Gould Essay

I agree with Stephen Jay Gould in the article "The Monster's Human Nature". In this article, Gould talks about books that have been made into movies. He believes that the film makers distort the book into their vision. Gould says this began with the movie Frankenstein in 1931. I thought it was strange that the movie makers would go so far to change the story as to even change Victor Frankenstein's name to Henry. The movie did not only drift from the plot, but did not even maintain the same message as Mary Shelley had intended. Movie makers transformed the book into a horror film to grab the attention of viewers. Also the film directors 'dumbed down' the book for the film. Hollywood perceived their audience as stupid and they believed that they would not be able to handle the 'intellectual complexity' in Shelley's original storyline. This idea is also shown in movies that are based on books like in My Sisters Keeper where in the movie they completley changed the end of the book changing the story completly.