The Picture of Dorian Gray

Henry Filloux-Bennett's adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray began streaming today and continues through March 31. I bought a ticket and gave it a watch.

The script imagines the cast as social media influencers with Gray as a toxic YouTube star. The problem, for me, was that neither the writer nor the leading actor seemed to have actually watched any young YouTubers. Nothing he was doing seemed interesting enough to inspire gossip and likes and followers, despite the narrators' insistence that he had.

The story has long defied adaptation. We no longer associate youth and beauty with goodness, nor sex and drugs with wickedness, so the fact that Dorian has both does not shock. We're also not as upset by vague homoeroticism as the British courts were in the day.

Did anyone else watch?

https://www.playbill.com/article/star-studded-the-picture-of-dorian-gray-begins-march-16

Updated On: 3/16/21 at 08:33 PM

Never thought of him but I could see him doing it.

I got to see Matt Cavanaugh do it in "Dorian - The Musical" back in 2002 when the show was touring, and looking to go to NY. Got to know the creatives and saw it 3 times. A shame it never made it. I thought it was a good production. I still have the demo CD somewhere in storage.

Dollypop said: "As an English teacher, I gave up any effort to teach the novel. It is certainly homoerotic and students zeroed in on that immediately. I just felt it wasn't worth losing my job over."

Do teachers really get fired for things like this in the States?

MrsSallyAdams said: "The story has long defied adaptation. We no longer associate youth and beauty with goodness, nor sex and drugs with wickedness, so the fact that Dorian has both does not shock. We're also not as upset by vague homoeroticism as the British courts were in the day."

The 1945 black and white film directed by Albert Lewin is a very successful adaptation. The debaucheries of Gray are never shown and only hinted at and thus more sinister because of it. The tone is very calm and hushed. It's a remarkable film.

The US public is still shocked, enraged and titillated by the sexual liberties taken by elites... much of social media firestorms are about that at their center.

Updated On: 5/19/21 at 12:46 PM