Long before Instagram and TikTok existed as places for us to stoke our insecurities, there was Martha Stewart.

It may seem like common knowledge now that a woman's sexual pleasure isn't dependent on the presence of a man. But when The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality was published in 1976, the idea was revolutionary, groundbreaking, and to some (namely, men), threatening. The book was the brainchild of Shere Hite, a trailblazing feminist who indelibly changed the way that women thought about their bodies, their sexuality, and themselves, but who largely vanished from cultural memory in recent years.

Adaptations in Hollywood are nothing new, but they've been at the center of many of this year's biggest pop-culture conversations. Any intellectual property seems up for reimagining, from books to toys to video games. There are many reasons behind their appeal to studios, among them that they tend to come with built-in audiences—but as I learned firsthand over the past few years, they can also give projects new depth and complexity.