I tried to find more info on this lol, but while I could find absolutely zero casting info (and therefore have no idea of the age group of the cast) I didn’t find anything about Rob Zombie. The writer/director team is Scott McGehee and David Siegel. I’m not familiar with their work, so I can’t weigh in on their abilities, but it seems like there are a couple of reasons people have a problem with this movie.
1. They think the most important theme in the book is about how brutal masculinity is.
I would disagree and say there’s a myriad of themes in that story,
- society versus savagery, (or what kind of anarchy would happen if partially raised children were left to govern themselves)
- Group think versus individuality (also a cover for communism versus capitalism)
- Morality versus immorality (the ol’ good versus evil)
- Intelligence versus Brute Strength (and Darwinism)
- Rational thinking versus emotional reactions
I could keep going but those are arguably the most notable ones. So could this story or plot be just as interesting with girls instead of boys? And do all these issues affect girls as much as boys? I’d say absolutely. Can girls be just as brutal and violent as boys? You fucking bet your ass they can.
2. They think men can’t properly convey a female driven story or experience.
Uh, go read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo novels, or take a serious look at GRRM’s female perspective chapters in ASOIAF and get back to me, because I am 100% convinced that it can be done quite accurately and convincingly. I don’t believe ALL men are incapable of understanding what women experience.
3. They’re worried this will turn out to be little more than girls running around in their underwear.
Yeah, that’s unfortunately a real concern, and if a female director or female writer were involved, we probably wouldn’t be so worried about it lol, because the assumption is that male leadership will objectify women and female leadership won’t. Sad but true.
But what if it’s done right? Wouldn’t be interesting to see? I actually remember thinking “what if this happened to girls” WHILE I was reading LOtF. And I’d read the hell out of a novel with that spin. Would I see a movie billed as ‘Lord of the Flies but with girls’? Yeah maybe. But I wouldn’t go in with very high expectations lol. Because Hollywood produces ten times as much bullshit as it does good shit.
OTOH, there’s been a noticeable trend towards more female leads and female heroes in the last few years, and I think it’s truly great as long as these things aren’t happening at the expense of men. I mean, modern feminism can really take it a little too far sometimes. I like seeing strong male characters as much as I do strong female characters. You don’t have wussify the men just to make the women look good. And I’m fucking tired of this battle of the sexes already. Haven’t we learned that the human experience is not divided along the lines of race and gender yet? Haven’t we figured out that we all bleed, we all feel, we all fear? Haven’t we realized we need all kinds of people to make this work?
