August 31, 2017

What's wrong with being problematic? — a second look at the proposed "Lord of the Flies" with an all-female cast.

I started the day with a post about the proposal, and my take was cynical: The filmmakers are enjoying the publicity generated by the predictable criticism in social media.

Now, I'm reading a NYT piece about the proposal, and I see this:
What remains to be seen is whether the new “Lord of the Flies” will offer largely a mirror image of the novel, subbing in girls without changing the central plot points and behavior of the characters, or if it will wrestle with how girls would approach their fate differently.

“It could be problematic if all they’re doing is switching out girls for boys and saying, ‘Well, girls would do this too,’” said Pamela Davis-Kean, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who studies children and families.

Though many differences between boys and girls tend to be overstated, boys do tend to be more physically aggressive, she said. Some of the novel’s scenes of physical violence probably wouldn’t align with how girls would settle their issues.... The depth of collaboration could be another departure, she said....
But why shouldn't the filmmakers do exactly what is problematic? Why take a classic story and feminize it by making the girls less physically aggressive and more collaborative in their problem solving? That would only be interesting if you searched for ways to make the girls more evil than the boys. If girls just do better... what's the story? It's not like a season of "Survivor" where they have an all-male and an all-female tribe struggling to survive on an island and we're invited to enjoy seeing who does better and who screws up.

I think the new film should pretty much track the book. The fact that it's "problematic" to make the boys into girls is what's different and not the same. It's like that recent theatrical experiment that took a real Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump debate and gave the Hillary role to a man and the Trump role to a woman, with the 2 actors copying every intonation and gesture from the original. It was emphatically not the same, nor was it simply implausible (because how could a man speak and act like Hillary and a woman speak and act like Trump?). It was a revelation. The "female Trump" wasn't the most typical woman, but we could experience her as a particular woman, and — even more important — we could witness our own reaction to a woman like that.

So I think the proposed "Lord of the Rings" could be highly enlightening. Lean into the problem. Do not try to feminize the parts. Do not infuse the story with handed-down notions about what women are like stereotypically (which would probably be infected with the usual pro-woman propaganda*). Just make the boys girls and let's see how we feel about it.
__________________

* William Golding, the author of "Lord of the Flies," dished up the conventional propaganda himself:
“If you land with a group of little boys, they are more like scaled-down society than a group of little girls would be. Don’t ask me why, and this is a terrible thing to say, because I’m going to be chased from hell to breakfast by all the women who talk about equality. This has nothing to do with equality at all. I mean, I think women are foolish to pretend they’re equal to men — they’re far superior and always have been. But one thing you cannot do with them is take a bunch of them and boil them down, so to speak, into a set of little girls who would then become a kind of image of civilization, of society.”
That quote appears in the linked NYT article and other discussions of this film project. Golding is saying quite a few things about women there, both explicitly and implicitly. (Implicitly, he's saying he doesn't want to be bothered dealing with women!) But I scoff at that old idea that women are "far superior" to men. Notice how Golding used that as an anti-equality argument. It's interesting to read that his mother was a suffragist. It was once conventional to tell women that they should not have the right to vote because it would lower them from their superior position.

108 comments:

Bay Area Guy said...

One word: Ghostbusters - with Leslie Jones.

You cannot imagine a more unfunny movie.

Lord of the Flies -- with girls?

I hated the book, and don't care.

They should re-make "Saving Private Ryan" with all girls. At least, it would highlight some of the, ahem, male "privileges" our fathers got on June 6, 1944.

Thorley Winston said...

I don’t buy the “superior” line which is beta male pandering but I do think the dynamic of the story would be a lot different different if the children being marooned were all girls or if it were a mixture of boys and girls than all boys as in the original story.

Dan in Philly said...

LOTF was ridiculous anyway. An all female cast won't change that.

BarrySanders20 said...

"So I think the proposed "Lord of the Rings" could be highly enlightening. Lean into the problem. Do not try to feminize the parts."

Ruin Golding's book first and then Tolkien's? Female Hobbits, elves and dwarves go on an adventure . . .

Fernandinande said...

One Fly to rule them all, One Fly to find them,
One Fly to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Hollywood where the Shadows lie.

J said...

Another instance of the Althouse maxim that noticing sex differences is verboten unless women come out ahead.

Sydney said...

There was a Star Trek episode like this. Kirk and a woman who hated him switched bodies. William Shatner got to act as if he was a hysterical, power mad woman, and the actress got to act all masculine and tough. It was kind of fun to watch.

madAsHell said...

This is just a vehicle to re-surrect Raquel Welch's fur bikini.

robinintn said...

This movie has already been made. It's called Mean Girls.

Sydney said...

Turnabout Intruder.

Hagar said...

There actually is something feminine about Trump and the way he speaks on the stump.

Rabel said...

If it tracks the book then they will all be pre-adolescent girls. With that in mind I'll wait on Laslo's take.

Bay Area Guy said...

The new envisioned roster of Lord of the Flies film:

Ralph - Kate Upton
Simon - Scarlett Johanssen
Jack - Chick who played Wonder Woman
Piggy - Rosie O'Donnell
Roger - Queen Latifah
Sam & Eric - Olson Twins

Scott said...

It seems like the remake of The Manchurian Candidate. The original 1962 film cast the Chinese as the enemy. The 2004 remake made the enemy a private equity firm. Moral equivalency and correct thinking prevailed, as it does now with the all-girl version of Flies.

It's the dilemma of The Kosher Cheeseburger. If the meat was slaughtered appropriately and you're topping it with fake non-milk cheese, isn't it technically kosher?

Hari said...

Isn't this what's going on right now at Google?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The link about the Hillary Trump role reversal doesn't work... for me.

Bob Ellison said...

"Why take a classic story..."

You shoulda stopped right there. It's a stupid story. Written well, with beat-era dumbtastity. It was dumb to start and dumb to cram in middle-schoolers' heads. Making it a chick flick is not going to help it.

Craig Landon said...

Talk about your high-wire acts...

Rabel said...

Jack, the baddest of the boys, was a Ginger. Of course things went South when he took over.

gg6 said...

Pretty darn sad to see the author himself - of a novel about 'humanity'?! - reduce this idea to a stupid matter of "superiority". But what else is new, I guess.
Personally I find myself with nothing more to add after the gentleman's observation re "Saving Private Ryan". Set, match. Next up?
PS I know, I know, in the new female version of 'Ryan' there would never have been a WWII because women would have prevented/avoided it.
Sigh.

Ann Althouse said...

"Another instance of the Althouse maxim that noticing sex differences is verboten unless women come out ahead."

Thanks for noticing. I intended that.

"This movie has already been made. It's called Mean Girls."

Mean Girls is mentioned in the linked NYT article. Also Heathers (which I like).

"The link about the Hillary Trump role reversal doesn't work... for me."

Sorry. Fixed.

""Why take a classic story..." You shoulda stopped right there. It's a stupid story. Written well, with beat-era dumbtastity. It was dumb to start and dumb to cram in middle-schoolers' heads. Making it a chick flick is not going to help it."

I agree. I was surprised, writing this post, to see that Golding won the Nobel Prize. I must have known that but forgotten it. Considering how rarely the Nobel people get around to England, I'm surprised he got the nod.

mesquito said...

Someone on Twitter said we already have a girl version of Lord of the Flies: The View, and it sucks.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

I think it could go either way. Sure, a group of girls stranded on an island like that probably wouldn't act exactly like the fictional boys did, but I could see a different set of boys acting entirely differently, too. Girls would PROBABLY be less prone to violence, but one need only look at the Slender Man case, and countless others, to know that girls can be just as murderous.

It's a mistake to think that the way things happened in the book is the ONLY way it could have gone with boys, girls, or a mixed group. People take as a given that Goulding GOT IT RIGHT, partly because he was a school teacher who taught boys, but he only got it right for one hypothetical possibility, and some of his suppositions are suspect; I doubt English boys of late-elementary and middle-school age would have invented a new religion, or naturally developed some Ur mythology because of an immutable biological inheritance.

Also, as I think I understand it (naturally, I could be wrong about this) Goulding's thesis is that civilization is a sham because we could so easily and intractably devolve into savagery despite the supposedly ennobling effects of a prep school upbringing. I think it's the opposite is true. Good education that teaches respect for our laws, rights and freedoms keeps us from being nasty to each other, in so far as we aren't nasty to each other, and is ultimately the only thing that makes and keep us civilized.

I see I'm not the only one not totally swayed by Nobel-laureate Goulding and his supposedly infallible insight into the minds of boys. Still, I like the book, and the nineties movie, even though the film changed the boys to Americans.

Gahrie said...

It was once conventional to tell women that they should not have the right to vote because it would lower them from their superior position.

I agree. They shouldn't be allowed to vote because most of them base their decisions on feelings rather than rational thought.

Gahrie said...

I do think the dynamic of the story would be a lot different different if the children being marooned were all girls

The biggest change would be from a novel to a short story as the girls all died from starvation and exposure.

Caroline said...

@robinintn: eggsactly.

robinintn said...

"Also Heathers (which I like)." I had forgotten Heathers; thanks - I think I'll rewatch it this weekend.

Unknown said...

Women are clearly superior to men. They have a full set of chromosomes that "science says:-)" cause men to be more sickly and die when young, and women to long outlive men, D@mn those actuarial tables. Somebody evil must be fooling with them. .So in the interest of gender equality we should hold a lottery to eliminate the extra to reduce their share of their burden on mother earth, or so says the Pope who speaks as the absolute moral authority on Earth. Until we are all globalists and communists, as he wished to make it so in South America.Capitalism being the scourge of mankind.

Big Mike said...

Women collaborating, engaging in team building, and forming themselves into a working organization. Which species are writing about? Surely not h. sapiens!

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Pattern the lead character after Hillary as a way to ensure plenty will sneak into the movie without legal tender ;)

Bay Area Guy said...

Nobelist Golding:

“If you land with a group of little boys, they are more like scaled-down society than a group of little girls would be. Don’t ask me why, and this is a terrible thing to say, because I’m going to be chased from hell to breakfast by all the women who talk about equality. This has nothing to do with equality at all. I mean, I think women are foolish to pretend they’re equal to men — they’re far superior and always have been.

Perhaps, the stupidest, most kiss-ass comment of the year. This is something a young beatnik in the dorms would say to try to get laid.

Fernandinande said...

“It could be problematic if ..." the girls come across a banana in a tree.

++
A Greek Life retreat at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) was promptly cancelled this weekend after a banana peel was found hanging in a tree.
...
"To be clear, many members of our community were hurt, frightened, and upset by what occurred."
...
While it is unclear how the university will proceed to handle the incident, Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Community Engagement Katrina Caldwell noted that she will be speaking with fellow leaders to decide “what makes the most sense.”

“Right now, we’re just talking to people on campus who have some experience working across diversity to help the students process what happened,” she added.

++

What they need help processing was:
"Apparently, student Ryan Swanson admitted to discarding the banana peel in a tree after he was unable to locate a garbage can, ..."

n.n said...

"Lord of the Flies" can capture the feminine dynamic of a progressive female civilization where the pig is replaced with a baby and the women are depicted as Planned Parenthood-era clinical cannibals. Art imitates life.

Doug said...

Trash the idea if you want - I'm always going to watch girl-on-girl stuff.

Jeff Weimer said...

What I find amusing is a lot of folks who say "Of course girls would act different (better) than boys" in this movie went positively *ballistic* over James Damore.

Sebastian said...

"Why take a classic story and feminize it by making the girls less physically aggressive and more collaborative in their problem solving?" "Another instance of the Althouse maxim that noticing sex differences is verboten unless women come out ahead." True.

The maxim says a lot about sex differences, but not what its adherents believe.

Sebastian said...

"they’re far superior and always have been." But apparently not so superior that they could actually create a "scaled-down society." Then again, since that is something only men would do, it doesn't matter. Who cares about "society" anyway?

MacMacConnell said...

I imagine the new female "Lord of the Flies" will end like "Thelma & Louise" . It's what happens when women escape adult male supervision. ;-)

Darrell said...

Do it with flies.
I hear the Oscar buzz now. . .

eddie willers said...

"they’re far superior and always have been."

Cato the Elder observed that Rome ruled the world, but their wives ruled them.

Nothing new under the sun.

Lewis Wetzel said...

"Though many differences between boys and girls tend to be overstated"
"Though many differences between boys and girls tend to be understated"

Both these statements are equally true. Why did the writer choose the first rather than the second, or choose not to comment on whether differences between or girls are over or understated?

Darrell said...

Goulding's thesis is that civilization is a sham

No it's a veneer. Like the pure white uniform of the Navy man that comes to rescue them. And take them to a war that killed 50-100 million, depending on whom you want to include.

Darrell said...

If Roman Polanski directs, I'm in.

William said...

I wonder who the target audience for this movie is. Even if it were well made, who would want to watch it. I read the book. It was ok, but I wasn't much interested in seeing the movie........Perhaps they could go for verisimilitude. The young girls lack sufficient upper body strength to kill the wild boars on the island. The wild boars discover this and also that human flesh tastes good. The boars start hunting down and eating the girls. Plotted thus, the movie could be a combo art house parable about male chauvinism and a horror flick.........I would alter the casting, however. There's not much of a market for seeing little girls gored to death. Definitely need adult women to play the girls. Maybe in the climactic scene, Jennifer Lawrence could figure out a cool way to kill the boars without using too much upper body strength.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

It was once conventional to tell women that they should not have the right to vote because it would lower them from their superior position.

Now it's clear it has lowered them from their already inferior position.

Present company excepted.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

When are we going to get Lord of the Files?

Roughcoat said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
MacMacConnell said...

The conch will be a Ralph Lauren cashmere sweater from Bloomingdale.

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

With reproduction factored out (assuming), the divide between biological and cultural anthropology is that cultural anthropologists show pastoral societies as male dominant partly because of male desires over property controls that motivate male participation in wars and violent hostilities, so that Evo Psych biological explanations (say Jared Diamond on clitoredectomy as biologically based in mating patterns), now leaves this movie violence to the cultural stuff, and then, with males-as-warfare-and-violence machines, defending property as non-factors (isolated out of the movie equation), then so too, are gone the positive cultural anthro predictions of domesticated peaceful females in pastoral societies? - yeah, it's just a movie (I want to see how this plays), but are ownership rights to stilettos in this movie mere non-violent fashion jealousies? - how will such a catty fashion jealousy movie sell to men who want to enjoy the massive and lethal shaft thrust pumping out of female stiletto shafts, like Catwoman kicked backwardly and broke the evil man’s leg in Dark Knight Rises? - how will this play without Batman telling Catwoman, “no guns!,” to which high- heeled Cat meowed, “where’s the fun in that?” - what good are stilletos on an all female island without violent shaft thrust?

Virgil Hilts said...

I do think 12 year old girls (the age you would nee to use to be consistent with the oldest boys in the books) are superior to 12 year old boys, and far more civilized. But holy crap, when they turn 14 they become little monsters. Its like the scene in True Detectives where the camera pans up to the tiara in the tree and then back down - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpvsdVg2YVU
For a father maybe one of the scariest scenes ever filmed.
I would make the girls 14 so they have no qualms about killing things.

Roughcoat said...

It was a mediocre novel with an intriguing premise. Golding was not a good-enough writer to craft a masterly novel, a work of art. He reminds me of Michael Crichton in this respect: good ideas, mediocre-to-poor execution.

Imagine if Cormac McCarthy had gotten hold of the premise. He would have written a novel for the ages.

The original movie with an English cast and the American sequel (starring Balthazar Getty) both should have been better than they turned out to be. Mediocre or bad novels can sometimes make for good movies: the director and writers have more latitude to exercise their respective skills.

I'm still intrigued by the premise, and also by the idea of using an all-girl cast. Having women play the paratroopers and including a lesbian subplot would enhance the story. Don't laugh. I am serious. The novel concerned the students of an elite public school, which are notorious as hotbeds (pun intended) of homosexual activity. In the novel there was without question a strong homoerotic subtext. This aspect of the novel did not appear in either movie, which is one reason why they failed.

Narayanan said...

The movie can be two middle school girls soccer teams playing without referee.

rhhardin said...

Redo Catch-22 with girls. It would improve the movie.

AlbertAnonymous said...

What utter garbage! Who cares about any of this?

The world is becoming a mirror of Seinfeld. All about nothing.

I guess life does imitate art...

Lewis Wetzel said...

Through all of history, all across the world, among all the races of man, there has never been a society ruled by women. Never.
Matrilinear, yes, for an obvious reason, but there has never been a society where women had the superior political rights.
Please tell me if I'm wrong.

Ralph L said...

It could be problematic
I believe she meant politically incorrect.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"The world is becoming a mirror of Seinfeld. All about nothing."

True. The good news is the Right gets to provide the laugh track.

ccscientist said...

One of the key aspects of the book is that the process of being pushed into being hunters (killing pigs) also unleashes their violence against each other, since they are only boys and haven't had time to learn to control it. As a metaphor it is at least plausible.
Here is what would happen with girls--they would not learn to hunt pigs, and would starve instead.

Unknown said...

To be gender-accurate, the whole whole scenario has to play out with the boys' physical intimidation and power games replaced by psychological intimidation and power games, as any observer of school yard activities will understand.

Bay Area Guy said...

@Lewis Wetzel,

"Through all of history, all across the world, among all the races of man, there has never been a society ruled by women. Never."

You obviously haven't been to the HR department at my work.

holdfast said...

My high school English teacher thought the book stupid and resented having to teach it - he referred to it as "Bored Of The Fries" - and thought that it, along with "The Outsliders" (sic) both belonged in the trash and not the syllabus.

Bob Ellison said...

Unknown, hunger was not a big theme in Lord of the Flies. Woulda been a better book otherwise.

buwaya said...

"They should re-make "Saving Private Ryan" with all girls."

The telling one would be the all-girl "All Quiet on the Western Front".

mockturtle said...

I think that women, overall, lack confidence of women's leadership ability. The minute one woman tries to take charge and form a workable organization, the others will start to undermine her authority. Women don't work together cooperatively, either. As someone else observed, they would be apt to form small cliques whose entire purpose would be to talk about the other cliques.

Women are proficient at a number of useful things, to be fair, but not leadership or cooperation.

Rabel said...

"Through all of history, all across the world, among all the races of man, there has never been a society ruled by women."

The Althouse commentariat society seems pretty well whipped.

buwaya said...

"Matrilinear, yes, for an obvious reason, but there has never been a society where women had the superior political rights."

It depends on what you consider political rights. There certainly were countries/societies that were ruled by a female executive (a monarch, often absolute), formally and very often informally (various French Royal mistresses, various Chinese Empress Dowagers, etc.).

But these ruled through men.

Laslo Spatula said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
mockturtle said...

Does anyone remember Mary McCarthy's novel, The Group?

Laslo Spatula said...

Cheerleader of the Flies...

"What do you miss most about civilization, Elizabeth?"

"Oh, there are so many things, Lilly. Running water, electricity, indoor plumbing..."

"Indeed, Elizabeth! Indoor plumbing with soft, luxurious toilet paper!"

"Oh what I would give for just one square of toilet paper, and some body lotion. My knees are SO scrapey..."

"I don't know about all of you, but I miss boys."

"What, Lola? You miss boys?"

"I miss all the boys who lusted after my body. It made me feel special."

"All the boys wanting to have sex with you made you feel special?"

"Oh yeah. I would walk past them in the hall in my cheerleader skirt, and I could feel the heat radiating from them -- they were practically burning just to touch me."

"We don't need boys to validate our existence, Lola!"

"Look around you, Lilly: we're sleeping in dirt. If there was a boy here all I'd have to do is breathe softly on his neck and then he'd build me a hut! I'd put my hand on his shoulder and he'd spend the day fishing for me..."

"Females shouldn't use their sex to get things, Lola!"

"But that's how things get done, Lilly. By ourselves, we just shit in the bushes. A horny boy would dig a hole for us and build a toilet seat out of, like, wood."

"WE could dig a hole if we wanted, Lola."

"Then why haven't we, Lilly? We've been here six weeks and we haven't built a thing -- we just bitch about how being on this island sucks..."

"Well, that's because being on this island isn't fair..."

"Nothing's fair, Lilly. Do you think me stringing some boy along for two months in his hopes of getting just one blow-job is fair?"

"Well..."

"Of COURSE it isn't fair, but that's just how life works. Like: I needed an 'A' in Chemistry, so I let Mr. Allen the chemistry teacher stick a finger in my ass, and I got an 'A'!"

"But I studied real hard in that class and only got a 'B'..."

"Maybe you should've tried wearing a cheerleader skirt..."

I am Laslo.

buwaya said...

Something like an all-girl "Private Ryan" -

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113649/

"Libertarias", Vicente Aranda

About anarchist women soldiers in the Spanish Civil War.
The various incidents in the movie have historical roots, its not at all forced or a fantasy, and the attitudes were indeed proper to the time and place. They were very "modern" back then, even by current standards. The fanatical antifa girls of the last few months could have been their sisters.

You could remake this movie in the context of a future American Civil War and you wouldn't have to change much.

buwaya said...

"Does anyone remember Mary McCarthy's novel, The Group?"

I read that when I was a kid because it had sex in it. It was, otherwise. pretty awful.

buwaya said...

Laslo could write an all-girl "Private Ryan".
It may not be quite as bloody but should have its points of interest.

mockturtle said...

I read that when I was a kid because it had sex in it. It was, otherwise. pretty awful.

Yes, it was. I read it because of my political leanings at the time. Badly written and boring. Intending to show the longevity and loyalty of friendship in a group of Vassar grads it unwittingly showed their vapid shallowness.

Rae said...

I would only want to watch this if Eli Roth directed.

David said...

"Cheerleader of the Flies..."

It was all downhill from the title, Lazlo, but since the title was hovering in the sky above even the peak of Mt. Olympus, there is no shame in that.

mockturtle said...

I would only want to watch this if Eli Roth directed.

I would only want to watch it if Quentin Tarantino directed.

David said...

The coming of age menstruation scenes would be tricky, but once the entire cast synchronized their periods it would be lights out for all the other life forms on the island. Then, and only then, could they turn against each other.

buwaya said...

"Libertarias", V. Aranda, is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.

Its one of a slew of very fine Spanish Civil War movies of the 1990's.
Unfortunately these are all extremely left wing.
There is a great opportunity for a Right-wing SCW movie. The other side of the conflict had a very different ethic; they were the underdogs from the first day, fighting vastly outnumbered, usually outgunned, and for a couple of years there always on the edge of disaster, overcoming through sheer professionalism and discipline, with all the self-sacrifice of Macaulay's "Horatius". A good source for such a film treatment would be "The Siege of the Alcazar", Cecil Eby. The episode, the setting, and the events are all very dramatic, and it would make a spectacular movie.

Anyway, some other SCW films worth getting - all on Amazon -

"Ay Carmela!", Carlos Saura - musical, delightful, and tragic.

"Belle Epoque", Fernando Trueba - Very Spanish, very funny, very sexy, and a very young Penelope Cruz. The coming war is a thundercloud on the horizon.

"Tierra y Libertad" (Land and Freedom), Ken Loach, actually a British film. Well made, very ideological. Orwell would probably have liked it.

"La lengua de las mariposas" (Butterfly's Tongue), Jose Cuerda, a real tearjerker, and you get to see a lot of Spain (Galicia). A kids-eye view of what civil wars bring.

Mr. Majestyk said...

I was pretty sure Bay Area Guy's Saving-Private-Ryan comment couldn't be topped, but David's menstruation-synchronization comment gives it a run for its money.

Mr. Majestyk said...

A female Dirty Harry -- Dirty Harriet -- would be interesting. Folks wouldn't know if it was an action flick or a porn movie. How about an all-female Monty Python reboot? Can you imagine? And somehow I don't think Mrs. Majestyk would work.

rhhardin said...

LGBT dramas are popular in Thailand, according to today's Radio Japan podcast.

The characters are no longer hairdressers and make-up artists, but are good-looking and show a positive image.

Unlike actual LGBT people, the segment adds in a confusing continuation. I think it means actual LGBT people are activists.

Darrell said...

Unlike actual LGBT people, the segment adds in a confusing continuation.

I don't know. I think Titus works better in theory.

The Godfather said...

As I said on the other thread, Lord of the Flies is an allegory, and you could do the allegory with a different group. The lesson of the allegory (simplified) is that human beings are only very superficially civilized, and readily revert to their primative state. Can you imagine trying to raise money to produce a movie that depicts women that way? You would have an easier getting BLM to finance a remake of Birth of a Nation.

Jim Gust said...

You wrote "Lord of the Rings" when you meant "Lord of the Flies." Boy, that is some autocorrect.

Matt Sablan said...

"Some of the novel’s scenes of physical violence probably wouldn’t align with how girls would settle their issues."

-- Does whoever said this think The Hunger Games are problematic? What about Wonder Woman?

Matt Sablan said...

"This movie has already been made. It's called Mean Girls."

-- This was discussed earlier; I think the biggest difference is Lord of the Flies is about how society falls apart, where as Mean Girls is about how society tears individuals apart.

Matt Sablan said...

"A female Dirty Harry -- Dirty Harriet -- would be interesting."

-- I await the day someone says: "Let's re-make Mr. Mom, the twist is... Mr. Mom is a WOMAN!"

Gahrie said...

A female Dirty Harry -- Dirty Harriet -- would be interesting

I'd like to see a Mr. & Mrs. Smith sequel.

Gahrie said...

The Althouse commentariat society seems pretty well whipped.

You haven't been paying attention.

LakeLevel said...

"Why take a classic story and feminize it by making the girls less physically aggressive and more collaborative in their problem solving?"
Must we continue with that idiotic lie that males are less collaborative than females. All the great creations of civilization were created by collaboration between mostly males. Ask any woman who prefers the company of males why that is so and she will tell you it's because men get along better, with much less drama.

furious_a said...

This movie has already been made. It's called Mean Girls

I thought it was called Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Jim S. said...

Reminds me of the ending of this scene from Family Guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lw-DFGFaVUY

Scott M said...

Vag-washing?

Bad Lieutenant said...


David said...
The coming of age menstruation scenes would be tricky, but once the entire cast synchronized their periods it would be lights out for all the other life forms on the island. Then, and only then, could they turn against each other.
8/31/17, 8:20 PM




Blogger furious_a said...
This movie has already been made. It's called Mean Girls

I thought it was called Real Housewives of New Jersey.
8/31/17, 11:14 PM


No, Carrie!!!

Joe said...

To me, Lord of the Flies only made sense if you were talking about British boys from boarding school.

bleh said...

Lol at the idea that females are more collaborative, whatever that means. Males quickly establish hierarchies and get to work. They collaborate, they play their roles.

tim in vermont said...

Personally, I think that you could have re-made Die Hard with Mr Bean as McCain and made a great comedy without changing a single line.

GRW3 said...

I've always thought there should be a "Lord of the Flies" version of Survivor. Go to an Island, like the original, this time with cameras everywhere like "Big Brother". When the film crew heads to the boat for the night. Wait for the contestants to be asleep then bring in a matching dummy boat. About time they are supposed to be waking up, Blow the Boat Up!, Then watch what happens.

Robert Cook said...

"I read that when I was a kid because it had sex in it. It was, otherwise. pretty awful."

How could you tell, if you were a kid? Many books for adults are "awful" to children, for a variety of reasons.

"Yes, it was. I read it because of my political leanings at the time. Badly written and boring. Intending to show the longevity and loyalty of friendship in a group of Vassar grads it unwittingly showed their vapid shallowness."

Are you sure she didn't wittingly show their vapid shallowness, that that wasn't her point?

I haven't read the book, so it may well be awful, badly written, and boring, etc., but...I'm just asking.

Jim Howard said...

Wait! Genders are social constructs only! There is no actual difference between men and women at all!

buwaya said...

"How could you tell, if you were a kid?"

Because, of course, I was born with exquisite taste, and it emerged very early. My first civil-rights activism came at the age of six, when I insisted on being permitted in the adult section of the library.

Jupiter said...

"(Implicitly, he's saying he doesn't want to be bothered dealing with women!)"

Lot of that going around these days.

William said...

Here's my latest spitball. It's got a kicker. The girls are stranded on a desert island. They put up with some of the deprivations fairly well. Most of them are anorexic or bulimic so the lack of food is not a problem. The absence of bottled water is a deprivation, but they make do. What really bothers them is the tedium of the endless hours, More out of boredom than hostility, they start ragging on the one fat girl in their midst. The hostility smolders and builds on itself. One girl picks up a pebble and throws it at Miss Piggy, as they have started to call her. The other girls laugh. Another girl picks up a bigger pebble and so on. Eventually they're throwing rocks and laughing maniacally as the overweight girl tries to shield herself from the blows, but to no avail.........Later that day the rescue party arrives. The leader of the rescue party says "I would have expected better. You were only here for three hours."

James said...

Didn't the Google manifesto guy get crucified for talking about women like this?

Bilwick said...

As a child of the Fifties, I find it odd that there are no Davy Crockett or Hopalong Cassidy related toys. The Davy Crockett craze was YUUUUGE and launched a plethora of Crockett related toy guns, faux coonskin caps, Alamo playsets, etc., many but not all licensed by Disney, which launched the craze with their Crockett miniseries starring Fess Parker. Hopalong Cassidy was not as big as Crockett, but there certainly were a lot of Hoppy tie-in cap guns, cowboy suits, etc.

Bilwick said...

Re above: oops! Wrong comment thread! I was aiming for the one about kids' toys,

mockturtle said...


"Yes, it was. I read it because of my political leanings at the time. Badly written and boring. Intending to show the longevity and loyalty of friendship in a group of Vassar grads it unwittingly showed their vapid shallowness."

Are you sure she didn't wittingly show their vapid shallowness, that that wasn't her point?


Good observation, Cookie. I may have, at that time of 'Sisterhood is Powerful', been anticipating something that was never intended by the author. I was very young at the time and much engulfed in leftist-feminist politics. As McCarthy, herself, was a communist [at least formerly] and a feminist, my expectations may have colored my analysis. Even so, it was a tiresome novel.

walter said...

Laslo,
I think the current garment of enticement by teen gals is the pair of obscenely tight yoga pants. See 'em trailing their mom at the grocery store with ass etc on display while slouching toward their phone.
However, the new teacher predator is female...though I doubt grade favors are required.