A film adaptation of William Golding’s 1954 novel Lord of the Flies is in the works but with a major twist that’s drawing ire across social media: all of the boys stranded on the island without their parents will be girls.
According to Deadline, the male US film-making team of Scott McGehee and David Siegel (What Maisie Knew) signed a deal with Warner Brothers for a remake of the iconic postwar novel – the third English-language adaptation of the book, which was most famously brought to the screen in the 1963 classic by Peter Brook.
“We want to do a very faithful but contemporised adaptation of the book, but our idea was to do it with all girls rather than boys,” Siegel said.
MeGehee added that they were “taking the opportunity to tell it in a way it hasn’t been told before, with girls rather than boys, [which] shifts things in a way that might help people see the story anew.”
Dudes writing a female version of LORD OF THE FLIES is like a gift to the problematic think piece gods...
— Scott Mendelson (@ScottMendelson) August 30, 2017
Lord of the Flies follows a group of boys’ disastrous attempts at self-government after they find themselves stranded on a desert island. As their civilisation begins to dismantle, they resort to violence, savagery and murder, turning the book into a blistering, dystopic satire on the follies of mankind, the innate savagery of masculine culture, and government itself.
The gender-flipped film began trending on Twitter soon after the announcement, with many questioning whether the same thing would have happened if a bunch of young women were left to their own devices.
“The plot of that book wouldn’t happen with all women,” said writer and commentator Roxane Gay.
An all women remake of Lord of the Flies makes no sense because... the plot of that book wouldn't happen with all women.
— roxane gay (@rgay) August 31, 2017
uhm lord of the flies is about the replication of systemic masculine toxicity
— froy (@froynextdoor) August 31, 2017
every 9th grader knows this
u can read about it on sparknotes https://t.co/EQFyuSA3MV
"all-female Lord of the Flies remake" SOUNDS LIKE SOMEONE MISSED THE FUUUUUCKIN POINT OF LORD OF THE FLIES
— Gavia Baker-Whitelaw (@Hello_Tailor) August 30, 2017
Others noted that all-girl takes on the book had already been made in films like Heathers and Mean Girls.
An all-female Lord of the Flies is in the works? Soooo...they're basically re-making Heathers? pic.twitter.com/BdmIoLN0nB
— Blake@FanExpoCanada (@ComicBookGrrl) August 31, 2017
Golding himself has said he focused his book on only boys, and not only girls, for two reasons. The first was that he was once a little boy, not a little girl, and the second was that a “a group of little boys are more like scaled down society than a group of little girls will be.
“This has nothing to do with equality at all,” he continued. “I think women are foolish to pretend they’re equal to men – they’re far superior, and always have been. But one thing you can not do with them is take a bunch of them and boil them down into a set of little girls who would then become a kind of image of civilisation, or society. That’s another reason why they aren’t little girls.”
Instead of replacing the boy savages in Lord of the Flies with females, can we replace the boy savages in the WH and see how it turns out?
— Alt Fed Employee (@Alt_FedEmployee) August 31, 2017
We're literally living an all-male "Lord of the Flies" right now, but sure, let's see two male writers describe how women would be worse.
— Charles Clymer🏳️🌈 (@cmclymer) August 31, 2017
McGehee told Deadline that their all-girl version “breaks away from some of the conventions, the ways we think of boys and aggression ... It is a great adventure story, real entertainment, but it has a lot of meaning embedded in it as well.
“We’ve gotten to think about this awhile as the rights were worked out, and we’re super eager to put pen to paper.”
Guys I know we're all upset about LORD OF THE FLIES but it should make my all-human adaptation of ANIMAL FARM easier to sell.
— Jessica Ellis (@baddestmamajama) August 31, 2017
