Androgyny is not feminist. I’m not sure how interested I am in “feminism” per se, but I am interested in women being portrayed accurately, deeply, and well. I am interested in us being given the full scope of our lives and our personhoods. Dune the novel did a not-terrible job of writing women as fully human (and just as awful as the men). Dune the latest movie? I’m not sure.

If you haven’t seen the newest versions of Dune (both films) and/or read the book: SPOILER ALERTS. All the spoilers. I couldn’t possibly write this without spoiling the heck out of everything.

In both the book and the movie, Lady Jessica is fully human (and fully woman). She’s both a loving concubine and part of a group devoted to manipulating society as a whole. She’s a fighter, deadly in her own right. She’s a mother. If I were defining “feminism” as “women are to be respected and counted as fully human” Lady Jessica would be feminist. Lady Jessica was a concubine, and the film (okay, the second film) paints her as almost antagonistic. Her womanly arts are used to manipulate, to create danger.

But Chani. Oh Chani. In the books you were fighter, lover, guide, concubine, mother, grief-stricken… and in the second film, you’re a tomboy. Androgyny is not feminist. I feel terribly for Zendaya. I have no idea if she can really act or not, but she had the chance to bring something Oscar worthy, and they stole it, leaving her to act the same character she always does. Wise mouthed, young and prickly. Great. That would be the first part of her character… accurate. But next?

Oh dear girl. They didn’t let you love your man and bear his child (ignoring the fact that a young woman’s duty is to court death in childbed in a society with that kind of death rate). They didn’t let you keep your chin up while your eyes spoke pain. They didn’t let Paul pledge his body to you even as he took the emperor’s daughter as spoil and see both women’s eyes flinch as they came to terms with the ugly reality of the day. No. You ran in anger. What? As if any member of your society would have such poor control of her emotions. Your tribe bleeds their last breaths without a whimper and YOU run off because you’re mad at your boyfriend? Ridiculous.

Chani – and the actress who played her – were done *wrong*. Fremen weren’t equal. They were survivors. And survivors in desperation don’t have time for androgyny. Men are needed to do man things, and women are needed to do women things. Those things are equally important, equally needed. The women in Dune weren’t weaklings. They weren’t soft. They weren’t lazy. They weren’t one-dimensional. Androgyny isn’t feminist. Repeat after me, please. The women of the Fremen had power. Influence. My head hurts.

Let’s not even get into the whole, “what was the point of the Kwisatz Haderach if he didn’t have the power that he had in the books” (and in the 80s film). There was a reason that Paul was feared after he took the water of life. -headdesk- He had power to stop the flow of space traffic. Now I know why I heard someone who had seen neither the previous films or read the books wondering, “if they had the boom tech earlier, why didn’t they use it”? Because the nukes weren’t the most powerful weapon in that universe, Paul was.

Visually, this movie was stunning. I loved? the treatment of the Harkonnens. They’re dark, but they were *darker* in the book. I’m mystified by the introduction of the Sardaukar with that whole intense visual (not in the books) and then the treatment of them as mere shock troops in the second film. The emperor and his daughter and their relationship was absurd. (The daughter was fine, but not at all true to the books). Hopping back to Lady Jessica, that was the longest pregnancy in the history of the world. (Did we not want to have a creepy child running around? Why did the time have to be so shortened? What was the point of that? Alia was one of my favorite characters in the book and in the 80’s film). WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WEIRDING WAY OF BATTLE? Paul brought something to the Fremen… -headdesk- (I’m starting to get bruised).

Film #1 was better than Film #2. It had more heart, and all the visuals. Film #2 left us without much of what made Dune something more than just another space adventure. It had very, very little of the magic (literalish) of the novel/first book. Yes, yes, cut and interpret. Fine. But you cut the important bits out. We could have done with a few less explosions maybe if we were short on time? Who went to this for explosions? We went there to have our jaws dropped.

Guys. You stuck the heroine in her adolescence forever. You made the maternal suspicious and/or weak. You think that’s “feminism” and by today’s standards, it probably is. Because Lord knows women can’t be WOMEN and still be powerful, dark, beautiful, good, evil, or whole. And we can never be mothers and any of those things. Motherhood is the end of life, not part of it. Androgyny isn’t feminist. Leaving the women just as they were written, sixty years ago, now that would have been a much better stab at feminism.

But what do I know… I only have a degree in it.