Netflix’s The Grays and Oscar Wilde: A Case Study in Queer Erasure

Last August, Deadline reported an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray is in development at Netflix. The adaptation, called The Grays, will be set in modern times and feature the beauty industry. As an amateur Wilde scholar in the queer community, I was initially excited by this announcement—however my excitement faded once I learned, in a major departure from the source material, Dorian Gray and Basil Hallward will be rewritten as siblings. What? Excuse me?

Unsurprisingly, other queer fans of the book were upset by this change too. In all fairness to the Netflix team behind this project, The Grays is a modern adaptation—it is expected certain liberties will be taken with the source material. But, due to the historical context surrounding the publication of the original novel and the role it played in Wilde’s legal battles, this creative decision has created new nuances the Netflix team may not have originally foreseen.

What’s the Historical Context?

When The Picture of Dorian Gray was initially published in Lippincott Magazine during the summer of 1890, editor J. M. Stoddart cut about 500 words from the original manuscript—all individual lines or full scenes depicting underlying romantic tension and queer undertones between Gray and Hallward. Even with the revisions, the story was crucified in the British press as immoral and disgusting, which led to that month’s issue of Lippincott Magazine being pulled from shelves in London. When it was revised and released again as a novel-length work in 1891, Wilde included a new preface in which he sought to defend his story by spinning claims of immorality back on critics, declaring: “It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.” Unfortunately for Wilde, the nineteenth-century English court system was not interested in this defense. During his trials for sodomy and gross indecency in the late 1890s, passages with queer undertones from the Lippincott Magazine’s version of the story were cited as evidence of his poor moral character and this played a role in Wilde’s sentence of two years hard labor at the conclusion of the second trial.

Queer Erasure in Queer Media

In addition to the Netflix team’s choice to rewrite the relationship between Gray and Hallward, Dorian’s name will be changed to “Doran,” a gender-neutral version of his original name—possibly hinting the character could be gender-swapped and further erase the queer subtext of the original novel. Between these two creative choices, there is concern about the seeming disregard for the historic nuances The Picture of Dorian Gray is inherently tied to. While some progress has been made in the past decade regarding LGBTQ+ representation in media, to take such an iconic piece of the queer canon and seemingly remove those elements is a bizarre step backwards. Unfortunately, this is not the first time an important historical novel has experienced straight-washing.

In February 2024, actress Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor criticized the way the relationship between characters Celie and Shug was portrayed in the 2024 adaptation of The Color Purple. The adaptation showed the relationship less explicitly than the original 1982 novel did. Sound familiar? Here we have another example of a “modern” adaptation straight washing a historical novel. How does this keep happening? This is the 2020s—we left behind concerns about couples making out on screen a long time ago. There is nothing inherently more explicit about a couple because they’re queer.

Additionally, the announcement for Netflix’s adaptation comes at an unfortunate time; over the past five years, queer media, especially books, have faced increasing opposition around the world. In April 2024, PEN International released an updated press statement condemning book banning around the world. The statement addresses Belarus, Brazil, China, Hungary, Türkiye, the Russian Federation, and the United States by name and provides descriptions of the types of books each country is banning. The United States, the Russian Federation, and Hungary were all noted to be targeting books with LGBTQIA+ themes and narratives. Some might find the USA’s name presence on this list disturbing—as they should! Really, in what instance has the country waging wars against books ever been on the right side of history?

If We Can’t See Queer Books, They Can’t See Us

The top three most challenged books on the American Library Association’s Top Ten Most Challenged Books of 2023 were Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson, and This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson. They all have something in common: They were each challenged because they contain “LGBTQIA+ content.” Hold on—why exactly do books need to be challenged for containing LGBTQIA+ content? In Gender Queer and All Boys Aren’t Blue, authors Maia Kobabe and George M. Johnson share their experiences growing up and discovering their respective identities. This Book Is Gay is a nonfiction book on gender and sexuality that many people, from those questioning their own identity to the people trying to support them, desperately need as it provides an aspect of education many have not been given.

Two memoirs and an educational nonfiction book being the top three most challenged books of 2023 is a deeply disturbing fact. I don’t like this “out of sight, out of mind” way of thinking. Shoving books by queer authors back into the closet doesn’t mean they no longer exist, it’s just a way of hiding resources from those who need them. The LGBTQIA+ community still exists, even if you try to close your eyes to it.

The creative decisions reportedly being made with Netflix’s adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray run in a similar vein to the decisions to challenge books like Gender Queer. One of the most effective methods of avoiding conversation about sexuality and gender identity in media is to remove any mention of them, whether that comes down to doing away with an important subtextual element of a novel plot like The Picture of Dorian Gray, or challenging the presence educational resources such as This Book Is Gay in school libraries. If you never acknowledge a topic, you never have to talk about it.

Truthfully, there are any number of reasons the Netflix team could have chosen to rename Dorian and change the romantic relationship into a familial one. It is an adaptation, after all, and they have a right to creative freedom. However, in cases like this, where a novel was used to persecute its author and now holds an important place in the queer cannon, adapting responsibly and respectfully should be at the forefront of the creative team’s minds. The Grays has not yet been released, but with the amount of attention it has gained from media outlets already, one thing is certain: it will be watched very closely once it is.