Modernizing Madness

With every passing year more and more of our cultural touchstones tumble into the public domain, becoming available to the evolutionary process of “re-telling”. Spin-offs and re-imaginings can illicit delight or despair. They might give us more of what we crave from our favorite characters —or they might dash our previous conceptions of something we thought familiar.

Deeply embedded stories and fantasies are precious to us. They can invoke righteous passions if someone dare alter that which w...