|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Female Lord of Flies
|
Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
|
Posted
Plans for a new, all female, film of Lord of the Flies have been much criticised. The main argument seems to me to be that girls wouldn't descend into savagery in the ways that the boys did. Is this true? Is female violence really so unlikely?
--------------------
Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686
|
Posted
I wasn't aware of this project. Interesting.
Having witnessed some pretty savage behaviour on the part of adolescent girls, I don't find it implausible. Girls are more adept at taking someone apart psychologically than are boys, but we have had criminal cases of brutal girl-on-girl violence, including one rather notable murder case in BC.
Posts: 758 | From: 30 arpents de neige | Registered: Nov 2016
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
|
Posted
I thought Lord of the Flies was about original sin, which knows no distinctions of gender?
If your view is that humanity sucks, then the abandoned girls' society would collapse just as surely as the abandoned boys', though perhaps not in the same way.
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
|
Posted
Personally I think they should do 8 films
Coral Island with stereotype boys
Coral Island with girls but the same script
Coral Island with stereotype girls
Coral Island with boys but the same script
and then the same for Lord Of the Flies
(and then see what bits fit and what doesn't)
Lord Of The Flies (and Coral Island) situations I think would exist with boys and girls.
I would not be surprised though if there were some characteristic differences in the details (as an absurd example consider the various mid term implications of encountering one person of the opposite sex) I wouldn't like to guess what they are, though.
[Lord of the Flies, is a rebuttal of Coral Island, where everything works]
[ 31. August 2017, 22:36: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]
Posts: 1643 | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
I've mixed views. The original was about the nature of humanity, but the story is subject to the male dominated societal structure.
Whilst I do not think women are inherently better, the pressures and expectations are different. Especially in the time-frame of the original novel.
So some of the criticisms are valid. I think the concept, but rewritten for modern girls would be interesting. The original script with women substituted; not so thrilled about.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984
|
Posted
I have seen someone claiming - on twitter - an all female lord of the flies would be the origin story for Wonder Woman, which I find mildly amusing.
--------------------
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell
Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Which muppet's playing Miss Piggy?
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
|
Posted
Not very interesting and rather silly. Girls would be just as nasty but in a different way. It's not being faithful to the writer's book. To make it convincing, it would have to be rewritten too drastically.
It's still in copyright. Golding's executors should have put their foot down and said no, rather than taken the money.
--------------------
Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
|
Posted
"Lord of the Flies" is a remarkable book, chilling in its impact (at least on me when I first read it).
I've got mixed feelings about this proposed adaptation. If it comes about, I'll probably watch it to see how well it works. I'm inclined to think that the stereotypes about gender behaviour when there is any kind of power struggle going on, at any age, may be dissolving. But they haven't yet dissolved.
--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
fletcher christian
Mutinous Seadog
# 13919
|
Posted
Back in the day samurai wives were just as feared as their husbands. I guess it has a lot to do with cultural expectation.
--------------------
'God is love insaturable, love impossible to describe'
Staretz Silouan
Posts: 5235 | From: a prefecture | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
"Lord of the Flies" is a remarkable book, chilling in its impact (at least on me when I first read it).
I've got mixed feelings about this proposed adaptation. If it comes about, I'll probably watch it to see how well it works. I'm inclined to think that the stereotypes about gender behaviour when there is any kind of power struggle going on, at any age, may be dissolving. But they haven't yet dissolved.
It was written the year I was born and I read it when I turned sixty and it was most chilling on a hot day in Spain.
[ 01. September 2017, 10:55: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
|
Posted
To answer the OP along the lines consistent with Lord of the Flies, I'd say that female violence is also likely and could be linked to original sin in the way that Golding linked male violence. I don't think Golding was writing specifically about male violence, he was writing about the human condition albeit through the gender bias and cultural norms of his day.
Having said that, the evidence in the world around us is that female violence is much less frequent than male violence. But that's empiric rather than a statement about original sin.
--------------------
mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
You all have minds of lofty purity. Admirable! I can see immediately why this project is planned. It is an opportunity for torn blouses, short-shorts, bloodshed while scantily clad, and possibly lesbian implications. What more could a movie want?
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
Yes, I think Brenda is right. I was thinking of a horror film, with tawdry sex scenes, implausible plot development, scary characters, and plenty of violence, with screaming. Some kind of existential threat would be good, well, that could be men approaching in a yacht. You just need a very good shlock script-writer, and I am willing to do it.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
You all have minds of lofty purity. Admirable! I can see immediately why this project is planned. It is an opportunity for torn blouses, short-shorts, bloodshed while scantily clad, and possibly lesbian implications. What more could a movie want?
Prob'ly not if they are just changing the sex of the cast. It's a tale of late childhood.
--------------------
Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't think Golding was writing specifically about male violence , he was writing about the human condition albeit through the gender bias and cultural norms of his day.
Hmmm, unfortunately no, he was writing specifically about male violence (or at last he's on record as claiming that's what he thought he was doing). Can't find the quote at the moment but he was quite specific when people used to ask him why he hadn't had girls in the book, or written it with girls - basically he said it wouldn't work, girls wouldn't do that.
His conclusion line was along the lines that he didn't believe in equality between the sexes because women have always been superior.
[ 01. September 2017, 16:09: Message edited by: betjemaniac ]
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
You all have minds of lofty purity. Admirable! I can see immediately why this project is planned. It is an opportunity for torn blouses, short-shorts, bloodshed while scantily clad, and possibly lesbian implications. What more could a movie want?
Prob'ly not if they are just changing the sex of the cast. It's a tale of late childhood.
never a problem for St Trinian's....
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
Another possibility would be to blend it with The Fly, hence a large female fly, which predates everything else. Only trouble is, the sex would be difficult to follow.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
|
Posted
Here's Golding talking about "why boys?"
quote:
Another answer is of course to say that if you - as it were - scaled down human beings, scaled down society, if you land with a group of little boys, they are more like a scaled-down version of society than a group of little girls would be. Don't ask me why, and this is a terrible thing to say because I'm going to be chased from hell to breakfast by all the women who talk about equality - this is nothing to do with equality at all. I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Paul.:
Here's Golding talking about "why boys?"
quote:
Another answer is of course to say that if you - as it were - scaled down human beings, scaled down society, if you land with a group of little boys, they are more like a scaled-down version of society than a group of little girls would be. Don't ask me why, and this is a terrible thing to say because I'm going to be chased from hell to breakfast by all the women who talk about equality - this is nothing to do with equality at all. I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been.
thanks - that's what I was failing to turn up. Relieved I remembered it accurately!
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
It's very odd to say that it's unlikely, some kind of mass female violent outbreak. How does that work? We only make films or write novels about what is likely? Yes, a man turning into a large insect is very likely, and Kafka was only doing a kind of reportage.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
|
Posted
I've just finished reading The Power by Naomi Alderman. That is asking whether woman are essentially less violent and answering 'No'. It ends up all a bit female Lord of the Flies, only with more electric shocks.
--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
Lady Macbeth is fairly shlocky, kind of Jacobean horror, with lashings of guilt.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
We only make films or write novels about what is likely?
Good stories are internally consistent. Sure - you set up some imaginary nonsense about a man turning into a fly or whatever, but everything else follows as a natural consequence of that. Suppose someone was turning into a fly because reasons. How would he feel? What would he do?
The Lord of the Flies premise is "take a bunch of ordinary school boys, and strand them on an island with an uncertain future ahead of them." The story works because it's plausible - the reader can imagine boys behaving exactly like the ones in the book.
An all-female version would presumably take a bunch of schoolgirls and maroon them in similar circumstances, and imagine how the group dynamics would develop. But this development has to be believable - the reader / viewer has to believe that schoolgirls would behave in such and such a fashion.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
You all have minds of lofty purity. Admirable! I can see immediately why this project is planned. It is an opportunity for torn blouses, short-shorts, bloodshed while scantily clad, and possibly lesbian implications. What more could a movie want?
Prob'ly not if they are just changing the sex of the cast. It's a tale of late childhood.
You see? Pure. =Barely nubile= girls in torn blouses, scantily clad. It can't fail to sell.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
|
Posted
Are girls less likely to engage in violence of the sort portrayed? No. Girls are little shits just as much as boys.
But, as others have said, it would play out differently. I read it as being primarily about patriarchy and the violence that is behind this. In our current situation, I think an all male version would be really appropriate.
It seems a bit like a form of tokenism - having a fully female cast for the sake of it, not because it makes sense (unlike, say, the Ghostbusters, where gender is irrelevant, so a female cast is fine).
--------------------
Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Paul.:
Here's Golding talking about "why boys?"
quote:
Another answer is of course to say that if you - as it were - scaled down human beings, scaled down society, if you land with a group of little boys, they are more like a scaled-down version of society than a group of little girls would be. Don't ask me why, and this is a terrible thing to say because I'm going to be chased from hell to breakfast by all the women who talk about equality - this is nothing to do with equality at all. I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been.
Maybe boys represented a scaled-down society better than girls because fewer women were active in general society than men? Eg, the little boys were, potentially, future lawyers, headmasters, politicians, businessmen, factory-owners, doctors, board-members, religious leaders etc. In Golding's era very few women, to say the least, would've occupied these roles.
Interesting idea to do a female version, if done seriously and intelligently. But not sure if it could capture Golding's vision of a scaled-down society as lived out by children, if it's only one sex. Not in this day and age. Only time will tell! I wonder, too, in what way he thought women superior to men?!
--------------------
Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
But not sure if it could capture Golding's vision of a scaled-down society as lived out by children, if it's only one sex. Not in this day and age.
But in modern society, girls do grow up to take on all society's roles. Women are leaders, soldiers, counselors, workers, criminals, and sociopaths. We're not surprised when a woman holds any of these roles, so I don't see the difficulty of having an all-female mirror of society.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
But not sure if it could capture Golding's vision of a scaled-down society as lived out by children, if it's only one sex. Not in this day and age.
But in modern society, girls do grow up to take on all society's roles. Women are leaders, soldiers, counselors, workers, criminals, and sociopaths. We're not surprised when a woman holds any of these roles, so I don't see the difficulty of having an all-female mirror of society.
Golding's all male version of the story represented the reality of the male dominated society he lived in (with reference to the roles mentioned). In what way would a female only version of the story represent today's mixed society?
I'm not saying it wouldn't be a good story or not worth doing. But it wouldn't be meeting Golding's object of portraying society writ small; because our society writ small would have to have include little boys as well as little girls, because we live in a mixed society. For example, one of the challenges of today's society is the accusation of feminisation eg, the oppressed white male, the woman-in-charge 'problem', the preponderance of females in certain professional roles 'problem' etc. One assumes that the real and ongoing societal dynamic of male vs. female is unlikely
to be represented in an all-girl version? Could be wrong though. Only time will tell, as I said.
Bring on the lesbian bloodbath!
--------------------
Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
You need a lesbian bloodbath with a twist. I think that a Romero style shopping mall attack by female zombies could be interesting. The intellectual snobs could see it as a critique of consumerism, while the stalls would enjoy zombies being daft and scary.
Or what about zombie St Trinians? We've had zombie Jane Austen.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
But it wouldn't be meeting Golding's object of portraying society writ small; because our society writ small would have to have include little boys as well as little girls, because we live in a mixed society.
Golding isn't just portraying society writ small. He's portraying society simplified and with some elements left out. Most notably he's portraying a society that has no established authority to keep order. And the bare fact that nobody is courting or raising children makes a difference even if you restrict the society to the male public.
--------------------
we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
|
Posted
Also, frankly, this is well-trodden ground in fiction, and is not very interesting. Here's a good example.
--------------------
Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
| IP: Logged
|
|
Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Also, frankly, this is well-trodden ground in fiction, and is not very interesting. Here's a good example.
To be honest, that one sounds as though it has more affinities with the locked-room murder yarn than what I remember of LOTF. LOTF wasn't the leaden allegory that some seem to have made of it. We probably wouldn't be debating it now if it was.
The other point - to pick up Anselmina's observation - is that modern society has moved on since Golding wrote it. But to reflect that by introducing both sexes into the work would add dimensions that were not present in the original, at the risk of diverting the story so much it may bear little resemblance to the original. It may or may not be excellent in its own right, but the original was not about the interaction between males and females on a remote island.
My initial reaction when reading of the proposal was a dismissive "pffft!" I'm a bit more open to the idea of something that reflects on changes since the male LOTF original - a work in discussion with its inspiration if you like. But it would still be a separate work and not LOTF.
--------------------
Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
|
Posted
Libba Bray's novel Beauty Queens has been suggested several times as a novel that covers LotF-like territory. I don't know why Hollywood wouldn't adapt that into a movie instead, if they really feel there's a need for this.
--------------------
Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mili
Shipmate
# 3254
|
Posted
I think a modern adaption of 'A High Wind in Jamaica' would be interesting. I never heard of this book until this week. I'm currently reading "The Diary of a Provincial Lady" and the book is referenced. I haven't read the novel yet, but listened to a radio play of it online and although there was a film adaption in the 1960s I think a new one could really look into themes of colonialism, gender, third culture children, violence etc. Basically it's a 1930s novel set in the the 19th century just after slavery has been abolished in Jamaica. A British and a Creole family decide to send their children by ship to England after too many natural disasters, but en route the children are kidnapped by pirates. The main character is a 10 year old girl called Emily and a major plot point is an act of violence no one would expect of a girl her age and the consequences. The story also involves sexual abuse or possible statutory rape of another female character so that would need to be dealt with sensitively, but I think it would be really interesting to see how modern film makers approached the story.
Posts: 1015 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
|
Posted
Mili--
The 1965 film is good, though sometimes very disturbing. I didn't realize it was that old, though. I would've guessed maybe the '80s. Haven't read the book.
--------------------
Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Aravis
Shipmate
# 13824
|
Posted
I know the book pretty well. I haven't seen any of the film versions.
The main problem I foresee is that LOTF isn't just about boys becoming violent when left to their own devices; it includes tribalistic instincts, class divisions, planning versus instant gratification, and isolation of victims. How those themes play out would not easily translate to an all-girl group. Girls at that age (IMHO) operate very differently from boys with the way they divide into groups. It might well end with violence but there would be a lot more discussion than the boys had, and a lot more factions, and the victims would probably be pawns of the factions and less isolated.
It sounds an interesting project but I'm not sure I want to see it
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
But it wouldn't be meeting Golding's object of portraying society writ small; because our society writ small would have to have include little boys as well as little girls, because we live in a mixed society.
Golding isn't just portraying society writ small. He's portraying society simplified and with some elements left out. Most notably he's portraying a society that has no established authority to keep order. And the bare fact that nobody is courting or raising children makes a difference even if you restrict the society to the male public.
A valid point well put.
Wouldn't it be a shame if this thread turns out to be more interesting than the proposed movie!!
--------------------
Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Eirenist
Shipmate
# 13343
|
Posted
Will there be an LGBTGI version next, I wonder?
--------------------
'I think I think, therefore I think I am'
Posts: 486 | From: Darkest Metroland | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
|
Posted
The trouble is, an earnest recreation of the original might very well be mega-boring. After all, Golding was a creative genius, who was probably not in control of his own material.
It might take another genius to produce an interesting female version, something like Jean Rhys and her prequel to Jane Eyre.
I also thought that Bergman could do something interesting, dark, full of suspicion and jealousy and hatred, but he's dead.
Also Angela Carter, but she's dead. Oh well, we await another maverick.
--------------------
I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
|
Posted
With everything so retro these days, I don't think Hollywood would be interested in a maverick if one jumped and bite it on the backside.
There does seem to be a firm female viewing market for situations where other females are the victims of violence, usually with the male as the perpetrator. Not sure if this remake will push buttons on that score.
Wasn't Lord of the Flies a post Holocaust thought experiment? Something where Golding himself struggled to come to terms with those awful atrocities and set out to explore the origins of human evil.
--------------------
Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eirenist:
Will there be an LGBTGI version next, I wonder?
I doubt it - or rather, I would have grave reservations about such a project. It seems to me that part of the force of Flies is that sex never intrudes. These are angelic innocent children - most of them actually choirboys, the sort that Granny likes to watch at Christmas. And yet, even inside such purity, terrible evil is present. If the participants were old enough to be sexually aware the story would be a lot less shocking.
--------------------
Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
|
Posted
LOTF does rather blow out the sentimental notion of being born good and having the World make us bad.
--------------------
Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
What a bizarre concept. Born positively morally developed?!
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
|
Posted
Born with an urgent need for food, warmth and security. Grow and develop to seek the very same things but in a vastly more complex manner.
--------------------
Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
|
Posted
Aye, nothing good or bad about it.
--------------------
Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
LOTF does rather blow out the sentimental notion of being born good and having the World make us bad.
That is its premise. It is not a proof. And it is incomplete even there. Children are not blank slates at the ages in the book, they are already informed by the "World".
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
|
Posted
Fictional novels can't be about proving anything. Having already got Golding wrong about the boys vs girls thing, perhaps I should be more hesitant to opine about what Golding intended regarding society.
I've always read it as a comment on human nature rather than society. The point being that humans have violent impulses that are restrained by societies and civilizing orders.
If Golding thought that the book wouldn't work with girls it would be interesting to think about why. It is certainly empirically true that female violence is less frequent than male violence, but not that it is negligible or near-absent. Original sin (which I'd read into Golding's view before) is surely applicable across gender, but perhaps the expression changes.
So a female LOTF would need to focus on the differing expression to be contributory.
--------------------
mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
If Golding thought that the book wouldn't work with girls it would be interesting to think about why.
Yes, his "women are superior" comment doesn't necessarily mean what it says.
quote:
It is certainly empirically true that female violence is less frequent than male violence, but not that it is negligible or near-absent. Original sin (which I'd read into Golding's view before) is surely applicable across gender, but perhaps the expression changes.
So a female LOTF would need to focus on the differing expression to be contributory.
It is well possible that the differences in violence are cultural, rather than inherent. But we are products of our culture, even at the ages depicted. So, unless you believe people will be as savage as possible, there are multiple factors which change the depiction other than biological sex. Unless the remake changes only that. e.g same time period as the original.
--------------------
I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Printer-friendly view
