Hello, folks, Welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Today we are
talking about June Part two, and I'm so happy to say this is probably
gonna be the first of a number of episodes we're doing about this movie and
story and all the many aspects to it. And I can't think of anyone
better to kick off our conversations with than Professor Matthew Kapell. As we have
learned by the many times Matthew has been on this podcast, Professor Capell is
an expert in anthropology, mythology, basically anything athology. We seem to be
able to find some expertise from the good Professor, and as it seems that
your campus is one of the few in this country that's not currently being torn
apart by protesters, go protesters, Netphew, I'm so glad to have you
here. Oh, thank you, Matthew. It's really nice to be here.
This is an incredibly important book and I think a great so I'm kind
of excited. Awesome, awesome. Well, and so let me start just
by saying maybe the again, Well, let me start just by asking before
we even talk about the movie. As I know you have read this book,
and I think the book series many many times, tell me more about
your your why you love this book, why you think it's so important.
So sometimes you think books are really important because of where they fall in your
own life. I would say, and I first read Dum when I was
in sixth grade and probably didn't understand a word of it. It was very
much over my head. And every single time I've read it since then,
I've been more knowledgeable about Islam. And every single time I've read it since
then, I've been more aware of how much Islam is in this book,
and it makes it just an amazingly good book. To me. It's it's
and it manages to pull it off quite well, even though it more or
less plagiarizes a number of sources. I think it's an utterly fantastic novel and
also the same novel that has my I think I'm going to say all time
favorite final line of my novel. So so it means a lot to me.
I can see that. I can see that well, and that's great
because you know, with superherothics now we're trying to move away from just doing
like reviews and overall views and really trying to dig down on specific topics,
and with this one, we're gonna be digging down on a couple of different
directions with with this movie and this book, and I imagine that every episode
we're gonna, you know, cover some of the same ground. But Matthew,
I especially wanted to get you on because, like I know that you
have put so much thought into and we had so many great discussions about religion,
about mythology, about destiny and the way those things play out, and
that is obviously a huge part of this movie and this story, and at
a point that I think often gets you know, there's a lot of controversy,
not even controversy, but a lot of a discussion about what does Robert
mean and how does the movie convey it and all that kind of stuff.
So let me just start by for those who have not been lucky enough to
hear you before, can you just give like the thirty second you know your
background in questions of mythology and religion and all that sort of thing. Certainly
so. My name is Matthew Cappell. I'm an anthropologist and a historian.
My PhD is in American studies, though and the area I've studied mostly from
myth is contemporary stories. My PhD work, which can get published is about
the myth of the frontier in the nineteen sixties, so it's about NASA and
Vietnam and Star Trek so very much. I'm a historian, and when I
look at June, I think history as much as mythology. But I've looked
at everything from Star Trek and Star Wars as myth to Batman as myth,
and thinking about the way we use myth to create meaning in our lives is
the area I'm mostly interested. Yeah, And I think that's so interesting because
I think that one of the key elements of this book and something of the
second part of the movie really drives home, is that not only is it
like I think, a lot of times you get a story where there just
is existing mythology and the characters are figuring out how they respond to that.
This one, though, is going a lot deeper, because you know,
one of the central themes is okay, but where is mythology? You know,
instead of just saying like, oh, you know, the Chosen One
will come or whatever it is, there's a real discussion over some of the
characters in this book fully believe and in the movie fully believe in prophecy.
Some of them are aware that prophecy and mythology were not just you know,
naturally occurring, but were very intentionally seated in some ways, and some characters
therefore want to act on it, and some characters are very hesitant about that.
How do you feel about this kind of book taking that like second step
into these questions. I think that's name strength of the book. We are
really good in our culture, and we have been for more than a century
at doing savior narratives, and this is because of the broad influence of Christianity
and this book. Well, adhre's to a quote from Frank Herbert that he
makes much later, which is I wanted people to be afraid of charismatic leaders.
And I think that's exactly what both films are about a charismatic leader becoming
charismatic and becoming not the good guy as a result. And it does a
great job in discussing that. At the same time, it does a great
job at discussing from almost a Marxian perspective, how myth is a tool used
to control people. And if you're I would say, here's a quote for
my PhD. The Unexamined myth is not worth believing. M say more about
that we all have myths. Let's define myth is an ideology, a point
of view, and a story, so an ideology and narrative form. And
if we don't think about them, if we just accept them, suddenly we
are just accepting all of the things that myth reinforces, like gender roles,
like class systems, like notions of good police forces as being heroic in their
activities even when they break the rules. And when we think about myth,
think about stories that give us points of view, we have to think about
what that means to us, or we don't change anything in our contemporary society.
Considering how many people are camping out on campuses right now, trying to
change things in our contemporary society is very much about myth. Yeah, you
know, I think that makes a ton of sense. And you know,
one of the things that I've often thought about on it kept striking me how
incredibly relevant this book is today and this movie is today. And to me,
that's one of the best things I can say about a lot of great
science fiction. And you know, I think, like a lot of books
from its time, there are parts of it that haven't aged as well,
and that I think that the movie did a much better job of updating.
And we'll talk about more of that in a different episode, but you know,
just the way that the book shows that the Harconins are, you know,
horrible and terrible, pretty homophobic and fat shaming, and they kind of
make it a lot better, I think, in the movies, but but
still just the like you know, if you think about all of the myths
that are today being challenged, the myths about what does gender mean, and
the myths about you know, what is America and was America great in the
past or can it be great in the future. I know I've spoken with
a lot of my Jewish relatives who were you know, people who were born
and came of age in the forties and or fifties, and they learned the
myth of Israel. It's this wonderful, shining beacon. And maybe there was
a lot of truth to it at the time, maybe there wasn't, but
there certainly is a lot of people wrestling with it now. And our whole
country I think is wrestling now with how do we see you know, brave
little Israel and things like that, And I think the way that happens all
over the place. You know. I love how you point out, like
the myths of Star Trek and things like that. You know, every time
you get a character who's cast in a new way, you know, there's
the myth of well, but wait, Star Trek is supposed to always have
been this, whether it's it was always the most liberal thing in the world,
and so we can't critique it. Or no, it was always all
about straight white men, and so why are all these women running around or
stuff like that. I completely agree. And so here's where we stand in
America right now, where in the middle some social upheople that might change the
outcome of an election pretty soon. And most of that social upheople is revolving
around the way we think of Israel and Palestine and human rights and the inalienable
human rights and what a shining city on I know, actually means. And
these are things that need to be examined. My undergraduate degree is from the
University of Michigan at Dearborn. In Dearborn, Michigan, which is the most
Arab American city in the United States. It is incredibly diverse in its Arab
population, but it is full of Arabs and Palestinians and Egyptians and some Persians
very soon a lot of Shia too. And the University of Michigan Dearborn is
not having protests right now because because they don't feel they need to. Everybody
knows what they think. Yeah, so well, and and I probably,
I promise we'll get back to Dune in a second. I just want to
add one more thing that I think, certainly I am going through, and
I think a lot of other people who are the children of people who were
in college and the sixties are going through. I grew up with the mythology
of the sixties, you know, and of you know. I know my
mother was at Columbia the last time they had protests like this, and she
always told me, you know, and growing up, I remember saying to
her like, oh, you know, I wish I was living through a
time like that, and she'd be like, you know, be careful.
It's not as pretty as it's often made out to be, you know,
the kind of wonder yearsifacation of that era. And I think a lot of
us today are like, oh, yeah, no, this is this is
much uglier. All right. Well, getting back to the book, then,
let's talk about what is the role of mythology in shaping a people,
because I think one of the things that is really central to this book and
especially to part two of the movie, is the role that mythology plays for
the Fremen in like their their identity of themselves and of course all the ways
they react to Paul and Jessica. We'll get it to the specifics, but
just talk a little bit in general, like what is it that mythology does
in terms of you know, national or group or whatever it is self identity.
Well, what mythology does is it gives you a system of shared stories
that provide me to your group, that the group that you're part of.
So let's make it simple. New York Jets fans have a mythology, and
that mythology makes them New York Jets fans. And when they meet other New
York Jets fans, they have that shared mythology which gives them much shared vocabulary,
which gives them an instant friendship and camaraderie. And that's what myth does.
That is exactly the purpose of myth and exactly the power. Yeah,
and I don't know anything about football, but the New York Jets too.
They're really bad, right, Yes, And he's pointing out they're pointing out
that I am a New York Jets fan, and that's part of the conversation
here. But I think that's really important. And I also think that that's
actually a great way to get to an essential thing is here, is that
you don't all have to agree on the myth. The fact is, if
I meet a New York Jets fan and we start talking, you know,
we might start talking about was you know, name the best quarterback we've ever
had? Probably, but some people might disagree. We might start talking about
was Rex Ryan a good coach? I happen to think he really was?
Other people have different views, or how do we remember Mark Sanchez? And
the fact is many people may disagree with each other. But if I start
talking to someone who's not a Mets uh a Jets fan, like if I
ask you, Professor Copell, what is your opinion on Mark Sanchez? You
and I are gonna be able to engage on that. And I'm guessing you
know, and so yeah, I think that that's a really key idea,
is that we can share a mythology. Ere I we don't always agree on
it. Let's put it in explicitly religious terms. I don't know Mark Sanchez
is, by the way, but explicitly religious terms. And I don't mean
to be insulting of religion. I think of religion as a subset of myth.
There's lots of Christians who disagree with the exact nature with each other about
the exact nature of the Trinity. This doesn't mean they're not Christians. It
means they have different interpretations of what the Trinity is and how it worked and
what it's about. That discussion of what the myth does and why it's important
that debate about what the Trinity is amongst Christians is a way that myth reinforces
the broader scope of Christianity. It gives people who are Christians a thing to
discuss, the same way people who are Jets fans can discuss the only name
in Jets history I know to day and have an opinion. Yeah, and
you know, there's been a huge point in most of world history in which
religious differences lead to death and destruction, But quite often it's just like casual
debate and proofs that you're both in the same group, and it's an in
group outgroup kind of thing, like, I think that's so true. You
know, many wars have been fought over literally, you know, is the
Trinity this, or is the Trinity that? Or is you know, who
is the right? Who is the true last prophet in Islam, or or
any of these things. At the same time, today United Methodist Church,
one of the largest of the global Protestant churches, is having their annual meeting
and and they're fighting really hard to find a way to acknowledge that they fundamentally
disagree on some topics, but to still hold themselves in communion with each other
because that's important to them. So, pulling all this back to Dune,
what is the role of methodlogy for the Fremen people. I'm going to answer
that, and especially in terms of let's let's let's focus on how it's expressed
in the movie. I'm going to step back from that just slightly. In
the beginning of my answer, So mentioned that one of the things you discussed
in a previous episode I think with your brother in law was the Muslim influence
in June and how many of the words in the in the films and the
book are of Arabic origin, and that is all correct. But one of
the other places that June pulled from really in a way that most people had
who noticed think it was plagiarized, but most people don't really pay attention to
is a book that came out in nineteen sixty called The Sabers of Paradise,
which was by a British travel writer named Leslie Branch And I want to call
it a history, and it's a history of the Chechen wars of independence in
the middle of the nineteenth century against the Russians. It is a history of
the Imam Chamil fighting Bizarist Russia in the middle for Chechen and Muslim Chechen independence,
and the way the war was constructed was along the lines of Muslim mythology.
And the book itself is the plot of Doom. I mean it has
direct quotes from the book are in June. In June somewhere it says wisdom
comes from the cities, and Polish comes from the cities, and wisdom from
the desert. And then savors of Paradise it says Polish comes from the cities
and wisdom from the mountains. I mean, it's like that direct They have
the exact same quotes leading into the discussion of Awadziv versus Chamil, and all
of the words that they use that aren't Arabic are Chechen words. The names
of their their knives are kinjohal. That's a Catchen Chechen kind of knife that
that was worn. Shamil calls bizarre in Russia, not the bizarre, tells
him to patashap the the definition of a regional governor to the Chechen's was a
syridar, and technically the title of the baron harcone and is syridar baron.
I mean, this book is just utterly stolen from and I will I will
put it this directly. There is a moment when Shamil, this great Muslim
leader who's building on a Muslim mythology of what it means to rebel against non
Muslims, says quite Branch says quite clearly to understand to begin writing about Shamil,
who says, we must first place him in his time, the first
half of the nineteenth century, and his place the mountains. The beginning of
the book Dune starts to begin your study of the life of Muad Dib,
then take care to first place him in his time born in the fifty seventh
year of the Padisha Emperor on the fourth, and then take most special care
to that you locate Muad Dib in his place to planet Arakis. It's basically
the same quote. And so when we talk about the mythology that's inherent in
June, and I can go on and on about all of the things that
are pulled from this book that end up in Dune and are in the movies.
It's not an Arab mythology. It's a Chechen and Dagistani mythology, which
is different than Arab mythology. And too many people spend a lot of time
going, you know, this is about the lesn al Kayev, which it's
not really a term, and in Arabic Islam it's a Persia Islam. In
fact, it was used to describe a poet from Persia. So the Arab
influencers are great, but they're not really as central as people keep making out.
And the Chechen mythology is very specific. The fight against the outsiders is
a fight against the outsiders who don't share your religion, and in order to
win you must kill them all the the the Chechens who fought in this this
revolution that I think centually and were completely destroyed by it. Though the Chechens
still talk about it. It's still part of their national mythology. They they
add knife fights amongst each other all the time, and exactly the way they
happen in Dune. In fact, in the novel Dune, those those those
family fights are called canley, which is a Chechen word for fights among clans
that last three or four generations. And so this this is an essential mythology
to the Chechens that works this way, the fight against the outside other must
be a fight for our religion, thus making this fight a jihad or in
the words of the film, which I think was a pretty good change,
a cruse, and that mythology works in doing really really well because it's not
precisely a white savior narrative. It's important to remember that Parkhead has a finished
name and Tradees, just to be clear on its origin, is a Greek
name. Paul is described as being olive scanned up number of times. The
name Trades is derived from the the Greek name Atrius, who is the father
of Agamemnon in the Iliad, and all of Atrius's descendants are known as a
trade Day. And I should say in later books they make clear that Leto
it is because all of this is people from Earth, and it's made clear
that Leto that the Holy Treats line is thought to be direct descendant of Agamemnon
in Greece, however many thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago. Yeah,
yeah, makes a quick showing in the book God Emperor d and is
just confused by what's going on, and kind of of course, yes,
let me let me interrupt you there, because I can see where you're going
with other things. But there's so much I want to talk of it here
already. And I will say I knew none of that going in, and
I'm so glad you brought it up. I think it's so interesting that it's
never talked about, especially because I think this is important because I think some
people in me listening and thinking a minute, But isn't science fiction always,
like, are often retelling of current situations or you know, historical situations in
a new setting. And I think that is true, and I think that
for example, you know, many science fiction books are very clearly the Vietnam
War but in space, or the Iraq War in space, or what's happening
now in Space, and I think that would definitely not be thought of as
plagiarism. That's just part of what science fiction does. But it's it's sort
of It would be more like if someone did a We're gonna tell Vietnam in
Space, but this Vietnam history book someone wrote, We're just gonna steal exact
lines from it, and that's where the plagiar is exactly. The Vietnam and
spacebook is the Forever War. But Jill Holdeman, which is which is also
in my PhD work, and it is an amazing novel. Right now,
we have the Foundation series on the Apple TV. It's really bad, but
that was based on the hoverse and fall of the Roman Empire. There's some
way this kind of stuff usually works. I don't when I say I think
Herbert plagiarized, I don't think he plagiarized, but not in a a truly
horrendous way. Because when you're basing a narrative on the resent fall of the
Roman Empire, which is a mythic structure, most of your readers know what
the hell you're talking about. In this case, June readers didn't know anything
about this history, so just pulling the lines actually make the lines read more
true, and he admitted it. So I don't think I don't think it's
I don't think it's a negative form mode plagiarism in the way I would normally
take somebody out to shoot them for plagiarizing seriously, But you know, I
but it is lines for Lyne quite often. There are poems in both books
that are almost identical. It's kind of weird listeners, if you know.
And I want to get lost in this question, but like, I'm gonna
do some research myself to see, like, you know, did Herbert say
like, oh, yeah, you should buy this other book? You know,
like that's where I got all this from. Let's go back though,
to the Fremen people themselves then, so what do you see as the role
that mythology is playing for them in this movie? So let's talk about the
Fremen religion and how it derives from this book The Sabers of Paradise in many
ways but not completely. The Fremen religion is theoretically called zen Sunni, and
well, a lot of the religions in Doune are glomerations of existing religions on
Earth today. So there's these zen Sunni wanderers. Somil and the Sabers of
Paradise is a Sufi, not a Sunni, And then that's a different kind
of Islam, but it's a more mystical one, in the way that Zen
is a more mystical version of Buddhism. So it works pretty well. And
in the United States we tend to think of Sunni Islam as the more t
additional form of Islam, and Shia Islam is not. But that's a very
orientalist way to put it. And Sunni Islam is a little bit more insular,
I would say, and the freemen are a lot more insular. So
the way their religion works for them is it creates a coherent sense of identity
about who they are and why their lives suck so bad, and why that's
good. Why the difficulty of living on Aracus, which is, you know,
a planet twenty years from twenty light years from Earth and hot and without
water, why that is a They say that Aracus was created to test the
faithful is a line from the book. I think it's in one of the
films. And so their religion becomes a thing that helps them build a sense
of community. What's interesting about doing two is then they split that community really
really quickly into the Southern fundamentalist and everybody else, which is not in the
book. I mean, Paul, it goes south in the book to consume
the water of life and become the Quizzzaderac. But there's no indication that those
in the South are somehow more fundamentalist than their religion. And I think it
was a genius move to change that. It was a beautiful not just because
Southern fundamentalists scared the hell out of me, but because creating complexity in the
religion of the Fremin was a good idea because it created the ability to understand
that religion in a less stereotyped way. I think that's really true. And
again this is this is gonna be the specific topic of the second episode we
do on this, but I think there's a lot of things, especially where
there are points that you can get across to writing that I think are often
harder to get across in film. And often that's like in writing, you
go deep enough into a character's and a people's you know, understanding of themselves
that it's possible to sort of be critical of them. But on film,
especially when we're not specifically told these are the bad guys. When people are
saying, here's my ideology, like we kind of have been taught where that
the movie is telling us it's okay to like these people. And I think
that the by giving the idea that it's not all the Southerners, not everyone
is like that, there are other people not only as you said, does
it allow the idea that religions are not you know, monosyllabic, not mansollabic,
monovocal, that they don't all speak with one voice, that there's controversy
internally, but it allows us the audience to sort of be like, oh,
okay, I wonder where I am in this because we're seeing two different
sides represented. Matthew has to step away from just a second, so perfect
time to do this. We're starting the conversation, but we want to hear
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the Ethical pana dot com or through the link in the show notes and now
back to our episode. Welcome back. So the last thing I was just
gonna say about why I think this Southern Northern break is so good? Is
it an Also, as I know you and I have talked about before,
religion and mythology, especially when it comes to your people and others, is
directly shaped by how much contact you're having with us. And one of the
things that is never explicitly said, but I think you can easily derive,
is that all the people who are in the South, they're not having any
contact with harconins a that means they're not being actively oppressed by the harcones.
They're in a pretty terrible state in that the world is this total desert and
they have this dream of the greenlands that once were and can be again but
they're not dealing with that active right now problem. And you know you said
at the very beginning, and I think this is a common theme in critique
of religion, especially messianic religions or religions where even it's not a messiah,
but there's an idea of like time being linear and that you can suffer now,
but that a better time is coming. That's a really good way to
get people to accept suffering. And so it makes a lot of sense that
the people in the more northern areas who aren't like, they have a lot
of these beliefs, but they're not quite so locked into them, are a
lot more willing to say, no, we're not just gonna like passively accept
Harconin rule. We're not just gonna passively accept all this. We're going to
we're going to fight back. I'm not sure how you want me to comment
to that, though, that is exactly true. But that's also the reasons
that religions that posit a paradise in the future work so well, right,
right, And that's what the Fremin hypothesize so uniquely. What's interesting compared to
existing religions and mostly the Abrahamic traditions, but the others as well. What's
interesting is they think they have to work at it, which I kind of
to wear about them. They're not just waiting for God to show up and
fix everything. They're capturing water and creating big cisterns of it so that they
can remake the face of Iracus so that it is green. What you don't
find out in the films or in the first book is that the reason it's
a desert planet is the worm and if you make it green, you get
rid of the worms, unless you get rid of the spice, which is
problematic, but I appreciate the fact that they have to actually do the work
themselves right and certainly, and I'm not getting into whole religious analysis, there's
a lot of people within Christianity at least and in some of the traditions who
do believe that. But that's another one of those power schubles. So with
a fremen though again, I think a lot of people would just say,
oh, yeah, so this myth, it just exists and we're not going
to look at the origin of it all. But of course this book and
this part of the movie really establishes this isn't something that just naturally occurred within
the Fremen talk about the Benagesterate and their role in seeding this mythology and this
religion. So we're going to have a a HBO. Sorry, they don't
exist anymore. A Max show called Sisterhood of Dune, I think, or
Dune the Sisterhood. It should be out next year. It is not based
on the Frank Herbert novels. It's based on the novels of his son and
Kevin J. Anderson. But it still looks good. Quick Aside, the
producer tweeted not too long ago a picture of all of the books he's looking
at as he's as they're writing episodes, and one of them is The Sabers
of Paradise, which I thought was kind of awesome to see in the Dune
universe. The Duniverses, people call it the Beneges. A Rich and another
group called the ben A tilly Lacs show up about ten thousand years before Dune
happens. A lot of people have been saying this is ten thousand years in
the future, but it's actually closer. The setting is closer to twenty thousand
years in the future to the year ten thousand and one ninety one is a
different calendar than ours. It's ten thousand years after the Butlerian Jihad and the
founding of the Space and Guild, and the Butlerian Jihad is when we got
rid of all of the artificial intelligences. So at that time when interstellar travel
but through the use of artificial intelligence, was disappearing and a new kind of
inter centar travel had to be invented. It was invented by what became the
Spacing Guild using the Spice at the same moment that that's happening, because it's
a huge sihat, it's a huge war amongst multiple planets. It's an interesting
side note that most of the places in Dune are about twenty light years away
from Earth in different directions, which I've always appreciated. And the Benegeseret are
founded to be a semi secret power behind the system. Their existence is designed
to manipulate religious beliefs for the purpose of extending the survivability of humanity across the
universe, and they fail spectacularly at it. Because Paul shows up, and
so I would like you to imagine the benejas It as kind of a sort
of and again I'll go to Christian theology slash mythology. It's kind of a
sort of Paul. That is Saul, you know, from the Bible that
rights we're talking about Saint Paul, the author in theory of the Epistles.
We're talking here about the Paul, the Paul of the Bible, the author
of the Epistles, and like not paula trans And what Paul that Paul does
is, you know, he reformulates what Christianity is to the early believers.
Paul is also, as an aside, a really good way to mess with
people who tell you that they're against the trans community because of the Bible,
because you can just mention Saul and they'll go, you mean Paul, and
you can go, oh, so people can change their names. It's perfect.
But yeah, he reinvents what Christianity is. He makes it a far
more political tool. He's the reason we have a Catholic Church. He's a
reason we have a Roman empire that turns to Christianity. He's a reason all
of Europe and the circum Mediterranean world before Islam is Christian. And that's what
the Benejeserit are doing. They're using the available religions to them to affect change
in the cultural systems they want to control because they think their ability to control
will be the ability to save humanity. But they need to be in charge
when they do it. And that's where the Paul of them films and the
novel steps out, because he's not under their control. And I think that
one of the real points here, and I think this is where Herbert is
making some really important critiques of religion, is that, as I think,
anytime someone says I am essential to this good thing happening, then now protecting
yourself becomes essential, and so any and all things you do to protect yourself
are now morally justified. And you know, in the movie, we see
that the Manigestate are even if you like, you can say that their goal
is to protect humanity, but they're willing to kill an awful lot of humans,
you know, like they're perfectly happy with this psychotic, sociopathic that these
different terms describe him fade, you know, as long as they can control
him. And they're perfectly happy to keep the horrible situation Downdoon happening as long
as they can control it. Where the idea being the suffering of the Fremen
is completely justified because it allows spice travel. And I think here's the real
essential part, and that the movie I think really shows and has Paul really
driving in. We talked before about that part of the thing that keeps the
freemen from like, you know, some of the Primin are open revolts,
but some of the Frimen are like, no, we just need to wait,
We just need to be We need to do our part. But but
the Moa Deeb is no. So now the lean al Gibb is gonna come
and bring about everything so we don't have to do it ourselves. The Benajesorate
told them that thousands and thousands of years ago, and the benajestrit have continued
to tell them that, very much like the Catholic Church told you know,
slaves and and and then the Protestant churches as well, or told the people
in any land that was colonized of you know, don't worry about it.
It seems like the good things are happening to Europeans and the bad things are
all happening to you. Don't worry about it, because as long as you
are good and you obey your masters, you're gonna get to go to heaven
and that's very much what the Benajester are doing here, and it's what what
the nature of that control is exactly. And I love that the movie I
think is like, compared to the nineteen eighty five movie, this movie is
so very clear about that what the Bena Jester are doing. I think this
movie actually understands what Herbert's point was in a way that the nineteen eighty five
movie didn't, and I think that's important, and I also think it's why
having a third film would be an excellent move. There's a joke amongst Dune's
fans that go in a number of different ways about the book Dune Messiah,
which is the next book which comes out in nineteen sixty nine and is much
shorter than all of the other books, and it's essentially a book that is
a per my last email. Book is a book that goes, if you
didn't understand what Dune meant here, let me make sure you understand what Dune
meant, You're wrong. He's not a hero. And it's overwhelmingly pointed in
that and a number of people online apparently are very upset that Paul is not
the hero, and they've all read Dune and it's kind of weird, but
it does give us an indication of how very strong that hero's narrative is in
our culture, that people want to see Paul like the nineteen eighty five Paul
where he is the Krasatzider Rock bringing freedom to the Fremen or as Luke Skywalker
or something, and he's not that. He's a cautionary tale about why that's
bad. And so Doune Mesaiah does that exactly. It goes no, no,
no, no, you didn't get it. He's horrible now because he
decides that he can justify whatever he does based on it's for the greater good.
And in the in that novel, So, the Holocaust isn't really called
the Holocaust into the late fifties. It's usually called the show or the tragedy
or something. But it starts to become called the Holocaust in the late fifties
because of a book called While six Million Died, and it's a great book.
I used to study the Holocaust a lot. And so in nineteen sixty
nine, when Herbert specifies exactly how many people die in Paul's Jihad, it's
very specifically listed as sixty billion it's not fifty five billion, it's not sixty
eight billion, it's sixty billion. In the way six million died was talking
about the Holocaust, so you were supposed to get quite strongly through that that
we're talking about somebody who's not on yours, on the side of the people,
but is justifying his behaviors by saying he is. And I'll just say
now again, with the movie really doing that so much better, I'm gonna
say a lot more about this in the next episode. But I think it's
why it is essential that Shawny is against all, yes, because that doesn't
happen in the book, but I think it's because audiences need someone to root
for, you know, and then it gives the audience a surrogate of someone
to be against Paul, not necessarily root for, but just to see see
that viewpoint exactly. Yeah, and yeah, I think that's what is part
of what is so fascinating about this is because you mentioned before that like calling
it a white savior narrative is entirely accurate. And I like that they show
great racial diversity among the fremen and and of course you know, uh god,
what's the name of the actor who played Leto treats. It's Oscar Isaac,
you know. And of course uh Uh Timoy Schella may I think identifies
as white. I'm not positive, but I know that you know his father
uh uh Duke Leto, who's portrayed by Oscar Isaac, who's a Guatemalan.
But if it's not a white savior, narrative is very much a colonizer.
Narrative is very much the idea of that person from the outside, you know.
And I here, actually I want I want to. I don't want
to get too far into the church and thing, but I'm curious, is
there a character in that history who is like a Russian who comes to be
kind of like dances with wolves, with the with the Chechens and winds up
being a heroic figure for Nope. And in fact, if one that again
is if one showed up, they would not have accepted I want to say
him, it just they would have killed him. In Dune Messiah and in
the Savors of Paradise it's pointed out that their enemies are skinned alive and drums
are made from their skins. That's the way they treated the Russians. The
biggest diversions between the two books. Is that Shamil is locally born and and
that's where at least part of his strength comes from. Right and and again
you see that because yeah, left on their own, the Fremen probably would
have no idea of, oh, yes, we should, we should take
up this, you know, look for the outsider, the one who is
not Fremen but his Fremen. But but of course it's again because the Benadjesterate
have planted them. And they do that again very specifically because they want someone
like Paul. It's just that they can't control Paul the way that they hold.
Yes, so there is out there in the world. And I can't
give you a direct site. A master's thesis on Dune that I read a
number of years ago, and it's really great, and it has there's one
line that I remember, which was something along the lines of what's strange about
Dune that we have to, you know, pay attention to is that it
is incredibly respectful of Islam while at the same time being an orientalist narrative and
and and and that is a product of when it was written, as much
as the homophobia is a product of when it was written. And the fat
shaming is a product of when it was written, Frank Herbert was a serious
homophobic. He was a strange from his gay son for most of that son's
adult life. He was he was, he was an dick about it.
Sorry, and and and in the in the book, the baron is not
his his size and his his sexuality is not presented quite as violently as it
is in the film. In either of the films, his suspensers don't let
him float. His suspensers let him kind of trapes around, bouncing from tiptoe
to tiptoe through rooms in a very stereotypical gay kind of movement sort of way,
is how it's described. And that's also a product of its time and
a wonderful thing that gets changed in the films. So the whole point that
that Aside started with was having Shani becomes the most important thing about the second
film. First off, increasingly, I think Sandea is one of the best
actors on Earth. Everything I've seen her in she is just completely believable and
not Sendea and it's kind of weird, and she was utterly fantastic in this.
And so my absolute favorite moment of the film, the one that drove
it home in a way that the message is not driven home in the novel
is effectively is that the fact the last moment of the film is like five
seconds on her face, it is the most important moment. And I let
me go into overwhelming detail. As I said at the beginning, my favorite
ending line in any novel is the ending line in Dune. Mid century American
science fiction had this long tradition of trick endings. I think of there's a
Robert Heinlein short story in which a bunch of guys in a bar are arguing
about whether or not we should be exploring space, and the guy who's running
the bar is like, we definitely shouldn't. We've got everything we need.
We need to work on what we were all already at. And then at
the end of the short story you find out they're having this debate in a
bar on the moon, thus right, Or the Arthur C. Clark short
story The Star about the Jesuit priest who's completely overwhelmed by his research. Jesuit
priests have to have doctoral degrees. Usually he's an astrophysicist, and he's on
an interstellar mission to explore the remains of a nova, and as he exploited
this nova destroyed an entire alien civilization, and then at the end he realizes
it was also the star of Bethlehem. Those kinds of trick endings are very
common in mid century American science fiction short stories. They don't happen in novels
as much. But the ending of Doone, which I cite in classes on
that I teach on writing all the time, is this. I'm going to
quote it. It starts with a Jessica quote. Think God it Shanni,
the princess will have the name it. She'll live is less than a concubine,
never to know the moment of tenderness from the man to whom she's bound.
While we Shanni, we who carry the name of the concubine. History
will call us wives. And that's the last line of the novel, and
it changes the entire meeting of the novel. For me, it's problematic in
that isory will call us wives is a sexist statement about there being defined by
who they're related to, But it also changes the complete narrative of how you
look at all of the women in the novel up until that moment. And
I was terrified that this was going to be the thing I hated about Doom
two. But the last two people you see in Doom two are Jessica and
Shanni, and they're both just looking at their faces. And not only are
these these last two, but the first boys you hear is Princess Irdolus.
And in the books, like you get a little excerpts from the books,
but excerpts from things that she wrote as like chapter headings, but overall,
like I don't know if Frank Herbert had an X and he just like put
all of his hatred towards that X into Princess Erdlin. But he hates this
character and treats her horrifically through those books. And so to have her be
more of that leading voice, I think, you know, the narrative voice
is really great. And Flance's Princess Hugh is also at Florence Pugh is also
amazing. The only other thing I would say also about what you said is
I think it's so important to know we end with Chauni, but we end
with her getting ready to ride a worm, because again, this whole thing
has been about a battle of you know, what is what is the truth
that defines the Fremen people? And she is right now rejecting what everyone else
is saying, is the true belief of the Fremen people that they're that the
belief that has made them a people, that holds them together, that has
helped them to win this great war, is all the things that she's rejecting.
And so to them, she's rejecting being Fremen. And the first thing
she does is what is just you know, like the thing Paul had to
do to become truly accepted as Fremen writing a worm. And I just thought
the parallel of that was so beautiful and made so much sense to understanding,
like the depth of the struggle over what is the mythology of the Fremen people
and how does it define who they are? And it leaves open the question
of where she's going to go right, because she can't go south to the
fundamentalists. She's got to and seech Tabor is destroyed. I forgot to mention
both Seeche and Tabor are Tartar words that the Cossacks used. Both of them
mean camp. They're both found in the sabers of Paradise. The Chechens are
fighting the Tartars, the Cossacks, the Russian Cossacks who call their camps seeches
and call their base camps tapers. So that's where the words come from.
Yeah, And but she can't go there where she knows there are some people
who agree with her because it's gone now. So the right the open endedness
of where the hell is she going to go is also a beautiful moment as
a statement about religion. When you realize that your face differs dramatically, who
do you go talk to about it? Yeah? And in our bonus section
from members, that fact that we're going to talk about is what we we
want to see in a third movie and possibly more after that. We haven't
going on for a while. There's a lot of discussions we're going to have.
We're definitely gonna have Professor Keppa. We haven't had Professor Matthew back,
as was Rob mackenzie, and as mentioned my brother in law, Steve Cox,
who's also quite a scholar of both Islam and June. So Matthew,
let me just ask you, is there any of the last comments you want
to make about this book, about this movie especially, and like what has
to say about mythology, de in destiny and all of that. We live
in a world in which our movies are basically hero narratives thanks to star Wars,
and every single really important popular film follows the hero's journey now, depending
on how it is chosen to be formulated. But we're all living in a
world of Luke Skywalker's and NEOs, and I just want to jump in there
for anyone who's about to say, but wait, not all movies are adventure
movies. There's actually been some great writing down I'll see if I can find
it on how even most rom coms today or movies like that. You know,
if it's a movie about just a person's self actualization, it's still framed
as a hero narrative. Here, if it's a movie about like will the
character get the girl or get the guy, it's a hero narrative. So
going on, So do to be clear, we're not just talking about like
the Act, you know, the actual adventurers fighting against some bad Yeah.
It's not always dragons. Sometimes it's the Devil Wears Prada yeah, and doubt
yes. And too many of our movies are that way. And the two
films that we have in Dune so far are not just criticizing religion or criticizing
myth or criticizing the hero's journey. They're criticizing all of contemporary film as a
result. And I follow a number of Facebook groups in Dune, and man,
they're all still angry about this film, and I'm like, it's spot
on perfect because because it made you angry. So the last thing I would
say is, yeah, that is that is essentially the point to to make
us aware that thinking we have a chosen leader who can do no wrong is
how we get Donald Trump. It just is so the unexamined myth is not
worth it. And just to add a little about of balance, not that
I'm saying that these two are equal in their badness, but I think it's
also how we get people get so mad when we critique Obama for drone strikes.
Yes, you know, it's the same kind of a thing. And
and the other thing to me that I think is fascinating in what you're talking
about is those people who are so mad, it's probably because they're more invested
in the mythology of Doune that has been built up in their not the mythology
in the story, but their mythology about the book that has been built up,
rather than the textas health. Yeah exactly, you know, yeah,
they see they I would go, I would bet that he took a list
of like the hundred most angry, problematic, anti woke people in the in
the Dune groups and then compared that to a similar list from a Star Trek
group. There's gonna at least twenty three. Oh yes, unquestionably. And
man, they're so mean about Zendea. It really is upsetting. The I'm
not being racist, she's just a bad actress statements. Yeah, it's like,
no, no, actually, you are being racist. And everything that
was changed from the book is wrong because it's not homophobic and because it's not
sexist is problematic as well. So the fact that Dune and especially Dune Too,
which I think is the better of the two films, manages so effectively
to critique all of contemporary popular culture is its great strength, and it is
the reason you need to have so many episodes on this series and why I'm
looking forward to listening to them. Your brother in law is really fricking smart,
and I really I'm really looking forward to hearing more from him. So
that's why it's important. Because it's not Star Wars, and Star Wars sucks
so well that I'm going to strongly disagree with you, but in part because
I know, I know you did that to trigger me a little bit,
not trigger actually triggering, but like I would just say, guess what when
Star Wars took the character who'd become most mythologized, Luke Skywalker and said what
if he wasn't perfect, the exact same thing happened. Oh that is such
a good point. Yeah, like the last Jedi did because again the mythology
of Luke Skywalker, who can do no wrong. So yeah, and I
think that's important is that the next six months are going to be some of
the most hard political of many of our lives. And God only knows what
happens after November, and I can understand that a lot of people are gonna
want respit and escape from that, and that's part of why they turn to
these things. And so I want to say, like, we're gonna mention
that stuff, but we're not gonna that's not gonna be the entire focus of
this. But because in part because I think that that's That's the other thing
is that the lessons we're talking about about, like be careful when you say
a leader can do no wrong. I don't just mean a political leader.
I also mean Poloni or or not Snyder or anything like that. Like,
you know, we here like the mythology that could build up. I think
Felony is a phenomenal writer and a phenomenal story builder. And I think Favreau
on a Favreau who's the third of the Disney apps, the one who's at
running the MCU. It's uh Fabreau, Felony and the guy who always wears
a hat. Yeah, yeah, no, we're both looking it up,
aren't we. Kevin Fikey, Fikey, Fikey, thank you so much.
It's Kevin Fikey. You know. They all are I think incredible and have
done so much good in terms of storytelling. They've all made mistakes, you
know, and none of them are perfect. And like more recently, when
a lot of people have been kind of critical of, you know, the
more recent movies of the MCU, I see a lot of people saying,
no, no, no, Fabre has never done us wrong. You have
to just trust Fabreau. You have to trust Fabria. You have to trust
Fabreau. And it's a saint Frank Herbert would say, you're just as dumb.
You know, or you're just as wrong. Frank Herbert would say you're
just as wrong. So thank you everybody. Professor Capel, thank you so
much for being a part of this. This has been awesome. We're going
to have more with you in the bonus section in just a moment. For
everybody else, thank you so much for listening. We have spoken. Superhero
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