Atwood on the value of Hollywood’s gender-swapping reboots
A proposed film remake of “Lord of the Flies” that would feature girls instead of boys has piqued Margaret Atwood’s interest.
The Canadian author says the film would have to acknowledge the different ways girls and boys relate, but she suggested it wouldn’t be hard to find themes that a modern-day audience could relate to.
“You hear a lot about bullying in school — is it different? It’s certainly amplified with smartphones and social media. But is it essentially different?” said Atwood, riding high from a critically acclaimed TV adaptation of her 1985 book “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which just scored eight Emmy Awards.
The CanLit legend mused on the possibility of a genderswapped “Lord of the Flies” at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, where diversity issues loomed large amid an especially female-weighted slate.
Word came last month that Warner Bros. plans to tackle a new version of the iconic William Golding novel. The reboot would follow several gender-swapping overhauls in Hollywood, including the recent “Ghostbusters” remake.
Upcoming projects include the “Ocean’s Eleven” spinoff “Ocean’s Eight” with Sandra Bullock and Rihanna, and a female-centred “Splash” in which Channing Tatum plays a merman who falls in love with a woman, played by Jillian Bell.
“Westworld” star Evan Rachel Wood said such experiments can be more than just headline-grabbing gimmicks and actually result in daring cinema.
“I’m all about gender-swapping, not even just to make a point or take a stance but because I think it’s interesting,” said Wood, at TIFF with the Canadian film “A Worthy Companion.”
“It’s interesting storytelling and it’s a challenge for the filmmakers and for the actors. I think it’s just a cool thing to experiment with.” Some time has passed since the big screen touched “Lord of the Flies,” the 1954 novel centred on a group of boys stranded on an island who descend into savagery as they wait for rescue.
Peter Brook brought it to the big screen in 1963, and Harry Hook directed a 1990 version starring Balthazar Getty. The new genderflipped incarnation would be written and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, whose past films include “What Maisie Knew” and “Bee Season.”
When word of an all-female film emerged in August, critics immediately took to social media to question the plan, many of them dismissing the possibility that a story about male aggression could be cast with girls.
Others took issue with the project being helmed by two white men.
Atwood and screenwriter Sarah Polley, who were at TIFF with their TV adaptation of Atwood’s book “Alias Grace,” found the idea intriguing.
“It’s worth exploring but I think people have to recognize that gangs of little girls and gangs of little boys do behave differently,” said Atwood, whose novel “Cat’s Eye” traced the cruelties of a gang of schoolgirls. “I was a camp counsellor with both.
“The little boys would form hierarchies based on the biggest, the strongest, the most accomplished at some things, which (was) baseball cards. And they would arrange themselves in that period and it would be pretty stable. Like, it wouldn’t change much.
“Whereas the little girls of the same age, it was like the Byzantine court. You couldn’t tell why Miss Popularity was popular. She could be pulled down at any minute, for some reason it was not clear.”
Talk of greater gender diversity was top of mind at TIFF this year, which boasted an especially strong slate of female-directed and actress-driven stories.