shifting time away from science and social studies in favor of math and reading (but not typically reading anything worth of value) and so many educational materials put in front of kids these days sanitize and whitewash history. There's a lot of reasons but younger generations are typically far more ignorant of our history than older generations. That could've been interesting to see Dana uncover that history for herself and really grapple with it. That doesn't sound like what happened in this series.
Every single quote from the showrunner shown in the video made me feel like he despised the book, like he knew better than Butler and thought she was naive and her words were outdated.
holy shit! I am so glad I never watched this adaptation. Octavia Butler is my favorite writer ever and I was very wary. even if her books are so damn adaptable, actually (maybe Fledgling would be difficult, because of the apparent age of the protagonist and all the things she does - that adaptation could be screwed up in a million ways), with extremely engaging protagonists and the kind of prose that mostly shows and tells little, the great dialogue and all that. and the books really have a timeless feel to them, because the political commentary feels like it will always be current, even if the technology might be a bit behind. I read Xenogenesis this summer (what an absolute banger trio of books that pretzled my brain and my emotions in the best way) and I feel like what it says about humans is very NOW. I feel a bit embarassed that the team adapting this wanted to *improve* on the work of GOAT Octavia Estelle Butler. I just can't deal with that emotionally. thank you for this video. I now know there's no point in ever watching this. I know that Nnedi Okorafor has been working on a Wildseed TV adaptation for many years now, but I don't know, I love her worldbuilding and concepts, but the structure, pacing and characters don't work that well for me...
I was excited when I heard it was coming out! I thought it meant that people were ready to engage with her multi-layered work. The fact that they just flattened and chopped it up told me that - truly - they were not actually willing at all. It was so bad it took me 2 years to watch it. Each episode made me SO ANGRY! Thank you for putting some words to it: her having no survival instincts is completely unrelatable. Black people are the definition of survival instincts and Black women have to be on their toes constantly to even make it into our 20s. She didn't think that selling a Black multi-generational family home would be a huge issue? Black families struggle with this issue of dispossession of property every generation. It's unthinkable that someone would just "sell" and think it would be fine with their elders . Every Black woman in America knows better than to do half the stuff they made her character do. We ALL know we would have to hide being literate on a plantation. It's like they purposefully divorced Dana from Blackness. Dana was so bad that I can't even follow the actress without having deep mistrust for her. She's like a space alien/day walking reptilian to me. It's as though this woman was raised by racist/misguided adoptive white parents who cruelly withheld any knowledge of any Black experiences so she could have "a fair shot at a 'normal' life." Maybe they intentionally un-Blacked her mindset so that she could appeal to White audiences?? I don't know. I just know that Butler fans were NOT the target audience for this show.
Oh yes, do read the book! It’s really incredible (I mean, pretty much all Octavia Butler books are…). And, if it makes a difference, it’s a pretty short book, though intense.
I only just read Kindred early this year and it was one of the two 5star reads I have given out this year and I wanted to reread it as soon as I finished it.. I had not heard of the tv series adaption but from what you have explored in this video I know I would have hated it!!! Such a shame!!
It sounds like the people who adapted Kindred respected Butler and the source material but honestly didn't know how to adapt it to the format and constraints of TV, so they just did their own thing. Adaptation is its own skill which I think is often under appreciated. I watched two or three of the episodes and was just too pissed to give it any more of my time. As much as I think that Butler's work deserves more recognition, if this is what it's going to look like let's just leave those books alone.
This show really left me underwhelmed. It's really weird how the show runner thinks he could outdo the doer lol. It was like a whole bunch of filler subplots for lack of a better word that centred on white characters. I don't gaf about Kevin, his sister, the slave masters or the kooky neighbours. All the potential squandered because they were hoping for a second season. It really should've been a limited series from the start that way they could have trimmed the seams and cut out all the unnecessary stuff.
And another thing the sex in the past scenes I think was there to be provocative like being in the mood during a time like that doesn't seem you know right...but whatever
“Outdo the doer” is so real!!!! most of his interview quotes rubbed me the wrong way, it seems like he’s a creative was very proud of his work and really wanted something to call his own through this adaptation… but maybe don’t agree to do an adaptation if you’re gonna resent the fact that the original is so perfect. And maybe don’t be misogynistic while you’re at it 😃
Was very excited for it to be adapted, and then they messed up the story. It was straightforward, like how can you do it so bad 12 episode max a limited series no need for multiple series. This was not kindred.
I was initially really excited for the show and still did enjoy a few parts of the production, but they very obviously left so much on the cutting room floor. Makes me wonder what a better paced adaptation would be able to accomplish. I hope if the Parable books get adapted there’s a better attempt to pace properly
FX's Kindred is a show that just shares the same name as the critically acclaimed novel Kindred. That's how I feel. Maybe one day, someone who is in love with the novel adapts it faithfully. For now, Kindred has not been adapted to visual work on the big screen.
For decades, I've always wanted Octavia's stories to be adapted! My favorite books are Blood Child and other shorts stories. Each of her works has immense potential to be great when adapted correctly. I've always felt that she never got the attention she deserved as an author. If I could have dinner with anyone tonave ever existed in the world, it would be Octavia.
Can’t imagine her putting up with the Kevin energy?? You think a woman as smart as Dana, in the 1970s, wouldn’t be smart enough to know what’s worth putting up with? Interracial marriage was only legal for like a decade at that point, it was still taboo! Dana thought Kevin was worth *marrying*- why can’t we trust her judgment on this, Brandon?
Great review! Having read the graphic novelization this video makes me want to read the novel itself but not watch the show. Funny enough, I was reading The Parable books and I thought how fun it would be for it to be an animated adult (limited) series. This show would have benefited from being a movie instead of a show (it wouldn't even need a grand budget)
its ironic that their rewrite of dana's character into a flat and stupid 2016-style 'girlboss' is justified based on the idea that book dana's character is 'outdated' when in reality her tv show personality is so insanely dated to mid-2010s corporate-feminist leanings and surface-level 'representation politics' which infantalizes woc. in trying to make her modern and relatable, she was turned into an unrealistic caricature who doesnt seem to understand much of anything, who has to rely on a practical-stranger white guy (kevin) for so much. meanwhile butler's dana still feels like a women you know and can relate to, 40 years after kindred was written. the fact that butler places us within a preestablished longterm romantic relationship like the marriage btween dana and kevin and really make us care about them while also emphasizing how their relatively unequal social posititions mean that their relationship is always based on some sort of inbalance, and then being able to contrast that imbalance to the drastically more unequal imbalance btween black women and white men during the antebellum era rlly becomes the crux of the themes of the novel. dana literally has to set up a nightmarish relationship between rufus and alice for herself to exist! the fact that they (d and k) are married is important because interrracial marriage wasnt even legal in all states for a decade when butler wrote the novel. dana marrying kevin is a choice she made despite adversity. turning it into a completely random one night stand takes away her agency once again. i kind of expected this angle as soon as i realized that the series modern sections were set in 2016 as opposed to the 1970s sadly. fuck i hope we get a good adaptation of butlers writing one day. just hope that a few ppl who watched the kindred show decided to read the original novel
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
You know a show's gotta be bad when It's a show about one of your favorite authors books and you have no idea it came out.
Save yourself the grief and never watch it 😭
Hah, the same thought struck me, "Wait, there's a Butler adaptation? Why haven't I seen it?"
no but fr my chronically online ass did not even get a whiff of this adaptation 😭😭😭
I tried, its horrible
Dana's cleverness and resourcefulness is so key to the story! Part of the point of the book, at least as I read it, is that Dana can be completely aware of her situation and still not be able to escape its horror, she can do everything right and still be face to face with unimaginable cruelty. Its pointing out how systemic problems can't be "won" by outsmarting them, thats part of the tradgedy, if anyone should be able to traverse the plot of kindred, its Dana, but even she ends the story with a tremendous amount of trauma (both physical and mental)
Ugh. If anything that makes the changes make more sense, from a 'media' standpoint. 😕
The idea that problems are about the individual (rather than systems that have been put into place and that can, and should, be changed); and the idea that you can 'work hard' and 'be smart' and you will always succeed (rather than a lot of things about life being completely out of control and therefore not your fault)....these are like linchpins to our current society.
Can't have people actually coming to understand their world via narrative. Because then people might challenge those foundational ideas that the current power structure is based (and falsely justified) on.
Literally! Like idk wtf they were even thinking
Something I’ve noticed with a lot of modern adaptations, whether it’s film or movie, I feel like the show runners don’t trust their audiences to be able to relate to a story if it doesn’t take place in the “now”. I get that this allows the story to have obvious real life parallels but it’s like can we let the audience get that aha moment for themselves? I wish there was someone in the writing room for all of those adaptations that would be willing to question why everything needs to be modernized and what effect it has on the actual story being told.
I totally agree with you, but also feel like FX told him he whatnt gettin no money to produce a double period-piece, so he lazily leaned into a modern setting, instead of committing to the presence of our current era.
Yes! As soon as I see a smartphone in an adaptation I’m over it
Exactly. A lot of my favorite movies are from the 70s and I wasn't even born yet
Something to add onto with your note, it may be hard to let audience think for themselves with now being more emphasis on either 'us vs them' thinking. Or showrunners having us walk with them to every. single. point. they. were. thinking. Which is very annoying, yet all of us being so open to resources and informations. What may scare writers and showrunners even more now, compare to back then could be lost in translation. and how deep is the translation being lost. (misconstruing, overanalyzing, being used in bad faith, ect.)
wild cuz they were able to perfectly adapt Outlander without doing this...
I first read Kindred in 1999 for a Black women writers class when I was in college. Our professor was able to get Ms. Butler to come to campus and she gave a talk about the initial motivation in writing the story . How would a person with a 20th century mindset fare if they suddenly found themselves in the midst of the slavery? This book and her description of the writing process touched me for life. I was excited to see an adaptation had been made and had high hopes based on the trailer. Ultimately I couldn't make it past the first episode. Adding the mom storyline and making Kevin just some bartender made me never tune back in. Your video showed me things I was avoiding. Nonetheless, great job!
19:40 I find this insistence on calling any piece of art "dated" the moment it's older than 10 years to be infuriating. Calling Kindred "dated" doesn't really make sense; When the book was written and when the book takes place does not make it "dated." What do people even really mean by "dated?" That something isn't taking place in the exact here and now moment? Okay??? That makes the art ineffective or in need of change how?? It's bad faith "criticism" and shows such a deep disrespect for art itself.
This attitude towards art from the very distant past is so obviously capitalist propaganda. Buy new, new, new. Do not care about what's old, what's "dated," what "needs" to be replaced by a worse version of itself. I'm so sick of these attitudes.
Thank you for the video
older media is such a trip, too; like any horror movie set in any time before the invention of the smartphone gets a 20% suspense buffer.
one day i'll read and wqtch all the media you speak of but for now i'll get lost in the vivid worlds of your narrations
Yeah _one_ day
If there’s anything you should read, it’s got to be Kindred. My English teacher had us read it my freshmen year during Covid. Life changing ✨✨
Never mind the inclusion of Dana’s mother, I knew it was gonna be crummy when Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins claimed his change of the marriage to a “hookup” was based in his inability to have been able to imagine a Black woman compromising herself for love (i.e. a partner who is currently incapable of fully comprehend her). That is literally the basis of so many great literary works by Black women and his refusal to sit with that made me truly believe he hadn’t actually (spiritually) sat with Butler herself; internalizing and processing her remarks and intentions in creating the novel.
Also, the fact that the protagonist’s name (nickname for Edana) is actually intended to be pronounced Donna and not Dayna, lead be to fully believe he hadn’t bothered to actually listen to Butler’s discuss her own work and mastermind ways to fold back in the aspects of her writing that the publishing industry continues to erase. It’s these things that actually display how much disregard was enacted not only byway of capitalism (from FX) but Jacob-Jenkins ego.
You can’t imagine a Black woman putting up with a man like Kevin, yet you alter the whole story so that you, the show runner, and we, the audience, then have to sit with Kevin on-end, but also making it so that Dana’s whole story now becomes worrying over a man she doesn’t know as opposed to what Butler intended- displaying the reality of insecurity that still remains for women while even in a supposedly safe secure love/partnership.
Bravo.
A man couldn't imagine a black woman doing stuff for love? Sounds like her believes in the 'strong black woman's trope. How icky.
for real, Dana going back to the present and seeing Kevin in a different light every time and being scared of him changing due to the things he was forced to do and say in the 1800s added soooo much tension to the novel and depth to their relationship
The whole situation is so intellectually and emotionally insulting. Like, you don’t believe a Black woman of today would tolerate a Kevin, so you mastermind retelling her as a Black woman of today, who is internally-guilted into decentering her wellbeing and feelin indebted to a sadboy Kevin, who she met the day before her life literally spirals? And then you say that they won’t actually fall in love for two seasons? Like, instead of bein concerned bout makin us interested in their love story over three years Jacob-Jenkins should’ve been concerned with makin us interested in committing to watchin the first season.
Yes to all of this! But I thought it was very strange that they weren’t married. I felt that Kevin being her husband added depth to the story and more of an anchor for Dana. It was such a strange change.
I thought his perspective was filled with misogynoir. Where does he get off saying what Black women do/don't do/haven't done or have done for love? Our foremothers endured slavery, some went back again and again to rescue others, some ended their infants lives to spare them to suffering, some bowed their heads lower than is humanly possible for the survival of their children. Truly, relationships are what kept enslavement going for generations. They knew that people would do anything to save their loved ones...that human trafficking/pedo monster Jefferson said it himself. Look at that little baby girl who was forced to be a concubine for Jefferson. She could have been free in Paris as a teen but she chose to come back into enslavement because Jefferson said he would free her children. GET OUT OF HERE dude. "I can't imagine a Black woman..." You don't seem to be able to imagine a Black woman at all, sir. You don't know anything about us. His ego was absolutely out of control and FX found the right one to help them desecrate Butler's sacred work.
Octavia deserves better adaptions than what she's been given
My favorite part of the novel was the main characters' supportive and loving relationship with each other. It was really refreshing to have a married couple who didn't bicker, who had mutual trust and faith. The only drama that happens between them is the result of trauma they go through, and even then they don't harbor any feelings of resentment towards each other.
In the show they aren't even a couple, they've known each other for a few days, and they argue and bicker all the time.
Yes like why how they mess up so much
It also provides a foil for the past mixed race relationship, to see how one in the future works out, but how they also deal with racism in the future at a deeper level and it didn’t just “go away”. Kevin having to learn about this, and still deal with his tendency to excuse the excesses of it when he can empathize with enslavers at first despite being married to Dana, adds a lot of complexity to the novel
I think you missed the tension that existed between them when her husband was able to adapt to the past so well. He didn’t experience the jumps to the past the same way, and there was a disconnect there that Dana was resentful of
@Toughmittens
Fair point, I don't remember that being a point of tension between the two of them. Dana still crept into Kevin's room at night, I don't recall a fight or argument about it, just a simple observation. Plus being in the past takes a huge toll on Kevin when he's left behind. That's the "drama" I was referring to. He chooses not to come with her the next time because he can't go through it all again, but there wasn't any ill feelings between them, just a barrier that needed to be overcome.
Rufus and dana's relationship is genuinely one of the most interesting and complex relationships i've read in fiction. the way Octavia butler writes their characters is just so engaging. So the fact that they didn't even show that confuses me because what the hell were they even adapting then 😭😭
Anyways i hope we get the xenogenesis series adapted by someone who actually loves the source material
yes! like their timey-wimey causal loop-y, history runs in circles and are things predestined or not, etc, and all of the other questions that their super complex relationship dynamic raises is kind of one of the main points of the book, like what were they thinking?!
The relationship between Dana and Kevin is so key to Kindred, and the novel was SO CINEMATIC to begin with...I hadn't heard of the adaptation, and I'm glad I didn't catch it when it was produced, because it would have been so discouraging to see what they did with that story.
right?!
It just made no sense to me in the show why a guy who she just met would go with her or believe her, in the book..its her partner so of course but I just didn't understand why they made the decisions they did in the show.
Someone is making an adaptation of Fledgling?!? I mean, its possibly the best work of vampire fiction I've ever read...but good luck adapting it.
For real. Are they going to age up the main character to avoid the visual of adults being sexually attracted to a child body? After multiple Lolita adaptations, but especially the Cuties movie, you'd think they want to avoid the inevitable shitstorm. And there's so many other Butler stories to choose from?? I hope it stays in development hell.
I am so confused by "this savvy well read character is outdated and wouldn't work today so we made her dumb and passive" idea. What, exactly, was the problem they were fixing here?? Some of the other changes I can imagine being made with good intentions and merely suffering from bad execution, even turning the marriage into a meet-cute. But not rewriting Dana. That's just fucking baffling and sounds basically just kinda sexist to me tbh.
I just want to add that I think that having the couple already married was very intentional. Butler didn’t want to write a romance in this book. She was writing about her ancestors and generational trauma.
@@ToughmittensI can only imagine that choice was made thinking white audiences would balk at their relationship and thus it needed to be "justified" by showing it grow from the start.
It sounds unnecessary, sexist and racist
On a personal note I had the opportunity to audition for this show. I got the notification for the audition while in a library. I hadn’t heard of the book prior so I borrowed it and fell in love. I didn’t book the part but it introduced me to Butler
That's probably the best that came out of the adaptation lol, thank you for sharing
I really hated this adaptation because I find one of the most interesting things in Octavia Butler's work is how she talks of the complexity of affection. The complexity of love and care being used as a weapon that prevents people from being able to escape, and the complexity of feeling affection for people that you know are using you and that you do not have the freedom or the ability to not feel tied to somehow. I feel like the anxiety of this knowledge is such an important part of her relationship with Rufus and the people at the plantation and it adds such an unease her relationship with Kevin, even though they both obviously genuinely love each other. I love how she explores the limits of consent in the face of lack of bodily autonomy. This is all gone in the show. The fact that she just grabbed Kevin without his consent and took him with her honestly felt to me like so illustrative of what a shallow, inadequate adaptation this series was.
this novel discusses a uniquely black American experience. ⚪️ ppl couldn't relate to butler's original story so I stg they changed it for that reason. her survival instincts, knowledge of history from a black pov, etc. like that was exactly what we need to breed empathy now. but also, like as a latina I can still understand the base message of grappling with the realization ur existence is the product of violence bc many Latin Americans are technically mixed race? like its such an important theme that does not get explored enough.
Exactly.
I listened to the kindred audiobook on a long drive and my heart was racing the whole time because butler's writing is SO vivid and its so sad to hear the series sucks bc it could have been amazing...great video tho ty for saving me a watch
The Dana/Kevin relationship was just such a writerly exercise - I always find it hard to immerse myself in adaptations when I’m familiar with the source material but it was hard not to constantly pull away and “I see what you did there” when the changes were mostly made just to stretch the plot over so many seasons
Thank you for this video, you expressed so much of my feelings about this mini series. I’ve only skimmed the show out of anger cause I can’t stand all of the changes but I think the biggest thing that the show fundamentally misunderstood about the novel is that Rufus is the main antagonist of the novel and Alice is the third main character, not Kevin. Watching Alice and Rufus’ “relationship” develop as adults and Dana’s role in being forced to facilitate it is the crux of the novel. For me at least, Alice’s story is the most heartbreaking off all of the characters. The decision to have Rufus and Alice be kids for the entirety the first season is a bad decision that forces the season to add a bunch of stupid timeline travel plot lines that don’t matter and it detracts from what the story is actually about.
I have yet to read the book so when Yara said that each time they would time travel, the time would jump in the past. That’s an amazing way to add a sense of urgency to an already tense situation! It is a shame that they chose to leave that cruical part out
It very much gave “I read part of the book for class” and “How can I disrespect Black women? My mother’s Black.” cause the literal basis to Butler developing the novel was erased or bastardized in full. I truly don’t believe Jacob-Jenkins actually read the novel. I think he read that comic book and got caught up with the visuals in his head. Cause ain’t no way one could read Kindred and value it, but then show such disregard to the women that comprise the actual story.
@@Taayooo highly recommend kindred it’s excellent, you’re right, essentially the way the time travel works is every time Dana comes back to the past, a certain amount of time has passed that she can’t control but it is much more then what she experiences in the present. One of those times she accidentally leaves Kevin in the past and he’s there for five years. It also means she gets to see Rufus, her white ancestor she keeps saving and has a good heart when he’s a kid, grow into this monster in part because she isn’t there very long and can’t have the long lasting influence she wants and because of the overall society he lives in. It’s really heartbreaking as well watching Dana attempt to form relationships in the past, be thrown back into the present for twelve hours (I’m exaggerating) and come back to see that six years have passed for them. It’s such an important part of the story and while I sort of understand wanting to make this book into multiple seasons, I don’t understand any of their decisions
Agreed! And the fact that it relates to dana with everyone talking about how similar she looks to Alice and maybe that's why rufus targeted her is so horrifying.
25:04 I've never heard anything more absurd than the idea that Butler's writing was "coy" or "chaste" lmfao
yeah, lol. how coy is it to have alien tentacle sex, for instance?! super chaste
Totally
I almost want a parable series but i know no one will fully capture how heavy it truly is, love the reference to Bodyminds Reimagined, love Sami Schalk's work
I would have loved being in that writing room and/or FX's execs' one, when they decided these baffling changes to Dana's character?! Were they trying to make her a "YA" protagonist?! What was the reason???
My theory is that they wanted to leave her room to develop and mature over the course of multiple seasons, just more fallout from the misguided choice to make it an ongoing series in the first place.
Maybe they wanted her to serve as an audience surrogate but didn’t have the skill to do it without making her less clever
The changes to Dana and Kevin pissed me off enough that I couldn’t watch the show beyond halfway through the first episode.
I feel as though a lot of (meaning most of) media made is made for white audiences. This means that regardless of whether or not those creating the media are POC, the ultimate consideration has to be for those white audience members. Making Dana a less savvy, educated, and aware character makes her easier to empathize with for white audience members who aren't as familiar with the source material or with how heavily slavery still affects black people in America today. They need to learn alongside her character as opposed to those who could enter the situation with understanding. That also explains the emphasis on Kevin's character, he's a familiar face for white audience members to latch on to. Just my take tho.
Yeah you're probably right
Wow, my God, I never knew how soothing your voice was. I've always had shitty 5 dollar headphones that would break after a month and I'd buy another pair. For my birthday just passed I got given a really good pair and this is video / music that I've noticed the biggest change in.
Didn’t finish the series and now I’m glad I didn’t. I could see Dana being a challenging protagonist to an adaptation that isn’t utilizing her as a narrator, but, there’s something that feels sinister about the way they changed her. It’s like they decided that a smart, capable woman would never comply with slavery the way Dana does, which is such a slap in the face to not only her but the countless real people who did so for survival
Thank you for making this video! Kindred is one of the best books I've read and I couldn't finish the series. I hate starting something and not seeing it all the way to the end, but the characterization of Dana in the series was making it difficult. They made her so simple and impulsive. It's also pretty disturbing to see how the cast and crew spoke about the source material. Not the dude who plays Kevin giving "We live in a post-racial society" vibes...yikes. The fact that they didn't really do anything with setting the show in 2016 makes it clear that they just didn't want to deal with making things look like they were from the 1970s. Also, it still doesn't make sense why Dana and Kevin wouldn't be married. Them being a married couple who have an established relationship makes Kevin's willingness to go to the plantation make a lot more sense. I haven't read the book in years, but I'm not sure what Jacobs- Jenkins meant by a modern black woman not standing for the Kevin energy. I'm not quite sure what he meant by this statement. Him calling their relationship chaste gave me a good laugh. This just seemed like such a missed opportunity. Too busy worrying about setting things up for additional seasons that they butchered the story.
I read up on things before I go into them and so I went into the first episode already accepting he was playin round with Butler’s work as if it were play-dough, but it still took me three times to make it through that first episode cause it was so grating in its horribleness. Actual piping-hot dumpster juice bad. I honestly believe he erased the marriage thinking we’d actually like these two basic characters enough to want to sit through three seasons, watchin them fall in love, but LOL, nah.
He easily could’ve mimicked the aspect of time-travel and AfAm literature’s use of jazz rhythm to have scenes (not the actual characters) jump back in time, where we see them fall in love and can understand their affinity for one another beyond “Oh, they married.”
The show is just so horribly written that even his rando changes to the story aren’t uplifted in success. Such a unfortunate turnout and so unbecoming to what the fans but Butler’s herself deserves.
A straightforward adaptation could have made for a great 2hr movie, the need to stretch everything out into a miniseries for streaming is a serious detriment
EXACTLY
I think a true limited series *intended* to last only 1 season would actually give a Kindred adaption the room to breathe and visualize an inherently introspective story. This show's goal of having multiple seasons failed it.
A 1 season (and < 12 episodes) restriction forces a start and end like a movie does. This would have created a boundary to motivate the writers to keep up the pace and disincentivize them from creating unnecessary storylines.
A multiple-episode format would provide more space than a movie could for the audience to see and become invested in all the complex relationships Dana forms on the plantation as well as the dynamics of her marriage. Because we can't be in her head the whole time since we're not reading her thoughts.
But this adaptation wasted the extra time!! Nowadays, new shows are getting canceled left and right. Slowing down and bloating the story to force a future season was a big gamble that resulted in wasted potential.
@@guavacheesecake1055literally the way the story is separated into events is a perfect episode structure. I always felt the end was a tiny bit rushed and a last episode could help the epilogue breathe a little.
I wasn't able to watch past episode 2, but it made me curious and then found out about the novel (and other Octavia Butler's work) and now I'm obssessed, so I'm kinda grateful to the series as it made it more accessible to european/non-american audiences.
Small silver lining (?) - Butler’s works have gone up in my reading list
This video has convinced me to buy Kindred for my friend for Christmas this year. I know he’ll like it.
Well, I know I'm about to eat good. I was legit counting down the days to the Kindred show, and I felt just empty after watching it.
Same!!!! I even held a watch party
@@unathihlubi8192 That sounds so fun. I just had a small binge session with my mom. And then felt so dissatisfied by the show that I, too, had to make a video about it. 🤣
Haven’t watched this series or read the book but now I’m very inspired to read it. As I watched this I was wondering why they would ever make the decision to stretch the story out to a whole series. Then I realized one of Hulu’s biggest successes is The Handmaid’s Tale. That had to have been the inspiration behind that decision.
I feel like it also kinda frames their comments around the sex lives of the characters. It definitely feels like some executives were like “we need another Handmaid’s tale” and with that wanted some of those sexual dynamics that they had in that show. But I could be wrong idk
@@NapplePine Wasn't Margaret Atwood actually a consultant to the Handmaid's Tale show, which might have helped maintain a certain level of quality to it? Also the first season is the literally the whole book, so they're not trying to stretch it out and ruining the pacing.
@@saramoreira9847 I’m sure that was a huge factor in the quality of that show! And I didn’t know that the book is just the first season but that makes sense! I watched the first couple seasons but dropped off. Not for any reason in particular, I just have a hard time keeping up with shows
It’s a very good book!
Kindred is one of those books that stays with you, I kept thinking about it for weeks the first time I read it. I was speechless deep in thought for 20 minutes after reading the ending
Having not seen the show or read the book, so much of what's wrong here seems like concessions to get it made. Pitching the show as a guaranteed multi-year hit is easier than pitching a one and done. The change to 2016 seems to be out of insecurity that a faithful adaptation would essentially be a double period piece. Will young people be able to relate if no one pulls out a smartphone??? Dana seems to have been rewritten primarily so white people can relate to her total naivety about the plantation, history, etc. She can't figure anything out for herself to give them excuses to further pad out every episode to stretch a novel pre-divided into the length of one season of a prestige tv show into a 3+ season story. Given that the showrunner's explanations for his changes don't align with what he actually wrote into the show, I assume they are simply lies so he didn’t have to say that the network "suggested" these changes or that he made them to make the show an easier sell to a bunch of white executives.
You've gotta be right! So many of the changes seem to be an effort not to offend ignorant Americans while still trying to slowfeed the audience history in the most milquetoast way possible so nobody's fragile ego gets bruised.
You always have a knack for talking about adaptations of novels i have recently read for the first time! Stoked to see this - Kindred is definitely the best novel ive read this year. Hope you're doing well and thanks! Love your work as always :))
it is so stupid to me that they changed the relationship between kevin and dana
The first time read/listened to Kindred (I’m a audiobook girly) I was in college getting my filmmaking degree. And I was so inspired to make the story visual. But not as a movie or show, as a play. I think certain stories of retold need to be done in a certain way. This one isn’t for screens. I think you need to be in a theater swept up and seeing the mechanisms that were created to make the retelling of it possible. It’s so intricate.
When I see Yhara, I click and like. Excited for you to talk about this. I am teaching a literary adaptations class in Spring which I am focusing on Black horror and fantasy. I am thinking about using Kindred because it's been adapted in several ways: graphic novel, radio play, television show, but I'd have to go back and finish the show, which I never did because after the first episode I was dumbfounded. I am not a book to screen purist and I understand that some things work better in a different format but I don't understand what is the need to change the story so dramatically. Making her seem so adrift and spoiled and making Kevin a one-night stand rather than her husband when they're about to go through all this intense stuff together made no sense to me.
I knew it wasn’t gonna work when the relationship with the husband not in the show.
I watched this with my family and the one thing we could not get over is her screaming every time she would start time traveling. I also personally didn’t like that Kevin is her booty call and not her husband in the show.
It feels like the writers really didn't like the source material, but also shows a gap in how younger Black generations are less versed in the history of slavery and its significance to our day-to-day.
Anyone Gen Z and younger likely doesn't have elders who knew people who were enslaved or grew up around people who were, and so much of this history is passed orally. Like you say, Butler wrote Dana's prior knowledge through reading into the story. In the adaptation, the writers instead decide Dana needs to learn this from her mother who she's been disconnected with for decades. I don't think this is a successful telling of the story, but illuminates a deeper disconnect between young Black people and their family histories.
I’m not Gen Z or younger and my elders didn’t experience slavery and What “effect” is slavery supposed to have on me and each and every blk person, apparently?
I actually think its such a critical point in the story that, while coy, Dana and Kevin maintain an intimate relationship while at Weylin and Dana does feel conflicted about that under their guise as slave and master, especially as it exacerbates existing tensions in the relationship. I think what the show misses in making the characters strangers is the ability to legitimately examine how race and gender biases color our relationships.I think Jeremy O. Harris' Slave Play pulls heavily from Kindred and is intensely focused on this (to middling results).
Thnak youu, been waiting this since you announced it!
I liked the show and was sad to see it cancelled. I absolutely love the book . I watched the show and judged it for what it is: An adaptation. Never would I think such a perfect work of writing could be replicated on mainstream media.
I really like this show but I also agree with all your points. Specifically about Kevin and Dana, when there was still a chance for the show to be renewed, I wondered how the hell they could spin it so that he'd still want to be around her after getting stuck in the past for ten years. I'd rather take my chances with the cops than risk being around this person anymore, especially since he didn't consent to coming back with her in the first place.
As soon as I saw that Kindred was set in modern times instead of when the book was actually written, I just my TV off. Good thing I didn’t waste my time
Oh yay, I have never met anyone else who saw this show. I have also ranted about it to a lot of people I was very excited because I love the book. And then I watched it and was confused. Because I remember really liking Dana and her husband and, like, crying when they were finally reunited when I read the book. But in the show I didn't really like them. And they weren't married or invested in each other. And if you don't like Dana... then part of me is rooting for the slaves to just kill Rufus for everything he does? Maybe the future would be better without her? Isn't the hope that Dana and her husband (whose name I keep forgetting even though I just watched this video where you say it multiple times) have a bond that is worth perserving and will make the future better? Conceptually, I can understand the idea that introducing her to Rufus and the Husband at the same time then their relationships could mirror each other in a way? Like her relationship with Kevin (ha! I remembered) gets better as her opinion of Rufus devolves but... the show didn't get to that. And wouldn't it be nice if the whole season wasn't set up? Like, you are taking all of the flashbacks out so you can make this whole season essentially a prologue?
I also didn't understand the change with the mother being a time traveler and as well. It could be interesting, I guess, but they didn't do anything with it? I remember watching the season and feeling like it wasn't finished. But it was almost immediately cancelled. So it was frustrating.
I was interested in this show when I saw a trailer for it not knowing what it was about or based on a book. Now I'm glad I missed out on it. Butler's book has been added to my library list
The novel has been on my tbr list for ages. So when I saw this I thought I would watch a few episodes of this first as I’m often disappointed if I read the book first and watch an adaptation afterwards. I gave up a few episodes in though. I found a lot of it to be quite boring which is bizarre when you look at this premise and how gripping it should be. I also really struggled with the main character. I get what they’re saying about a modern day woman not putting up with certain things and all that but in reality it just came off as her being unnecessarily reckless. I felt like she was putting the other characters around her in danger. I was surprised that any of the slaves still tried to help Dana. It felt like she didn’t appreciate that they were actually putting their lives on the line to do so. It’s a shame. I’ll just stick with my original intention and read the book.
Yeah, I definitely think if you didn't read the book, you might find enjoyment in the show, but having read the book, I wasn't a fan of the major changes. Even though I read the book so long ago in high school, I was immediately struck by how off Dana's character was and likewise how much more they expanded Kevin's presence in the narrative -- even though he's essentially a stranger. This show could have been phenomenal, but the changes took so much away from the story, making it more dull. Not sure if it was officially cancelled, but this was not a good 1st season. I just hope whoever adapts Parable of the Sower, not only loves the source material but can give it the Denis Villennueve treatment, where changes made are small and impactful and world building is placed at the forefront. I saw a Parable musical and that was pretty fun, if they ever make an updated Kindred story podcast I would totally tune in!
So based off of what you've said about the story (I've never read it so I'm adding it to my list) i definitely think they could have kept it bejng placed in the 70s considering a lot of people don't know about actual history from that era or a lot of it gets overlooked i think it still would have been good and yeah a miniseries would have been a lot better then what happens hopefully they try to redo it and make it more faithful
14:29 I'm having trouble verbalizing why but this statement is really icky. It's been stuck in my head for hours
I'm right there with you. It sounds like he's got some podcast-informed ideas about Black womanhood. I don't feel any love from him...he objectified us as he participated in exploiting her work for potential profit. "A Black decorated and honoured woman writer wrote about an interracially married Black woman character and grappled with those complexities in this committed interracial relationship? Nope! I can't imagine a Black woman married at all OR that a white man would be intrinsically committed to that Black woman's wellbeing despite the flaws of his whiteness. Let's get that crap out of here and instead write a ding bat who sleeps with a random white man the first day she meets him. Then he gets caught up and needs to stay with her just to save his own butt. Now THAT'S a Black woman I can imagine!" It's really dehumanising. We shouldn't have to be limited by anyone else's imaginations of who we are or are not. That's the central plot of Black women's liberation. He didn't read the mission statement and he's not on board. Kindred is literally the product of a Black woman imagining and writing about a Black woman and he said: "not possible, my imagination is obviously much more valid." It's a double slap in the face.
Maybe it's because it's a man who doesn't understand women thinking he can write a woman in complex relationship better than an actual woman in the name of feminism.
new yhara videoooooooo it truly is a happy christmas
Great video. My personal opinion is that the omission of time unfolding with each flashback is the gravest sin of all. It eliminates completely the emphasis on historical trauma, and connection past and present have on one another, how disfigurement can cross generations, and it robs Butler's writing of its greatest strength: its three-dimensional characters. The fact that Rufus' mother becomes more sympathetic than Rufus himself, despite how they're both introduced, is an emotional gut punch. I get that this would have been the hardest to accomplish if you intended to have more seasons, but it's so essential to the story that I'd also argue that if you can't accomplish that, then you have no business adapting it (also, this could have been easily accomplished by exploring Kevin's time in the north). I'm starting to think I hate remakes as much as adaptations. Especially after seeing Man in the High Castle. Create your own f'ing classics, Hollywood.
you are one of my fav youtubers frfr
I am commenting before watching the video. I just wanted to say I love your channel, I appreciate your takes, and your voice is so pleasant.
This has been on my TBR for the last few months and now I really, really need to read it more than anything.
Welp. I read the Book, and was excited to see the Show. Just never got around to doing it. Now I just might now been watch it
I came to like this video simply off the title because I was so several disappointed by the adaptation and the writer room’s/studio’s choices. The quality of your analysis and research is definitely an added bonus.
I could write a whole essay on this, probably because I already wrote an essay on the book in college. A huge point the rewrites end up eliminating is the strain racism and sexism creates in Kevin and Dana's relationship. Dana is underestimated all her life because she is a Black woman. The book seems to imply she is a better writer and smarter person than Kevin, but Kevin is more successful because he is a White man. This creates a smoldering resentment that is only heightened due to the time travel. While my only exposure to the TV show is this video, it seems like they totally stripped away this really compelling subplot and the subplot I perhaps feel is still most applicable to today. Even worse, to me, this underestimation is a huge part of Dana's character and may be one of the main driving forces in her personality. Instead, the TV show makes her someone worthy of a low estimation. This is what happens when you adapt media without understanding its themes.
Great video! The book is beautiful yet frightening. The only book-to-film-adaptation I can think of that adds something meaningful to the original is American Psycho...but I tend not to watch adaptations in general. So there lies my bias...
Every Octavia Butler protagonist is resourceful, adaptable, smart, tough - it's infuriating to change that. What is interesting in her work is seeing these women deal with the intense constraints of their situations with all that skill and resourcefulness. It seems like the creators of this show did not understand anything about the book
Okay so gods so much to tackle but I think there are two things that I keep coming back to over and over again.
First is the idea that by making them not married the bond is stronger because he doesn't "owe" her anything. And I just can't get past how utterly toxic a way that is to look at a marriage. You don't owe your partner. That's just wildly unhealthy to begin with. Sure its normalized, but it feels like its just yet another something that people didn't ultimately think through the implications of when making the show. Its not more meaningful, in the context of a show, if someone you don't know keeps to their beliefs in a society that pressures them to change. If this Kevin doesn't degrade under the pressures of the institutions around him its more a sign of who he is on his own, and less to do with, you know the woman he loves, who just so happens to the focus of the story. Which just feels like a weird thing to change in general. Why would you ever not want a big meaningful connection between two characters to be less impactful? Less meaningful? Its rare you find writing tips on how to make relationships less important for the audience. It makes no sense to me.
And speaking too much of Kevin, look as a white amab queer, I really genuinely don't care about the tension someone like me (through straighter and cis) is put through in the narrative of the story. Its just... its not a good way of exploring whiteness, of what it is and does and how it harms people, white and otherwise. Any discussion of whiteness, of the relationship people have to it, feels distracting. We can talk all day about how the institutions that oppress us harm us all, and as an immigrant who no longer speaks my mother tongue I'm happy to have that talk, but that talk should never come at the expense of how others are harmed by it. Just as I wouldn't want a pause in A League of Our Own to talk about how patriarchy has harmed my agender ass, its a women's story, I don't want a pause in what is, at least for me, a black story to address the white experience with it.
Which just leads me to ask again and again about this show, to an honestly distracting degree, why is Kevin around so much? Why is his role so expanded? And who heard the white dude talking about how the show needed to modernize the story's relationship to blackness and went "yeah he's a great person to talk about this"? Just so many choices I don't understand...
Great point! Although I do think we need more art that makes us as white people consider our unconscious/ passive complicity in structural racism, I don’t feel we should be eclipsing other peoples stories to do so. Obviously I can’t have a first hand understanding of what the true nature of this story is really about, but it seems to focus on an experience/ legacy specific to African American people, and women in particular. Not every story needs a white perspective. Especially one that seems to genuinely mean so much to so many people who relate directly to this stories themes and tensions. I’m not saying we can’t have both sit together in one film but this just seemed ill placed. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. It doesn’t help that so much of the time spent on Kevin was kind of boring and slowed the pace down unnecessarily.
Oh don't get me wrong, I do think space needs to be created to have white people examine what whiteness is and what it does to us. But that space needs to be made in white spaces and should never come at the cost of minority spaces. While I think minority voices are very important in helping to inform such a space, there are some aspects of how whiteness affects people that are hard to describe.
For example, as a ginger I am often not given pain killers during any form of dental work. The VA will not prescribe me any pain killers for my chronic pains. I'm denied access to more VA care. All because my freckles mean to doctors that I don't feel pain. That's an aspect of anti-blackness that directly affects my life literally every moment of every day of my life.
Its a conversation that is very important to me, and happens to intersect all kinds of lovely topics like ablism, just not a topic I think I want to have at someone else's expense. Ultimately I am still a beneficiary of a great number of systems, even if my whiteness is far more provisional than most.
Yeah, the whole "owes her" thing is puzzling to me because they were married and obviously loved each other. The book does explore the challenges of an interracial marriage through the time travel angle (although it's far from being the focus, ofc) but at the end of the day, they are together because they care about one another. After all, they love each other, how is that not interesting???
An honest exploration of whiteness in this show (if they had any interest in doing it) would show Kevin responding the way the VERY VAST majority of White men responded: accepting the privileges and becoming part of it. Kevin is unrealistic. Going back in time to all that power and just somehow genuinely rejecting it? That's not the present reality of White men at all, the majority of whom put that orange exploiter of women in office multiple times. His culture as a white American man is generally very okay with exploitation in all forms. Why would Kevin be any different since he's raised in a society that primarily excuses and primes him to empathize with that behavior from enslavers as just "trying to survive"? Nothing in the story explains how he would be able to resist it. Perhaps being married to and committed to a Black person might...but a stranger, no! It's dishonest.
@@seeing-real I couldn't agree more. Its utterly baffling. To not have a bunch of moments where he realizes how and what exploitation is, or how he benefits from it just feels off. And it feels like a wild thing to have potentially left for a second season, so I doubt it would have ever really gotten much screen time.
Engagement for the engagement god!
I've always dreamed of a movie adaptation of the Parable of the Sower but I'm so scared of they might do with her work that I'd rather just read it again.
It's disappointing to hear the adaptation isn't good, it's such a great novel :( i hope we get more adaptations soon and good ones
When I watched this show I thought it was the greatest thing ever, not realizing it was a book until now lmaoo
Once I saw the iPhone in the first episode I bailed on it. Changing the relationship bothered me the most as well. It was a poor and offensive choice. I think the adaptation goes to show you how much people don’t have reading comprehension skills. They like the concept of the book but didn’t understand what actually was happening in this book or what Octavia was trying to convey.
You don't know how angry I was in real time realizing that Dana and Kevin's relationship got downgraded and replaced for a lackluster antebellum romance. That was indeed my #1 complaint. We had to spend so much time watching them get to know each other and fall in love 🙄when they could have just been married. I also got annoyed when I realized we were over half-way through the season and Rufus was still a child. I knew they were going to try to drag this out as long as possible. Even though 8 episodes should have been enough.
I don't understand this obsession with fixing older works. Modernize sure, explore characters more great, but to completely disregard the main character's personality to fit a new "better" narrative is wild. I was watching a video on Rachel Zegler's interviews about the new Snow White adaptation and it apparently being another girl boss adaptation that will be better than the original as a result and I was left wondering if anyone involved in the making of the movie even understood what the original Snow White even was about. Same with the new lighter more "nuanced" Color Purple adaptation where even Sir gets redeemed. I just wish these stories were adapted with more care. Rather than "fixing" the story just explore it in a new form. Stop trying to change its core and making it into a different story. In that case just make your own story and stop using an existing IP for the money/attention lol.
What's interesting is that a lot of these changes could've worked. I don't think they should've changed Dana to make her so dependent on others, however I'm kind of intrigued by the idea that she's more ignorant of her history than the book counterpart. That could've been a commentary on how frankly many black peoplr today - millenial and younger are far more disconnected from our history than older generations.
Less passing these stories down, less interest, the school system shifting time away from science and social studies in favor of math and reading (but not typically reading anything worth of value) and so many educational materials put in front of kids these days sanitize and whitewash history.
There's a lot of reasons but younger generations are typically far more ignorant of our history than older generations. That could've been interesting to see Dana uncover that history for herself and really grapple with it. That doesn't sound like what happened in this series.
Never heard of this book or the show, but now I want to read the book 👍
Been waiting on this analysis because my feelings about this adaptation are complicated but negative
Have I watched this show? Nope. Will I watch and completely appreciate your whole video on it? Absolutely.
I ran so fast to read this book when I watched this video. I loved the book! Great read thank you for sharing and getting me to discover it !
Every single quote from the showrunner shown in the video made me feel like he despised the book, like he knew better than Butler and thought she was naive and her words were outdated.
Instead of Antebellum, we should have just gotten a proper Kindred adaptation.
holy shit! I am so glad I never watched this adaptation. Octavia Butler is my favorite writer ever and I was very wary. even if her books are so damn adaptable, actually (maybe Fledgling would be difficult, because of the apparent age of the protagonist and all the things she does - that adaptation could be screwed up in a million ways), with extremely engaging protagonists and the kind of prose that mostly shows and tells little, the great dialogue and all that. and the books really have a timeless feel to them, because the political commentary feels like it will always be current, even if the technology might be a bit behind. I read Xenogenesis this summer (what an absolute banger trio of books that pretzled my brain and my emotions in the best way) and I feel like what it says about humans is very NOW.
I feel a bit embarassed that the team adapting this wanted to *improve* on the work of GOAT Octavia Estelle Butler. I just can't deal with that emotionally.
thank you for this video. I now know there's no point in ever watching this.
I know that Nnedi Okorafor has been working on a Wildseed TV adaptation for many years now, but I don't know, I love her worldbuilding and concepts, but the structure, pacing and characters don't work that well for me...
I was excited when I heard it was coming out! I thought it meant that people were ready to engage with her multi-layered work. The fact that they just flattened and chopped it up told me that - truly - they were not actually willing at all. It was so bad it took me 2 years to watch it. Each episode made me SO ANGRY! Thank you for putting some words to it: her having no survival instincts is completely unrelatable. Black people are the definition of survival instincts and Black women have to be on their toes constantly to even make it into our 20s. She didn't think that selling a Black multi-generational family home would be a huge issue? Black families struggle with this issue of dispossession of property every generation. It's unthinkable that someone would just "sell" and think it would be fine with their elders . Every Black woman in America knows better than to do half the stuff they made her character do. We ALL know we would have to hide being literate on a plantation. It's like they purposefully divorced Dana from Blackness. Dana was so bad that I can't even follow the actress without having deep mistrust for her. She's like a space alien/day walking reptilian to me. It's as though this woman was raised by racist/misguided adoptive white parents who cruelly withheld any knowledge of any Black experiences so she could have "a fair shot at a 'normal' life." Maybe they intentionally un-Blacked her mindset so that she could appeal to White audiences?? I don't know. I just know that Butler fans were NOT the target audience for this show.
I actually like the series hut maybe i should read the book seeing as i haven't
Oh yes, do read the book! It’s really incredible (I mean, pretty much all Octavia Butler books are…). And, if it makes a difference, it’s a pretty short book, though intense.
@literaterose6731 will do. Thanks
just finished reading this book for the first time and it shook me to my core. how unfortunate that this show took it and completely flipped it round.
I only just read Kindred early this year and it was one of the two 5star reads I have given out this year and I wanted to reread it as soon as I finished it.. I had not heard of the tv series adaption but from what you have explored in this video I know I would have hated it!!! Such a shame!!
Jarring is a GREAT description of show Dana compared with book Dana
To me the main question is why as opposed to how :)
It sounds like the people who adapted Kindred respected Butler and the source material but honestly didn't know how to adapt it to the format and constraints of TV, so they just did their own thing. Adaptation is its own skill which I think is often under appreciated. I watched two or three of the episodes and was just too pissed to give it any more of my time. As much as I think that Butler's work deserves more recognition, if this is what it's going to look like let's just leave those books alone.
This show really left me underwhelmed. It's really weird how the show runner thinks he could outdo the doer lol. It was like a whole bunch of filler subplots for lack of a better word that centred on white characters. I don't gaf about Kevin, his sister, the slave masters or the kooky neighbours. All the potential squandered because they were hoping for a second season. It really should've been a limited series from the start that way they could have trimmed the seams and cut out all the unnecessary stuff.
And another thing the sex in the past scenes I think was there to be provocative like being in the mood during a time like that doesn't seem you know right...but whatever
“Outdo the doer” is so real!!!! most of his interview quotes rubbed me the wrong way, it seems like he’s a creative was very proud of his work and really wanted something to call his own through this adaptation… but maybe don’t agree to do an adaptation if you’re gonna resent the fact that the original is so perfect. And maybe don’t be misogynistic while you’re at it 😃
Was very excited for it to be adapted, and then they messed up the story. It was straightforward, like how can you do it so bad 12 episode max a limited series no need for multiple series. This was not kindred.
I was initially really excited for the show and still did enjoy a few parts of the production, but they very obviously left so much on the cutting room floor. Makes me wonder what a better paced adaptation would be able to accomplish. I hope if the Parable books get adapted there’s a better attempt to pace properly
FX's Kindred is a show that just shares the same name as the critically acclaimed novel Kindred. That's how I feel.
Maybe one day, someone who is in love with the novel adapts it faithfully. For now, Kindred has not been adapted to visual work on the big screen.
Great analysis!
For decades, I've always wanted Octavia's stories to be adapted! My favorite books are Blood Child and other shorts stories. Each of her works has immense potential to be great when adapted correctly. I've always felt that she never got the attention she deserved as an author. If I could have dinner with anyone tonave ever existed in the world, it would be Octavia.
I just really want to read the book now
Can’t imagine her putting up with the Kevin energy?? You think a woman as smart as Dana, in the 1970s, wouldn’t be smart enough to know what’s worth putting up with? Interracial marriage was only legal for like a decade at that point, it was still taboo! Dana thought Kevin was worth *marrying*- why can’t we trust her judgment on this, Brandon?
Love The Fledgling, and especially Xenogenisis, but my favourite Butlers are Sower and Talents. I need to read Kindred again.
Great video as always!
Great review! Having read the graphic novelization this video makes me want to read the novel itself but not watch the show. Funny enough, I was reading The Parable books and I thought how fun it would be for it to be an animated adult (limited) series. This show would have benefited from being a movie instead of a show (it wouldn't even need a grand budget)
its ironic that their rewrite of dana's character into a flat and stupid 2016-style 'girlboss' is justified based on the idea that book dana's character is 'outdated' when in reality her tv show personality is so insanely dated to mid-2010s corporate-feminist leanings and surface-level 'representation politics' which infantalizes woc. in trying to make her modern and relatable, she was turned into an unrealistic caricature who doesnt seem to understand much of anything, who has to rely on a practical-stranger white guy (kevin) for so much. meanwhile butler's dana still feels like a women you know and can relate to, 40 years after kindred was written. the fact that butler places us within a preestablished longterm romantic relationship like the marriage btween dana and kevin and really make us care about them while also emphasizing how their relatively unequal social posititions mean that their relationship is always based on some sort of inbalance, and then being able to contrast that imbalance to the drastically more unequal imbalance btween black women and white men during the antebellum era rlly becomes the crux of the themes of the novel. dana literally has to set up a nightmarish relationship between rufus and alice for herself to exist! the fact that they (d and k) are married is important because interrracial marriage wasnt even legal in all states for a decade when butler wrote the novel. dana marrying kevin is a choice she made despite adversity. turning it into a completely random one night stand takes away her agency once again. i kind of expected this angle as soon as i realized that the series modern sections were set in 2016 as opposed to the 1970s sadly. fuck i hope we get a good adaptation of butlers writing one day. just hope that a few ppl who watched the kindred show decided to read the original novel
So wait if her mother was sent back, why? Did she have to save someone’s life too? Or was it literally just for the plot
I've had existential crises over my existence being partly the result of historical atrocities, so Kindred sounds really interesting to me.