Empire Australasia — December 2017

Clockwise from above:
Chin chin! Gloria
(Annette Bening) and
Peter (Jamie Bell) enjoy
the craic; Julie Walters
plays Bella, Peter’s mum;
The couple share a
precious moment; Bell in
discussion with director
Paul McGuigan on set.

What’s the story? Hollywood’s making an

all-female version of Lord Of The Flies, with What

Maisie Knew screenwriter-directors Scott McGehee

and David Siegel bringing it to the screen.

But why is that a big deal? There are already

women in Lord Of The Flies. Love Galadriel. No,

that’s Lord Of The Rings.

Ah, right. What’s this about? It’s William Golding’s

1954 Nobel-winning novel that sees a group of

British schoolboys crash-land on an uninhabited

island in the Pacifi c and slowly turn into savages.

The one we had to read at school with Piggy

in it? Exactly.

Wait, isn’t the story about masculinity run

amok? Will that even work with female

characters? Golding certainly wouldn’t have

thought so. He often stated that his novel

featured boys for a reason — because girls

wouldn’t sink to the same levels of savagery

as Ralph and co.

And the internet is angry, is it? When is it

not? But it has a point here. There’s a gender

imbalance in Hollywood, but this feels like

a tokenistic way to address it, not helped by

the fact that it’s being driven by men.

So why is it happening? With gender fl ips in

vogue in Hollywood — see: Ghostbusters and the

new Ocean’s movie — the new team claim to have

found a female spin to apply to the novel’s

primitive behaviour and bullying cliques.

Mean Girls on an atoll? Actually, we could get on

board with that. What’s Tina Fey’s number?

Everything you need to

know about ‘the female

Lord Of The Flies’ uproar

WORDS IAN FREER