Hulu's Kindred (Episode 1)
The original book, Kindred by Octavia Butler is a story of Dana, a 1976 Black Woman who time travels to the 1810s in the slave-holding antebellum South (Civil war was 1861-1865), and must keep herself alive on a slave plantation.
Well Hulu released a Kindred TV show based on the book, set in 2016/1815 instead of 1976/1815.
This post will contain spoilers for the show and the book.
The first episode was good TV, no doubt. And I plan to watch more of the show. BUT, I'm worried that it serves a completely different purpose than Butler's book. Only time will tell.
There are many changes that I'm okay with - I don't mind that we jump forward to present times (fuck 2016 is ~TEN years ago!). I don't mind that there's more relationship between Dana and her Aunt & Uncle. I don't love that the story between Kevin and her is changed so drastically, but it's okay.
In the book, Dana worked at a temp agency and Kevin worked at a mechanic shop (or something, details fuzzy) and they met during their mutual lunch breaks and got to know eachother that way. By the time she travels back to the past, they've been dating for a long while and are living together.
In the show, Dana has gotten dinner with her Aunt and Uncle. They've left. Her phone is dead, so she can't hail an Uber. The (fancy, expensive) restaurant won't let her charge her phone (I call bullshit, but whatever). Kevin is a waiter there, says he has a phone charger in his car, but offers to give her a ride home. She accepts. He's a little BIG (personality-wise), but he's reasonably charming and seems like a good guy.
Dana is black & Kevin is white. This is important in the book as the antebellum south treats whites and blacks very differently, obviously. The show keeps this racial dynamic.
What I dislike about the Kevin/Dana story in the show is just how recent their relationship is when Dana starts traveling to the past. I think it's fine, idk. It will probably lead to some plot changes later on, but we shall see.
I have one slightly bigger gripe with the modern day, and one major one.
The major one - Dana is a working class black woman in 1976 in the book. In the show, she inherited her grandmother's brownstone home in New York, and sold it to move to ... I think California. It seems she got a lot for the house and/or she has other inheritance money too. She is a writer, and trying to get a job writing for TV. In a way, she is still a working class black woman, but she's also benefactor to generational wealth, and she doesn't actually have a job.
I think the modern wealth she has will provide a different contrast to the slave-holding south she time-travels to. I think it could be powerful in a way, but I also find it a lot less relatable. Most people do not have many thousands of dollars sitting around to spend freely while they chase their dreams.
This is my major gripe. I don't like that she's wealthy. She was a writer in the book as well, but she was pursuing her writing career WHILE working a regular job.
The minor gripe is the relationship/conflict between Dana and her Aunt. Her Aunt (and uncle) is mad that she sold the brownstone, is judgemental of her, is accusing her of being mentally unstable. Then when Dana starts traveling to the past, at first, she thinks she might be crazy, like her Aunt was saying.
I'm not interested in the modern drama, and I feel it detracts from the entire purpose of Butler's book. But I also understand that TV is a different medium, and idk. Whatever.
Oh, and there's unnecessary sex appeal. Dana's hot, and they show her off. I always enjoy this kind of stuff, but it's also not what I'm interested in, and once again I feel like it detracts from the purpose. We're not here to ogle a hot woman. We're here to take a critical look at the Antebellum South and to contrast it to modern day, and to see how stark the experience is when a modern woman is suddenly transplanted onto a slave plantation. Yes, we are here to be entertained. But I find this unnecessary. And further, we will likely see rape in the 1800s. I suppose the contrast of modern consensual sex with the rape of the slave-holding south could bring some value. But Idk, I just don't feel like it's a good fit.
And tbh, it's not the sex that I'm criticizing here. Dana takes a semi-dominant position when first bedding Kevin. I think this is a powerful component to contrast against the domination she (and others) will (did) suffer as a slave. the part I'm criticizing is the voyeur-esque shots of Dana.
And the idea that Dana taking a semi-dominant role in bedding Kevin is a powerful contrast to being dominated in the past ... is somewhat undermined by the voyeuristic camera shots, which the show uses to please the audience, not as any kind of criticism of modern-day non-consensual objectification of women. (voyeurism in cinema deserves a whole 'nother post!)
But okay, onto the past.
Dana travels back to the past three times in the first episode. She saves Rufus from suffocation as a baby - turning him onto his back from his stomach. She saves Rufus as a ~5 year old when he's drowning in a creek. And she saves Rufus from the house burning when he is ~8 or so.
Each of these times, she is seen by others on the plantation.
In the book, she is not seen when she goes back to rufus-as-a-baby. She is seen and has a near-death encounter when saving him from the creek. This is almost identical to the book. When she saves him from the fire ... Well in the book, she threw burning drapes out the window, iirc. In the show, the fires is much larger and she runs out of the house with him.
I think the differences here are basically fine.
But after saving Rufus from the fire, she goes to the free black woman's house. (In the book, I don't remember if this was the same trip or if she went there on the next trip) And this is where things are significantly different, and an entirely different plot line is introduced.
We will have to see how it plays out, but I do not think this change is a good one, especially not if we want to honor Butler's original work.
Butler's book was almost entirely focused on the experience of a modern working-class black woman suddenly appearing in the slave-holding south. The sci-fi component was unimportant, except to enable that contrast.
This show seems far more interested in interpersonal drama, and perhaps the time-travel sci-fi stuff.
So anyway, she gets to the freed black woman's house and HER MOTHER IS THERE.
It turns out, when her mom and dad died in a car crash 13 years ago, her dad DID die, but her mom was teleported to the past and has been living there for 13 years.
A confrontation then happens with one of the white patrol-men. He almost kills Dana and so she travels back to the present where Kevin - her one-day lover, not live-in house partner - is.
The confrontation with the patrol-man plays out differently than it did in the book - I believe it was a group before, and that the freed black woman was raped in the book, but I don't remember for sure. The free woman also had a lover (a slave from Rufus's dad's plantation iirc) and that component was entirely left out here. I think these changes are mostly fine, and i also don't like how shows and movies typically portray rape scenes, so leaving that out is probably a positive in a lot of ways.
But I'm just so deeply skeptical of the component where she finds her mom has also traveled to the past. In the book, she didn't know anybody in the past, except sorta-kinda Rufus from her multiple visits to save him.
I just think it's going to be a really big distraction and diminish the story that Butler told, the story that people actually lived in America, one that Butler portrayed.
WE SHALL SEE.
Who knows if I'll cover more episodes. Idk, I just watched this one last night. I enjoyed the show (even with all my criticisms). And I didn't feel like playing much video games this afternoon before the gym, so I wrote this.