Down with the Patrickarchy.

"The notion of 'fidelity' is essentialist in relation to both media involved. It assumes that a novel 'contains' an extractable 'essence', a kind of 'heart of the artichoke' hidden 'underneath' the surface details of style. [...] But in fact there is no such transferable core: a single novelistic text comprises a series of verbal signals that can generate a plethora of of possible readings, including even readings of the narrative itself. [...] The text feeds on and is fed into an infinitely permutating intertext, which is seen through ever-shifting grids of interpretation. [...] The question of fidelity ignores the wider question: fidelity to what?"

Robert Stam, 'Beyond Fidelity: The Dialogics of Adaptation'