Yeah it was kind of the leitmotif of the Dune that women ran the universe behind the scenes. Whether Frank Herbert thought that was a good thing the way he evolved certain ideas is a different subject.
— Alan
I read it so many time the pages started to crumble, but I’m wondering how carefully you have. Let’s take a look at your examples:
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The Bene Gesserit: The only women who wield any political power in the Dune universe, and, as Alan notes, it’s all behind the scenes. Tolerated for their truth-sensing abilities, trusted by no one and commonly referred to as “witches.” And what is the ultimate, eons-long goal of the Bene Gesserit: To produce a male Bene Gesserit;
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Princess Irulan: She gets some credit for agreeing to marry Paul of her own volition, but that and Jessica’s defiance of the Bene Gesserit are just about the only decisions of consequence made by women in the entire novel;
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Jessica and Alia: Ah yes. Strong, independent-minded women, right? And how do they wind up? Jessica sums it up for us in the novel’s famous closing line: “We may have the title of concubines – but history will remember us as wives.” Think they’ll use that in the movie?
Herbert wrote Dune in the early '60s, in the age of “Mad Men,” before women’s liberation was even a term. You could posit a future feudal society where women were largely chattel and nobody would give it much thought. That just wouldn’t play today.
The Handmaid’s Tale is one of the biggest shows on TV right now
The Handmaid’s Tale deliberately explores the plight of subjugated women. It presents the society where the women are subjugated as a dystopia. That’s hardly the case with Dune.
An excellent response, and I’ll concede you know the book better than me (I’ve read it a few times, but the last time was quite a while ago).
However, I still don’t see the problem. It’s a story full of interesting, three-dimensional, consequential female characters. They take an active role in the story. They do have to work within the constraints of their society (or use subterfuge to work around them) to fulfill their goals, but they do so effectively.
It seems much less likely that they could make, say, a James Bond movie today, than a Dune movie. And yet James Bond movies keep coming out!
Good point about the James Bond movies. I have to admit I haven’t followed them very much for several years, but I think they’re at least somewhat less misogynistic now than they were in the Sean Connery era(?) And I suspect some of that is “it’s James Bond” as in he’s supposed to be a modern Casanova.
Anyway, thinking about, there are ways to make the Dune story more PC without doing much violence to it. You could have female mentats and guild navigators for example. You could even have an empress instead of the emperor (just don’t have a Baroness Harkonnen please!). These things would not have occurred to Herbert writing in the '60s, but I doubt he’d object. And the Lady Jessica could change “wives” to “partners” in the closing line. :)
You could have a Paula Atreides and the story would work perfectly fine.
The outrage would be hilarious, though.
Interesting, but I actually think this is right - there is nothing intrinsic in these books that makes gender swapping impossible; in fact, I think it’d work extremely well, with the right cast.
I’m really, really hoping this will be great - it would be a criminal waste of talent if it isn’t - though I’ll agree with the skepticism regarding whether this can be done in a single movie.
I’m chortling just thinking about it.
Haha - oh please… I would REALLY enjoy if this happened! Can we at least start the rumour that this is going to happen? :-D
You would need to make the Bene Gesserit male, which would make the whole bit about Alia being exposed to the water of life in utero harder. It’s obviously not impossible, but it does require more than just changing Paul to Paula.
He also wrote God Emperor Dune, where Leto II’s Fish Speaker armies were all women, and then finished the series with the Honored Matres, a matriarchal empire where men are little more than controlled servants.
Or sperm donors.
I’ve only read the first four books. So I enjoy reading about the weirdness of the later works.
Dune explores the climax of a multigenerational struggle by a female sect to place a genetically perfect white guy as just master of the known universe.
Later books explore why that was not really the brightest idea.
Yes, pretty much the entire point of the Dune series is a deconstruction of the whole “prophesied savior” thing.
The Internet outrage generated when major characters are changed, but especially when race or gender swapped, always seems an order of magnitude beyond any complaints about the lack of women roles, or black people, or whatever can be easily handwaved away by pointing to the source material.
Are you guys asking to make Ghanima Atreides a dude ?
Dune is not a power fantasy of any genre. People is just people and act has realist has they author was capable to imagine. Pretty much all of Dune happens in a medieval society, so you could find things somewhere that would not fit a modern progressive agenda. Do we have to rewrite or burn Farenheight-451 style, all books that don’t fit the progressive agenda?
No, we are just suggesting changing parts of it wouldn’t be so bad either (specially the collateral outrage, that would be certainly entertaining). Let’s not burn books, but let’s not hold them as holy texts either.
One thing that I’m sure they are changing (and I’m cool with it): Arab speaking suicide bombers are not going to be depicted as the good guys in the movie as they are in the book.
If we do all this gender swapping, all I ask is that Brian Herbert write it.