Dorian Gray: Netflix’s Adaptation (don’t be shallow about it)

This is nothing but reactionary. Wooo

Netflix’s adaptation can go one of many ways. Hopefully it doesn’t miss the point and I feel like the right creative team behind it can do it. Are the Rogers siblings those people? Maybe.

Will Netflix let them bring their vision to life? No idea. The House of Usher Remix was odd, but Mike Flanagan made something completely new with the main idea of an aristocratic house and legacy crumbling. A series that was both deeply disloyal but interesting with the changes it made.

Maybe we’ll get another one of those?

Or a half-baked mimicry…

Too soon to say.

00:00 Intro
04:14 Plot Summary
17:22 Breakdown
23:48 Modern Day??
25:59 Beauty Industry
27:16 Gender-flip and Siblings?

You can find me wherever:

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[FashionableCrow]

As another thing! Dorian gray’s immortality is also him being literally incapable of change! He’s not pressured to go into a different life stage because the sands of time doth run in a loop, and like also his position doesn’t require change or self reflection for him to exist. Ok. Done. Maybe

Edit: ALSO I briefly reference the queer subtext but didn’t dive deep because I lumped that element together with Dorian’s general “sins.” Basil’s crush and Henry’s comp-het are also playing into that self denial and guilt element. Anyway. Blah. No more

[devkergirl]

Siblings? I mean the man died in exile after being convicted of sodomy. Its a slap in the face.

[therealGibralter]

I have a dreadful feeling that they will make the portrait her social media profile. Then something something mean tweets and internet stalkers.

[ourladyofperpetualskepticism]

As a gay, I'm pissed that they're making them siblings. The Picture of Dorian Gray was literally used as evidence to convict Wilde. It would be one thing if they were just taking the premise, but by naming the characters the same names as in the book it feels like erasure. If you want to change a crucial relationship dynamic that badly, just make them new characters. We have so few characters and stories already, can they not?

Also, extremely agree with everything you said here.

That said, have you heard that Sarah Snook's Olivier winning, one-woman, performance of The Picture of Dorian Gray got picked up for a run on Broadway? I desperately want to see it.

[eastlynburkholder]

A smaller theme in this book is that there is a big difference and space between remorse and repentance. Dorian cares enough to be temporarily discomforted by his choices and their effects (cause and effect is real) and he momentarily and perhaps quite sincerely wants to change, but he never gets to repentance.

[lindseystein]

My jaw dropped when I saw the article say, “siblings.”

[gashinadiamond]

i feel like what they want to make has already been made. helter skelter (2012). a woman in the beauty industry with idealized beauty who does whatever she wants and she can get away with it simply because of her beauty and popularity. it's not exactly dorian gray but (without any other information, to be fair) it seems like what they're going for is this. which... like you said, a lot of the reason for dorian not facing consequences is not just youth and beauty but also lack of expectations and his class and gender. which to me feels harder to rationalize for a woman in the public eye since we know they're treated much more harshly than men. and making them siblings and erasing that portion of the queer aspect of the story isn't just questionable but kind of just feels disrespectful idk. like this is a seminal work of queer fiction.

[PaulSmith-istt]

I love Dorian Gray because it works on three levels: a horror story (man stays young forever as his picture grows older), a psychological tale (the portrait represents Dorian's soul and someone can look beautiful on the outside but rotten on the inside), and a love story (the portrait is Basil's love for Dorian and the first impression is so beautiful it can never last; the longer you know someone the more your image of them changes). The first two have been done and I would like to have a version that emphasizes the third.

[fiercearmadillo]

Penny Dreadful's Dorian was the best!! He looks young, fresh, and trustworthy. His life is stagnant, repetitive, and unfulfilling.

[foxesofautumn]

I feel like if they make Dorian a woman, and centre it on the beauty industry, they're really going to lean into the more shallow aspects of vanity and less into the moral destruction that comes from arrested development. (Anne Rice has already done this well. I'm sceptical this setting can lead to a more profound story, or even an equally profound story.

Also it SOUNDS like the queer themes are being scrubbed? I need more info but... nothing so far suggests they'll be in there.

[sc]

Basil is gay because he loves men. Henry is gay because he hates women. They are not the same.

No but you’re so real. Dorian Gray has so much room for interesting interpretations but I do not trust people to not be dumb about it that easily.

[jasminv]

Dorian Gray of the beauty industry already exists and it's James Charles.

[Armazillo]

I love that you connected this to American Psycho. That's the first thing I thought of when you started talking about his inability to be seen, and how allowing the world to dictate your identity to you fundamentally shows a lack of one at all. Frankly I think American Psycho is already a modern adaptation.

[egmorox]

The beauty industry version you’re talking about is basically what The Substance is about!

[daninervo]

I think an interesting way to explore the sibling thing could be something like, they are twins and Basil wants to protect "Doran"'s innocence so badly that he becomes the "portrait". But idk, then there is the question of, how much can you "reimagine" a story before calling it that just becomes clickbait? lol

[ThisLateHistoricalHour]

The set? Incredible.
Your analysis? On point.
Me? Yelling at the sun for rising right there with you.

[rowanjoy]

Is not an obsession with being young and pretty is the privilege it comes with it, nobody would suspected Dorian kills someone because beside being rich, he has a nice face and you can see this even with serial killers today how people say "he is too handsome to be a murderer" 😅

[goodmorrowllc]

The deevolution of Rickety Cricket in "Always Sunny" can easily be read as modern-day Portrait of Dorian Gray! The moral failings of the gang are reflected in this once- innocent character who becomes more and more hideous as the seasons progress.

[reallyeasy]

I like the book Dorian Gray, but tbh, I've never found the characters relatable. Funny, interesting and Highly Dramatic in the Best Ways... but relatable? Which is why I loved your analysis going into a dive into their personalities, and explaining them in strokes of modern psychology. Im going to re-read the book, and see what kind of delight I get from it from this new perspective now. Thank you.

[cervidae]

on the brothers thing, netflix keeps doing this i swear to god. their other major offense was with the Haunting of Hill House. its a great series *on its own*, but looking at it through the context of the original story is. bleak. to say the least. all the show does is reinforce what the original was trying to tell you was horrific, like what was explicitly part of the horror. the POV character wasnt Steven in the story, it was actually Nell (Eleanor), and SHE WAS QUEER. WITH ANOTHER WOMAN!!! they spent the ENTIRE STORY trying to break themselves away from the house and the horror of the nuclear family that the house dialed up to 11 by brainwashing strangers and coworkers into patriarchal gender/social roles. and what did netflix do? reinforce the nuclear family and patriarchal social roles by making everyone actual blood family, and swapping the main character from Eleanor (fucking *rip*) to whatshisname. yes, even Nell and her explicitly sappic love interest were made sisters who barely interacted with each other. yknow, cause Nell is now relegated to haunting her own story. and its so frustrating cause the netflix series is REALLY REALLY GOOD. its beautifully shot, the story on its own is great, the acting hits its mark, its tense as shit but not too scary that you wanna walk away from it. it ties itself together really nicely. its got a twist i cant stop thinking about. its got this gorgeous long continual shot that makes me crazy. and yet its a complete bastardization of what Shirley Jackson was trying to say. the complete opposite actually, if im gonna be honest. at least the directors other series is inarguably queer, but jesus christ did he make a mess of Hill House.
idk what to call it, i mean its obviously erasure of queer texts, even if the texts themselves couldnt be overtly queer like Dorian Gray, but this is a weird pattern. familywashing, or something. the book was VERY VERY OBVIOUSLY talking about sexual repression and Eleanor and Theodora were explicitly romantic with eachother. the book was published in 1959, for *fucks* sake netflix. im getting sick of their 'fresh twists' on queer art history. im nervous about what this next 'fresh twist on a classic' is gonna actually look like