Oh boy, here we go again. It’s obvious that the film industry won’t stop until every beloved property from our childhood is desecrated with the PC treatment. An all-female Ghostbusters, female leads in Star Wars, DC movies but Wonder Woman gets one – we get it, feminist Hollywood loves digging up the skeleton of our childhood and jamming tampons in its eyes.
But when I heard this week that an all-female Lord of the Flies 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 school 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 The Beast 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.
