An all-female Lord of the Flies is an insult to my childhood spent going nuts on an island - The Beaverton

An all-female Lord of the Flies is an insult to my childhood spent going nuts on an island

Oh boy, here we go again. It’s obvious that the industry won’t stop until every beloved property from our childhood is desecrated with the PC treatment. An , female leads in Star Wars, DC movies but Wonder Woman gets one – we get it, feminist loves digging up the skeleton of our childhood and jamming tampons in its eyes.

But when I heard this week that an all-female was being considered, I finally hit my limit. As a fan of the book, and as a guy who spent my own formative years going insane on a deserted island on which I was trapped with my peers until we created an ugly and violent mirror of modern society, let me just say: Childhood ruined.

I don’t mean to wax nostalgic here, but I think every guy my age has pretty fond memories of being stranded on an uncharted island with a group of other boys during a trip gone wrong and quickly devolving into brutality and madness, I certainly do. Sue me, I’m an 80’s kid. So William Golding’s iconic novel holds a really special place in my heart. My BOY heart.

Churning out a hackneyed “girls can do it too” version of this classic isn’t just uninspired. It’s a slap in the face to a great book, to my own personal pre-adolescent nightmare, and to all of our friends that we killed because they were weak and unclean (oh, that’s another thing, I bet they won’t even kill their weak and unclean friends in this version, I bet they all sit around and talk things out in an under-edited scene that’s way too reliant on improvisation, well it’s not that simple it wasn’t that simple we had to WE HAD TO).

And I can’t wait to see what kind of plucky, good-at-everything Mary Sue character they drop on that island who can just instantly magically commune with and learn its horrific truths. Sorry to mansplain or whatever but I have the conch and I alone was chosen by The Beast, it only spoke to me and it SPEAKS TO ME STILL, IN THE NIGHT. So yeah, position’s taken, toots.

And no, it’s not that I have some sort of problem with women being represented in media. Honestly, more power to anybody looking to tell an original, realistic female-driven story, and may The Beast show you his favour. But I just think that some stories are uniquely male, like the toxic standards and bullying culture thrust upon young boys spiralling into savagery when allowed to exist in a vacuum, or putting a ghost in a little box. So no, you won’t see me at whatever probably-ladies-only opening night screening they have planned for this one. My nights are for howling and screaming, thank you very much.