I Thought the All-Female ‘Lord of the Flies’ Remake Was a Joke

For those who were super high during most of their teen schooling, Lord of the Flies is the William Golding novel about prep school pubescent boys stranded on a desert island, forming their own mini-man society, which ultimately devolves into rules, domination, and violence. Or as John Legend would put it, toxic masculinity, don’t let it touch me, eww.

The book is an insightful and brutal look at human nature, specifically that of young men. The two movies that have been made from the book previously have been reasonably watchable, if you happen to hate reading. Hollywood, in it’s infinitely narrow self-described wisdom, has decided to make another move based on the book. This time. All-female cast. So yeah, genius.

“We want to do a very faithful but contemporized adaptation of the book, but our idea was to do it with all girls rather than boys”

Even if contemporized were a real word, are you sure it means girls replace boys? Or are we not really being honest about what’s getting this movie made?

Unlike other such attempts with all-female cast remakes of Ghostbusters and Ocean’s Eleven, this isn’t a silly movie where the gender casting is merely a cynical, cloying, virtue signaling waste of money. People who shoot radiation bolts at ghosts can be women. Chatty well-dressed bank robbers can be women. But boys stranded on islands can’t be girls. Girls can be stranded on an island. That’s not Lord of the Flies. 

Semi-sane people of both genders are pointing out the idiocy, if not outright intellectual assault, of this Warner Bros. planned production. Though some have found a way to look beyond the egregious stupidity and focus on the real issue at hands: Warner Bros. hired two men to write the script.

As petty and obnoxious as all social media feminist comments must be, they have a point. If you’re merely making movies now to signal corporate virtue, go all the way. All female Lord of the Flies. Female cast, director, writer, key grip, chief electrician, boom sound engineer, best boy, that name will have to change.

We’re led to believe this all-female repurposing is the superior solution to allowing for more women’s stories to be told in cinema. Even if they’re not actually women’s stories. This versus writing and producing women’s stories? The Handmaid’s Tale comes to mind. By women, for women. The audience is small, but award season is like a Texas sized flood of obelisks and trophies. 

It’s becoming cliche to mock the knee jerk reflexive morality of Hollywood. How much can people secretly fucking their young nannies behind their wife’s back do to alleviate their guilt? You probably don’t want to contemplate an honest answer to that question.

_{Photo Credit: Backgrid}