December 16, 2004

The Whitewashing of Earthsea

When I was in the fifth grade, I enjoyed reading Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea. I was kind of intrigued to see that the SciFi network was airing a new miniseries based on Le Guin's book earlier this week, but what little I saw of the show seemed really bad.

Now Le Guin has written a Slate article on "how the SciFi Channel wrecked my books." Le Guin focuses on how the book's adapters whitewashed the story, changing a racially diverse cast of characters into a mostly white ensemble, and transformed her book into a "generic McMagic movie with a meaningless plot based on sex and violence."

2004, then, has brought us Legend of Earthsea and a mediocre Wrinkle in Time adaptation. Which beloved children's classics will be turned into mediocre TV specials in 2005?

Posted by Ed at December 16, 2004 12:54 PM
Comments

I'm pretending that that Wrinkle In Time video never happened. Those books were a huge part of my childhood.

Posted by: Wiley Wiggins at December 16, 2004 06:12 PM

I may have missed this, but has anyone produced a horrible movie/video/tv version of The Phantom Tollbooth?

Posted by: aj at December 17, 2004 01:59 PM
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