A second film adaptation of part of the six-book series “Dune” by Frank Herbert is scheduled for release in October this year under the directorship of Denis Villeneuve. The new adaptation includes more actors of color than its predecessor. Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures/Telegram & Gazette via TNS
A second film adaptation of part of the six-book series “Dune” by Frank Herbert is scheduled for release in October this year under the directorship of Denis Villeneuve — director of films such as “Arrival” and “Blade Runner 2049.” The new adaptation includes more actors of color than its predecessor, the universally negatively reviewed 1984 “Dune,” written and directed by David Lynch. However, whether or not the issues within “Dune” can be resolved by merely including actors of color in the adaptation is another issue entirely. The truth is, we don’t really need another futuristic “Dune” adaptation right now. What we really need is a dramatic rethinking and retelling of the story.
“Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely; absolute power attracts the corruptible.” (“Dune”)
Articles and essays have dealt with the anti-colonial nature of “Dune,” its problematic use of eugenics, white saviorism and Orientalist tropes. But we will not resolve any of these issues with another film adaptation. The premise of the story is that, many years into the future, House Atreides assumes power of a “spice”-rich planet — Arakkis — over a crypto Arab people called the Fremen but is attacked by rival House Harkonnen, supported by the galactic emperor. The white heir to House Atreides, Paul, survives and is also the prophesied messiah (Muad’Dib) for the Fremen. He wages war against the Harkonnen, eventually defeating them and the emperor with the help of the Fremen. He then becomes the next ruler of the universe. But as he sees into the future, Paul realizes his actions will create a galactic “jihad” which will kill billions of people. This moment of reflection is meant to complicate his white saviorism.
Paul Atreides’ role as a white savior cannot be solved so simply. “Dune” cannot be truly anti-colonial because it still replicates Western ideas about power. Paul supposedly “frees” the Fremen from galactic colonial rule, but “Dune” really places the Fremen into a colonial binary. They are either colonized, incapable and unorganized actors without agency or bloodthirsty savages in an out-of-control religious war. Centering a story on anti-colonial rebellion does not make it anti-colonial if the indigenous characters largely adhere to dangerous tropes. Paul is a reformed colonial ruler and white savior who merely seeks the power to create his own larger empire. Any effective anti-colonial take on “Dune” would have to be a response to Herbert, which means not directly adapting “Dune” but dramatically retelling it.
Frank Herbert claimed in 1980 that “Dune” shows that humans with unlimited power will inevitably make mistakes, but the (super)human in question is white. Herbert wants to show how white, Western modes of power are inherently broken, but he cannot imagine anything other than whiteness as the dominant mode of power. The insistence that good intentions absolve heinous actions is not acceptable; it is apologist. We must understand that an unaltered “Dune” will merely replicate the same racial systems of our current predicament and limit its characters to the same fates.
The importance of eugenics in “Dune” is another irreparable element that needs to be rethought or abandoned. Here “Dune” is not alone — other franchises such as “Star Wars” have also experienced the pitfalls of eugenics in the midichlorians and the Skywalker/Palpatine bloodlines. Paul Atreides is the product of selective breeding; he is the Kwisatz Haderach, or a super-being, who is destined to control the entire universe. The fact that we continue to cast white, male actors as Paul Atreides is troubling. We cannot ignore the atrocities — forced sterilizations and abortions of women of color, the mass murder of Jewish people, gay people, people with disabilities, etc. — committed in the name of eugenics. Eugenics is a racist and ableist theory, and it is still used in the U.S. by white supremacists, fascists and the far-right. Eugenics is not an ethical plot device; it never was.
“He who controls the spice controls the universe.” (“Dune”)
Herbert claimed he was inspired to write “Dune” in Oregon while studying destructive waves of sand, but he was writing during the Sahelian droughts of the 1960s–80s, when myths about “desertification” blamed local people instead of global climate changes. In the “Dune” universe the “spice” allows for space travel, but the Fremen are unable to use it on their own. These environmental undercurrents point to neo-colonialist ideas about the preservation of the natural world. Paul, the environmental shepherd, is the only one who can save the sandworms who produce the “spice.” Environmental conservation language has long been used by colonial powers, and the informal empires that came after them, to justify foreign interventionism in the Global South. This parallels ideas about conservation today.
Although Herbert was great at conceiving how white, Western systems of power are inherently flawed, he was not able to imagine any better alternative. A way to move beyond the issues within a traditional “Dune”adaptation would be to more seriously consider Afrofuturism. A more deeply thought retelling of “Dune” could benefit from exploring the Fremen’s long-standing indigenous engagement with the science of their own natural world — what values did they place on the “spice” and why? How did they imagine their own futures and in what ways had they been attempting their own liberations?
“Dune” in its entirety need not be forsaken; we must imagine new ways to remake it. The 2020 TV series “Lovecraft Country” is a great example of how to use classic sci-fi stories to make meaningful anti-racist ones. “Lovecraft Country” was not an adaptation of Lovecraft’s work; it is a strong response to Lovecraft. Sci-fi writers of the future would do well to ask Afrofuturist questions about the kinds of writing they produce: Who benefits from future technologies in the worlds we imagine? Who builds these possible futures and to what end are these futures constrained by current power structures? The real questions for the 2021 version of “Dune”are Will we ever truly commit to holding sci-fi novels accountable for the racial environments they grew out of and the types of worlds that they create? Or will we continue to remake fantasy worlds in our own fragmented image?
Katherine (Hyun-Joo) Everett, née Mooney, is a Ph.D. candidate of African history at the Ohio State University and has published an essay in Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective. Follow her on Twitter: @hyun_joo_kim
