How Real Are We Going To Get?

In space, everyone can hear you scream about representation.

SOMEHOW, this is about Timothée

Chalamet.

Or more specifically, the alleged omissions on the pa of director Denis Villeneuve in his filmic presentation of Frank Herbe ’s Dune, one of sci-fi’s most sacrosanct IPs, in which Chalamet is the leading man and messiah. According to several critics, this casting choice, along with others, has robbed Middle Eastern and No h African (MENA) actors of roles in what is the current highest-grossing film of the year, when the legendarium of Dune is very obviously inspired by the religio-cultural mores of both territories.

While Dune has been adapted for the screen multiple times — a notable and disastrous example being David Lynch’s 1984 a empt, which Roger Ebe regarded as an “ugly, unstructured, pointless excursion into the murkier realms of one of the most confusing screenplays of all time” — the louder and more pressing demands for representation as they pe ain to the filmic world of Dune only su aced as a mainstream concern a er Villeneuve’s Dune: Pa One, in 2021.

Every debate has a comment section, these days. So I took the plunge into that deep, dark pool and resu aced with the two most popular and conflicting views in tow: 1) That real-world representation isn’t necessary in a work of fiction, especially if it’s set in space and 2) Real-world representation is absolutely paramount in works of fiction whose lore is undeniably inspired by the real world. Accentuating the divide is the widely held belief on both sides that we’re in the middle of a culture war fought by those who are woke and those who are wilfully asleep.

As a fan of Dune (Herbe ’s and Villeneuve’s), of directors having the a istic license to build the worlds they’re enlisted to build and of due justice being done to peoples and cultures that are source material for fictional products, I have to say that I am frustratingly caught in the middle.

Spurred by the feeling that I needed to take a stand, I had several conversations with people intimately familiar with the films and the IRL issues that now a end to them. They didn’t help me towards a definitive this-or-that position — but they did make three things clear: 1) That the only common ground shared by both groups is that they are right and the other is wholly wrong 2) That the furore doesn’t detract from how powe ully evocative, visually magnificent and consummately arresting and transpo ive Villeneuve’s Dune is and 3) That his Dune is proof that he cares deeply, richly and urgently about every inch of the world that Herbe imagined and brought to life. Of those things, I am ce ain.

This whole experience has made me think ever more critically about the inner processes that underpin the taking of a stand, of the value of these stands, especially when they manifest mostly on the shaky podium of a social media post’s comments section and of the expectations with which whoever considers themselves polite society goes into the cinema.

For now, I stand in the middle of the vast dese , waiting for Shai-Hulud to come with some perspective.