Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast

Deep Thoughts about Dune with Jake Cohen

• Tracie Guy-Decker & Emily Guy Birken • Episode 50

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Fear is the mind-killer…

On this week’s episode of Deep Thoughts, Tracie and Emily welcome their cousin Jake Cohen to talk all things Dune, from Frank Herbert’s influential series of novels to the 1984 David Lynch adaptation to the recent Denis Villeneuve films. The conversation ranges from the intricate and well-thought out worldbuilding to the political implications of an extra-planetary messiah leading the Fremen of Arrakis with the promise of sandworm-killing water. While Herbert’s grand vision inspired countless writers and filmmakers, Dune still retains some outdated fatphobia, homophobia, gender essentialism, and sexism that were more typical of the 1960s, when the book was written.

The spice (and the podcast episode) must flow!

Content warning: Discussion of child SA

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon. 

Jake Cohen:

So it's the great dream of Fremen to have all of this water, even though it will kill their gods in the end, if they were to ever actually succeed in doing so.

Emily Guy Birken:

That is fascinating. I'm just thinking about the political implications of that. I mean, you've already got kind of like this outsider savior thing going on and it just is reminding me of so many colonialist promises.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters, you know it's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. I'm Trac Guy-Decker and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't? You know what's in your head? Today, my sister, Emily Guy-Burken, and I are joined by our cousin-in-law, Jake Cohen, to talk all things Dune, let's dive in. All things Dune, let's dive in.

Jake Cohen:

Okay, so Jake, welcome. So exciting to have you on the podcast.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Thanks, great to be here. Yeah, I will start a little bit like Emily and I'll each share kind of what's in our heads about Dune and then we'll turn it over to you. So I'll start, since I already have the mic, and then we'll turn it over to you. So I'll start, since I already have the mic. The 1984 movie, for sure, is what's in my head about Dune, though I think I tried to read the first book because I enjoyed the movie so much, but I don't think I actually got through it. So you know, full disclosure there. What I remember, what I deeply remember, are a couple of things I remember Sting in almost nothing.

Emily Guy Birken:

I wonder why.

Jake Cohen:

That's about the most iconic thing from that movie, I think.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I do remember the worms. I remember the giant worms in the desert on the screen and I have this actually strong kind of recollection of I don't remember anybody's names, but I remember something. Like the guy's name became a word of war or a weapon or something, and like that for some reason really stuck with me that his name was a weapon and um, and that the spice that turned your eyes funny colors and like was a drug was actually like the worm's poop. So like that's what I remember. That's what I remember about Dune Emily. What about you? What you got in your head?

Emily Guy Birken:

So, like you, I really enjoyed the 1984 film, which I was telling Jake before we started recording. I feel like you and I are the only two people in North America who really liked it. I think people who really loved the book were disappointed with the movie and people who were unfamiliar with the book were like what the hell is this movie? So I did read the book. I believe I saw the movie first and then read the book, like that. Dad had a copy of it and I enjoyed it and I reread it at least once or twice as a kid.

Emily Guy Birken:

There are things from the book that I really liked that Paul Atreides was 14 years old at the beginning, because I'm like that's a kid I can get behind. He's like it's not like impossibly old, like 25. Because I was like 11 while I was reading it. It's like this is someone I can. I can understand Um. So I liked that. I really liked the Bene Gesserits, although I can't recall much of anything about them except that they were really powerful women and they were bald and they said fear is the mind killer. And then I really really enjoyed the um world building the desert planet of Arrakis, the sandworms, all of that. I ended up reading it again, and this is the most recent time I've read it, so this would be back in 1997.

Emily Guy Birken:

When I was a freshman in college, I took a class called the Biology of science fiction, which was basically a biology for English majors, and Dune was one of the books that we read, and we talked about the climatological and biological implications of a desert planet and basically came to the conclusion that Arrakis is impossible like a planet with that little moisture. It would be impossible for life to form there, especially megafauna like the sandworms, which did not ruin my enjoyment of the book. That's where I am with Dune. I have not seen the new films, in part because I wanted to reread the book before I watched them, and then I only read the first book, and this is one of my first experiences with their sweeping sagas across multiple books in sci-fi and fantasy genre, and my tendency is to read the first one and be done, done. So that's that's what I remember about this. So, jake, why don't you tell us why is? Is Dune important to you? Tell us how you were introduced to it.

Jake Cohen:

Yeah. So I first read it as part of a high school sci-fi, fantasy and horror class and I was really big into Star wars before that and so uh, given that star wars pretty much mostly ripped a lot of stuff directly out of dune, I like absolutely fell in love with it and ended up reading both dune, dune, messiah and children of dune. After that though to be fair, I remember very little of the latter two books I ended up reading Dune for a book club kind of a couple years ago. Now that the movie has come out, I actually really love the new movie and the 1984 one as well. It is just a very uniquely David Lynch-type movie.

Jake Cohen:

And then in college I was the nerd that went to group things that watched the sci-fi channel miniseries versions of dune I had totally forgotten that they did that yeah, it's such a bizarre like it got a lot of praise for being super actually fact accurate to the book but was otherwise like the most boring interpretation with the sci-fi channel uh budget that you have for that, but yeah makes sense I completely miss kind of uh, jodorowsky's dune.

Jake Cohen:

I think they actually released something in 2013, but it was like the pre-david lynch thing where they're like we're gonna condense this book into a movie script and the movie script is 14 hours long and we're five million dollars over budget. But yeah, I just I really love the world. I always like the mentat thing. I thought it was super cool that one of the first like websites ever was like mentatcom, and I mean reading so much sci-fi and fantasy stuff. You realize that dune is kind of like the basis of a lot of stuff that ended up flowing into kind of everything else. But uh, weirdly, the thing that actually made me really love dune was reading dune messiah of a lot of stuff that ended up flowing into kind of everything else. But uh, weirdly, the thing that actually made me really love Dune was reading Dune Messiah because it's uh, I I guess I don't want to spoil the newer movies coming out, but the um no worries about spoilers.

Jake Cohen:

Yeah, Uh yeah. Spoilers for a book written in the sixties.

Jake Cohen:

Um, yeah, yeah a book written in the 60s. Um, yeah, yeah, we've had time, but yeah, it's kind of interesting because dune was like the response to foundation that really didn't have a main character and it's like, no, we need to have like a hero story for it. But the hero so it's, it's the plans within the plans within the plans that dune seems to love is herbert actually hated that. People liked, uh, the main character in the hero story so much that paul was actually supposed to be like the ultimate villain of that and just hammered at home in messiah of just kind of like you're, you're cheering for this thing and this thing you've been cheering for is actually like a horror across the universe type result, and so it's. It's wow, yeah, no, I kind of like the politics of it a very much, how it's kind of like been a timeless kind of political thing and how much that kind of turned it on its head and with all of the philosophy in the world building.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

That's intense, all right. Well, I have not seen. I I'm not even sure if I finished reading it. And I haven't seen. I've only seen the 84, and I haven't seen it in probably 30 years, maybe longer. So catch me up, remind me, jake, what's the like? Give me the synopsis of the plot and the world building, all right.

Jake Cohen:

I'll see if I can make this somewhat quick, since the versions of Condensing it ended up 14 hours long in some of these cases. The versions of condensing it ended up 14 hours long in some of these cases. We're like 100,000 years in the future and humanity is spread across the universe. We had some kind of giant AI war and so AI has been banned, essentially from any kind of machine that can think has been banned across the universe. So we've found ways to kind of deal with that is, we've made these human computers, these mentats that kind of think through everything logically and then you have the uh kind of.

Jake Cohen:

You have essentially like a few different factions.

Jake Cohen:

You have this empire that's across the universe and then these noble houses is kind of like a feudal house system that rule these different worlds and there's a bunch of politics in there, because the feudal houses together match the power of the empire and then kind of putting them all together, the ability to travel through space is dependent upon this uh single planet called arrakis or dune.

Jake Cohen:

That has the spice that they can mine, and the spice allows them to warp space and time, to kind of do hyperspace travel, I guess, between planets, and so there's a spacing guild that consumes this spice and is addicted to it and can kind of give them a little bit of foresight in the future and the ability to warp things to move between planets. So it's kind of all centered on this one outer line planet that happens to produce all space travel through its resources. And then, behind the scenes of all of this, you have this bene uh bene gesserit guild, that is, these, essentially this sisterhood that can talk to people and control them like uh, force wise, of like being, like, um, these are not the droids you're looking for, kind of thing to tell people how to, how to do things and manipulate everyone behind the scenes are those?

Tracie Guy-Decker:

is that? Are those folks who have the force, like you know, mind bending powers? Are they all women?

Emily Guy Birken:

yes they, they really kicked ass. I thought they were so cool.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I was a kid. Yeah, it's ringing bells. It's ringing bells, all right, carry on.

Jake Cohen:

Yeah, that's something we can kind of get into. But they're all the sisterhood is all women, because when they enter into it they drink this like super spice water, uh, that gives them the ability to see all the way into the past, but only down the female line of ancestors, so they can see what their mother, their grandmother, their great-grandmother all experienced, uh, by like consuming this spice poison. And if a guy drinks it he dies, essentially because he can't, uh, remove the from it. And so they have this whole genetic line that they're building up. It's essentially like a giant eugenics factory for thousands of years and they're trying to build this guy that can see into the past, because they can only see down the female line, but the guy can see down both the female and male line for some reason. But the guy can see down both the female and male line for some reason. And interestingly, I think all of the Mentats are all male as well. There's not actually a requirement for that, it's just that any female Mentats end up joining the Bene? Gesserit sisterhood. So they're kind of this faction that controls things behind the scenes. And their final Quislach, haroc, is going to be born soon by a mix of the two great houses.

Jake Cohen:

Of the Atreides and the Harkonnen, only the Atreides had a. The Bene Gesserit went against the sisterhood and had a boy instead of a girl, because apparently they can control the sex of the child they're having, uh, and so she really wanted to give her husband a son. So she kind of breaks this because he's supposed to uh be a girl and marry a harkonnen and then they're supposed to give birth to the quesox hot rock uh. Instead she kind of betrays them and starts this whole thing of fighting that's been going on between them on this planet of Dune. So they turn over the planet of Dune to kind of Paul's dad, who is our main character, and the Harkonnens are leaving it to kind of them. But it's all this kind of trap to actually trap them on the planet and kill them, which eventually kind of happens. Actually trap them on the planet and kill them, which eventually kind of happens. But paul manages to escape from that uh, along with his mother and join the fremen who are like the local sand uh tribe. It's really kind of uh. It's like an algerian revolution, I think is the original uh version of this uh. So it's kind of lawrence of arabia type style, and so Paul kind of meets them, ends up like drinking the spice and becoming the Kwisatz Haderach a generation earlier than he's supposed to, and then leaves the Fremen on this revolt to retake the planet, give them their freedom from the Harkonnens that are squeezing them shut and take over the planet. I think that's kind of the basic synopsis.

Jake Cohen:

Paul has kind of been trained as both this fighter and like thinker, so he's been trained by the best warriors in the galaxy. He's both a mentat and trained in the bene? Gesserit way, so he's kind of your hero of everything. And then they go in there and the bene? Gesserit have also spread all of these religious legends to all of these things. So when they show up they kind of in there and the Bene?

Jake Cohen:

Gesserit have also spread all of these religious legends to all of these things. So when they show up they kind of show up and the Fremen all think they're this messiah that's come to save them and lead their people. And they manipulate this religion behind the scenes to kind of fill in there and get these people to follow them, to fight back. I think there's some cool technology stuff in there too, like there's a deal not to use atomic weapons anymore. Uh, even though each house has their own secret atomics, we do have future laser guns, but shields apparently react with them and cause nuclear explosions that kill everyone, and so you've kind of all combat is now this kind of uh-based sword fighting, where shields will slow something but not stop it entirely. So you have to do this kind of knife-fighting slow attacks to actually kill someone through a shield.

Emily Guy Birken:

And the Fremen. They have to live in skin suits that collect all of their sweat and all bodily fluids and make it fresh water so they can drink it. Because I remember being kind of obsessed with that as a kid, partially because I was like that is so gross and so interesting. And then it was something we talked about a lot in my Sci-Fi college class about what, what would you require to make something like that work?

Jake Cohen:

yeah, it's.

Jake Cohen:

It's a weird, weird thing where the universe relies on all this spice because it's the only planet that produces it and then the it's actually produced by the worms on the planet, who are like the gods, the literal gods of the fremen.

Jake Cohen:

And then the fremen essentially worship water because it's so scarce it's.

Jake Cohen:

Their only resource is water, to the point where they're like, if someone dies, they actually like return all of their water from the body and don't let any of that go to waste.

Jake Cohen:

So they like dehydrate dead bodies to uh, preserve all of that and have these suits that like harvest, like 99% of any kind of sweat or anything that you give out and any kind of waste of water is the greatest sin, which is also weird for Paul and his family, who come from essentially a giant world of water. But it's this thing where part of the promise that Paul gives them in following him is he will bring water to Arrakis and let it flow across everything, because he comes from this world where there's all of this water, but in the end it actually can't be done because water is the one thing that will kill sandworms as the kind of gods of the planet, worms, um, as the kind of gods of the the planet, um. So it's the great dream of fremen to have all of this water, even though it will kill their gods in the end, if they were to ever actually succeed in doing so that is fascinating.

Emily Guy Birken:

I'm just thinking about, like the um, the political implications of that. I mean, you've, you've already got kind of like this outsider, like savior thing going on and like it just is reminding me of so many colonialist promises where like yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna, you know, come here and fix things for the natives, without understanding what that's actually going to mean in the, in the world.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Well, I mean the the analogy is really, really close to, because the the way of fixing things for the natives in this universe is to make them more like the colonizer Right, and that's exactly the what Jake just described, where Paul comes from, this planet of water, and so he's going to make a dune more like his planet by bringing water to it Like there's.

Emily Guy Birken:

And thereby kill their gods, so making them more like him, where he? I don't recall if, like the Harkonnen and Atreides, if they were religious in any way, if they believed the religion of the Bene? Gesserit, can you remind me they did religious in any way? If they believed the, the, the religion of the benny gesserit, can you? Can you remind me they.

Jake Cohen:

They did the. The book is so thick that it's like it. It's only 500 pages but the text is like so rich that it dives into kind of all of that and frank herbert loved politics himself and was kind of uh prescient about some of it. But, uh, they do have this weird mixed religion that is, uh, I think it's booty islam. It's like it's actually a mix of like hinduism, islam, uh, judaism for some, uh, some of it, and then they follow this thing that's the orange catholic bible. So it's kind of this weird blended religion.

Jake Cohen:

Uh, portion of it, um the fremen uh almost follows a little bit more of uh kind of an islamist uh perspective. Um, which was actually really weird reading this like post 9-11 because, like the end, he's leading them in this and then they're going to lead a literal jihad across the universe to kill billions of people, which is a very like weird thing to be reading, uh, especially after 9-11, since you could really make paul is like uh, oh, my goodness, I'm blanking uh like paul essentially like leading the taliban in some ways was kind of like uh a comparison, and you can kind of go back farther to like lawrence of arabia in the algerian revolution. But uh, frank herbert actually imagined paul is kind of jfk, oddly enough, uh, where he's high out of his mind on barbiturates and amphetamines, and uh, which I guess has a political marriage to uh, the emperor's daughter, which would be jackie kennedy, and I guess that kind of makes chani a bit of marilyn monroe to a certain degree. Um, wow, but uh, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of politics and religion kind of woven into like the depths of the books.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

So Emily started us off with this kind of colonialist or post-colonialist kind of look at some of the details that you shared with us. But, Jake, what are the things you know, the sort of hidden or not so hidden messages that you wanted to come, you know, share with us?

Jake Cohen:

or not, so hidden messages that you wanted to come, you know, share with us.

Jake Cohen:

I think one is like the overlapping thing of like I mentioned, like the Taliban is a weird way to think of Paul, since he's like our hero character and I think Dune Messiah, not to like spoil anything for the new book, but the first like five pages literally talk about Paul kind of raping Fremen culture and kind of exploiting it for all of its worth as kind of this leading messiah, and so he was really kind of concerned with like here's this hero sortie and it's very deceptive in the way that it pulls you in and it wants you to root for Paul because the Harkonnens are terrible they are literally a visible version of terrible, where I think the Baron is like fat with boils all over him and literally rapes children to death.

Jake Cohen:

Basically make him as horrible as a villain as you could and really root for Paul and then, at the end of the day, paul is the one leading this jihad that kills, I think, 60 billion people across the universe and kind of the time jump after the book and I always thought that was like a really fascinating way to look at it.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, let's dig into that. You mentioned that when you were first talking about what you know what you liked about this, and you named it in Dune Messiah, that kind of Herbert that in Dune Messiah, that kind of Herbert pushing back against fans who really liked Paul with this. You know, I'll show you, I'll show you who you should and shouldn't like. What do you make of that? I mean, is that just sort of a like a nihilism? Like like a nihilism? It like what? What was herbert trying to to say to us with by by sort of taking this? I mean, you just named that he gave us a villain and and set paul up as a hero against him and then he took paul down as not actually heroic. What? Where are we going with this? Frank?

Jake Cohen:

I I mean, I think that's a great question.

Jake Cohen:

It is kind of like a weird, weird nihilism and that I don't think it's like not telling you to like believe in anything specific, but kind of be more skeptical, and that it's it's very skeptical of kind of any of this government power and their reasons for it, that even when they're fighting some kind of evil, they still might be manipulating things behind the scenes.

Jake Cohen:

They're like bringing the Fremen freedom from the Harkonnen oppressors but at the same time just using them to spread their kind of own desires.

Jake Cohen:

And even more than that, sometimes the person leading this charge is a true believer in that, as Paul like it in doing this whether you think it's like some kind of metaphysical thing or like it's the fact that he's his mentat brain that's calculating everything while understanding all of the past, is predicting the future, that he becomes locked in his own ability to predict the future and believes essentially in his own kind of visions for that, and that he sees the way through. That no one else does um, and that it's not even necessarily someone with ill intentions, but someone who is like a true believer in themselves, like taking that up and doing great harm with that um, and I think just kind of being skeptical of all of that, whether it's like the, the, the human calculators, the religion, um, there's a, there's a doctor in there who's the one that actually brings the atreides house down. Uh, because the doctors are supposed to be trained to like do no harm to anyone and they're actually manipulated by the Harkonnens to break that, that vow, just for, like the sake of revenge and it's. I think it's kind of that skepticism of kind of people's motivations and where something is kind of going in in the name of something good. That I found fascinating.

Emily Guy Birken:

In our current political climate and we're recording this on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention, which is just down the street from me in Milwaukee, and so only a few days after the assassination attempt on the orange one.

Emily Guy Birken:

I think it's really interesting that Herbert was was trying to make all that clear, especially with a beloved hero, and honestly I don't think I personally could have could have handled Dune Messiah if I'd tried it when I was tried to read it when I was 11 or 12, because I was very rigid black and white thinker and like no, no, no, he's the hero and to see him go on to do these things would have like really broken my heart.

Emily Guy Birken:

But it's interesting Cause it's like Tracy was describing it as like kind of nihilism and it's. It sounds like it's a little bit more succinct than that, but still a like the lesson of like you really can't trust anyone not to be self-interested and you really like there is a difference. Like one of my pet peeves in the current political climate is people saying like both sides are the same and herbert clearly wasn't saying that because paul is different from house harkonnen but he's his own unique kind of evil and like it's the the being, being wary of someone who's a true believer in their own abilities, which you know begs the question like who is capable of leading?

Tracie Guy-Decker:

that's exactly where I'm going, where my, my brain is going with this, because, on the one hand as jake, as you were describing, you know what's going on with in paul's mind, with being able to, you know, getting obsessed with being able to predict the future or whatever you know I'm thinking well, maybe this is a statement about how power corrupts, you know, and how individual power, in particular the, the power, the concentrated power in a singular individual, is so dangerous. But House Harkonnen was not a singular. I mean, I guess there was the Baron, and again, I haven't seen it or read it in a long, long time, but the way you all were talking and correct me if I'm wrong here it sounded like it wasn't actually sort of a singular, but a group of people who make up the House Harkonnen, and so even that critique that I thought that I was maybe hearing is not an either or, and even the if I recall correctly, even the Bene Gesserit, who I loved.

Emily Guy Birken:

I thought they were so cool. They were also so manipulative and they were a collective of people who were out for what they thought was the right thing, but that they didn't care.

Jake Cohen:

Who got in the way is and correct me if I'm wrong, jake, but that's that's kind of how I remember them yeah, I'm trying to remember some of the the specifics, because they were very much over the like conquering of emotions and not not caring.

Jake Cohen:

So they would, uh, they would literally like have sex with people to imprint on them like their love of the bene? Gesserit, to like control them because they they like strip themselves of all of their caring about emotions and they would like cancel out bloodlines, kill entire like families and planets off to continue their breeding program, to create their like ultimate being and kind of had this weird, uh, weird kind of behind the scenes. Uh, there's actually an overarching organization called like the choam, which is part like uh, it's part the emperor, part the great houses, part spacing guild, and then the bene? Gesserit uh as like silent partners, and all of that because they're manipulating like all of them behind the scenes. So it's not even necessarily like one power, it's just all of these powers vying for for kind of control of something man, that's bleak that is exactly the word.

Emily Guy Birken:

That is the word am bleak and I think that that's part of the reason why this, this story, is beloved um, and has been around for so long and has endured for so long, is because, like herbert was on to something, like he's describing the world, but in a fictional way, and these are the sorts of lessons we need to learn, even like I love the fear is the mind killer. I loved that line. I thought that was so cool and that's part of the Benny Gesserit conquering emotion, but at the same time, like no, actually that serves an important physiological purpose. There's a reason why we feel fear, and so, like reminding my like, you know, as a kid I would be like if I was scared of something, I'd be like fear is the mind killer, but like that's. That's not true, that's a that's. That's an extremist viewpoint.

Jake Cohen:

I also love that. I think that was one of my favorite phrases from the book. The first time I read it was that poem.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I would love to ask about you named Jake, when you were kind of introducing this, that you liked Star Wars first and that Star Wars kind of ripped off a bunch of stuff from Dune, and hearing you talk about the world building of Dune it's making sense to me. I'm hearing the resonances. But one of the things that's different is that Lucas gave us good like a hero that we could believe in. I mean so much so that we've got Joseph Campbell using it as the archetype. So I'd love to hear more about the influences, what is gained and what is lost when Lucas or whomever. I got the impression from what you said that Star Wars is just one example of science fiction, kind of mining Frank Herbert for world building and story building. So can you share kind of like, especially since you came at it kind of in the reverse direction, like what are your thoughts on on that?

Jake Cohen:

Yeah, it does feel like it's kind of more the world building that Lucas took from a lot of that. Like Jabba is Baron Harkonnen, the uh sandworm shows up in the asteroid on the planet. Even episode two, like the attack on pod may, is the same kind of attack on paul at the beginning with like the flying needle thing that tries to attack. You have like the voice comparisons in there. So a lot of the world building feels the same. But it does feel like Lucas kind of took that and made it into the hero story of that Almost Anakin's story.

Jake Cohen:

I think more resembles the original Dune kind of the choice at the end where Anakin eventually becomes Darth Vader and does that. Or even like Anakin has or sorry, luke has the choice to like strike down vader in return of the jedi and chooses not to do that. It's kind of george lucas's hero response thing that became so popular versus uh, paul very much chooses to strike down his opponent and kind of take over everything. And I mean I I think there's a lot kind of like it's kind of a simplification of it in a lot of ways, like it's a narrow down into this kind of hero story versus like dune is kind of the, the one that tells us to look skeptically at that and to be question of like why we love that character and want to put so much power into them. But yeah, I think it's spread far and wide after that.

Jake Cohen:

I know dune has made it into various comedy shows. Uh, you have things like horror with uh, tremors and the sandworms almost are like a horror version of living on dune. Um, yeah, it feels like it's. Uh, I think even the Fremen make it into like Chronicles of Riddick, as like the the necromancer take what you kill type thing. It's really hard to kind of separate out its impact of it.

Emily Guy Birken:

Well, and even the, the political machinations. I'm not super familiar with Game of Thrones and the book series, but the, the political machinations and the fact that there's not really any one good guy. You know, I have no doubt that George RR Martin read Dune as a child.

Jake Cohen:

Yeah, yeah, I could see that Though we've got a War of the Roses, so we've got our own sort of history to base that off of too, but uh, one thing I'm thinking about is so when george lucas re-released the original trilogy in the 90s and he did all that cgi to it, that was just awful.

Emily Guy Birken:

One of the things that really pissed me off because I went to see him in the theaters was in return of the jedi after defeat the Empire, like they show all the new version. This wasn't in the original. They show all these planets rejoicing and I remember thinking like, if everyone hated the Empire so much, why was the band of rebels so small?

Emily Guy Birken:

And granted, yes, the Empire had an iron fist on everything, but still.

Emily Guy Birken:

And so what that's bringing up for me is the fact that if we kept it the way that the movies looked in the 70s and the 80s, without that, we could actually kind of see that Luke's story is actually more like Paul's in that he thinks he's freeing people, but there's going to be a lot of people who aren't thanking him, and so, like, the destruction of the empire is like, you know, the music swells happy ending for us watching. And you know, if this is a hero's journey and Luke truly is good, but if we look at it from Frank Herbert's point of view, he's going to be like, yeah, what are the unintended consequences of that? And who has a personal interest in this happening? And like, what power vacuum will there be? And who's going to come take it over? And are you going to get Baron Harkonnen now, because you know the Empire's gone? So like it just strikes me that there's so much more depth and nuance when you recognize the fact that there is no such thing as pure good and pure evil.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Really interesting that you brought up the revisions Em, because when you started I thought you were going to say Han shot first.

Emily Guy Birken:

I do believe that, yes, you started. I thought you were going to say han shot first. I do believe that, yes, I refuse to raise my children, the world.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

That is the only way. So for listeners who are not sort of super into star wars, there's a scene which, when the movie was originally released, um han solo shoots a, an alien at a bar, kind of unprovoked.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

It's preemptively, and when, when Lucas went and sort of revised it, he made it so that the other guy shot first, which was a redemptive thing, greedo, thank you, which was a redemptive thing that you know, so that Han could be less gray, less morally gray, because he shot a man being who was. We don't know if he was armed or not, but he certainly had. He was unprovoked in the original version and I think that's a really interesting. You know that you're pointing to these revisions that Lucas made to make it even more black and white in terms of like the heroes are good and can and trustworthy, and that's. It's almost a comportment that is diametrically opposed to Frank Herbert's comportment toward this right. Because even Jake, you name Anakin's story as closer to Paul's, because he goes on to become Darth Vader, but Darth Vader has a redemptive arc. Vader has a redemptive arc right Like we get the redemption when you know, right before he dies. So even that, like Lucas wants us to believe there is a core of whatever worthiness goodness inside there.

Jake Cohen:

that sounds to me like Herbert is not interested in exploring. Yeah, I feel like Herbert was always more kind of the libertarian, skeptical of any of this, and I'm pretty sure he thought I thought I had heard that he was very much that George Lucas kind of ripped him off for Star Wars and then made it into a hero story, even though he specifically hated that interpretation of Dune to begin with. And some of that's even interesting because Dune was a response to Foundation, which I think now has its own story on Amazon.

Emily Guy Birken:

That's the Isaac Asimov.

Jake Cohen:

Yeah, the Isaac Asimov series. I read those so long ago that I remember literally nothing.

Emily Guy Birken:

The Isaac Asimov series. I read those so long ago that I remember literally nothing.

Jake Cohen:

Those were essentially like there's an empire that spawns the galaxy, only it's about to fall into ruin. So he tries to preserve it by someone using like a kind of like a mentat power of predicting the future by analyzing everything. And so he sets up a planet off on the edge and they go through a thing of like first come going through this religious conversion to save everyone through like this, these religious ideals, and then they go into mercantilism and trade and that's how they save everyone. And then it kind of goes through this thing of like the evolution of humanity up to the current level and like doing it at super speed to kind of like save the galaxy through like science, of like going through these different stages of the evolution of it.

Jake Cohen:

But it didn't have a main character. Everything was like hundreds of years apart. There. It was just the factors of the universe set up together kind of resulted in this going forward and you just had to get the factors right. And then anyone who was in the moment would step up and do that. And frank herbert saw that and was like yeah, no, the person that gonna is gonna step up. There is going to like take on a messiah role and kind of take over everything and not just, not just play this role for the good of society but try and warp it to their own ideals, kind of thing. And then George Lucas looked at it and went, yeah, but it's going to be great.

Emily Guy Birken:

So the other thing that this is bringing up for me, and interesting that you, I don't know if Herbert described himself as libertarian or if that's just something people have assumed about him. Do you know, jake?

Jake Cohen:

I don't know off the top of my head. I know he very much hated kind of JFK. I know he was a big like Reagan guy at one point later on, whee. So I know he's done plenty of interviews about politics specifically and international affairs um, and was a uh, not not just like kind of that, but had very, very specific ideas on it. But I I don't know if I would quite, uh, could quite say one one way, the other.

Emily Guy Birken:

How that fell. So what this is bringing up for me is the final book of the Narnia series, the Last Battle, which is CS Lewis's take on what the rapture would be basically. And there is a point where the forces of good and evil are fighting in Narnia and then the dwarves come and the forces of good think like, oh, they're here to help us. And the dwarves are like, nope, we're here to help ourselves. And so they're indiscriminately shooting arrows at everyone. So the good guys, the bad guys, like they kill all the centaurs that are coming to help the good guys. The battle is over and there is a little farmhouse that people go into and it's a portal into the next version of Narnia. And the dwarves are unable to see that. They think they're in a farmhouse and they think that they're surrounded by hay. They're eating moldy parsnips. A, they're eating moldy parsnips.

Emily Guy Birken:

And it was to me that seemed like CS Lewis was very much trying to lampoon the people in Britain who were Britain first when it came to World War II, so the people who were unwilling and unable to take a side and only out for themselves.

Emily Guy Birken:

For me, I have always taken that metaphor as really good metaphor for a certain type of political person who, the one who says both sides are terrible, like I'm just going to do what's best for me, and that sort of thing which I tend to associate with certain political stripes. But I'm being reminded of that because it feels like what you're saying. Dune is like that writ large where Herbert is saying, like you know, you got to be skeptical of everyone. You can't believe in anyone. Everyone is out for their own interests, and I think that that is actually a really good lesson. But then there's can it be taken too far? Like what does that leave us to do in a world where we don't want to have a Messiah figure kill 60 billion people, and we also don't want a horrible, abusive Baron Harkonnen who are destroying children in the most horrific way possible?

Jake Cohen:

Yeah, I feel like he tries to get there in some of the later books, but I am I'm kind of blanking on that because it's very much Greek tragedy. It like, uh, I think uh, paul is eventually like blinded and gives up power, wandering off blind into the desert so that he can stop like manipulating the world and like I think that's the final thing of like trying to uh trying to give people their own power in there, to kind of do it instead of manipulating everything through like some kind of control or like seeing that and giving people kind of control of their own destiny. But it's, I think it uh, my memory of the later books is uh, very old. At this point I'm fading. Yeah, uh, but uh, yeah, no, I, I can very much see that through. That is that very kind of skepticism of anyone and their motives, even even if someone's skeptical of their own motives, and I don't. Uh, I think you guys said you hadn't seen the latest movies. Is that correct?

Emily Guy Birken:

so a couple of the changes they've made in there is around chani specifically and that's the fremen woman that there's a romantic like relationship with with paul, correct?

Jake Cohen:

yeah, yeah okay, yeah, and like the, there's a time skip between the two parts in the book that they get rid of in the movie, because they actually have a kid in the book who is kind of killed in a footnote, uh, just to show that paul is inhuman and doesn't care that his son was just murdered, um, but uh, yeah, it's a little little rough there, uh, but the um, they, they kind of skip that in the book and they actually give her more kind of power in there is that she is actively fighting against his kind of messiah in of um of the people.

Jake Cohen:

She very much doesn't want him to become like the leader and like tries to like stop him from taking on all of this power and is like very, very skeptical of all of that and it kind of uh, rather than him just being skeptical of himself before coming to true believer, they kind of uh.

Jake Cohen:

In the new movies they take her and she is the voice of this uh kind of skepticism of all of this like religion and great purpose uh, and this uh religious war type thing, um, so I I find that kind of very interesting as that change which kind of makes it much more of a feminist movie than kind of the the books were where I think at the end of like the first dune he proposes to princess erulian is like I will never touch her, she will never have like my love, she will just write her books and it's going to be a fully political marriage and you will have my like thing.

Jake Cohen:

And the movie chooses to end that like with chani just watching him talk about ruling the galaxy with her while she like looks on betrayed by his choices with her, and so it kind of the movie very much takes on the, the feminism part of that uh as well as um, I think I mentioned earlier that like baron harkonnen is like visibly bad and that he has boils all over his skin, he's fat, he's also gay as like a negative trait of him and that he's raping all of these little boys to death, and so it's kind of this like anti-lgbtq thing in the original books and they kind of try and balance that out by having uh fade, uh his nephew, like have like female cannibals that just eat people as kind of a like uh, we're gonna keep like this evil thing, but take kind of that, that uh part out of it of having that be the negative trait of him which is kind of interesting in the new movie sorry, just to clarify.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

So the new movies make baron harkonnen's gayness.

Jake Cohen:

They sort of remove the gayness as part of his negative characterization I think it's still there, but it's not as blatant and it's kind of it's set up next to fade, having like uh kind of like a harem of cannibals that uh just like eat people I see so that this, these, these female cannibals, are sexual partners of the nephew yeah, so. So he kind of tries to like balance out and being like it's not just like this.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

It's not just gay people who are horrible. Straight people are horrible too.

Jake Cohen:

Yes, but that is something that really does not hold up in the old books even as much as like, though, there is something kind of to the male-female things with. All the Bene? Gesserit are female, all of the Mentats are male and all of the Quislots? Hodorok is the only one who can see down both genetic lines instead of just the female.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, there's a sort of bioessentialism to gender based in those facts In those facts, yeah, yeah and that kind of gets in there.

Jake Cohen:

But it has been interesting to watch how much Shawnee has been changed in the movie to kind of account for a lot of that has been interesting.

Emily Guy Birken:

I'm just thinking about Baron Harkonnen being gay, I really do remember. And David Lynch, I mean he's an excellent director and he did this intentionally. I mean he's an excellent director and he did this intentionally. Sting in the Speedo thing that we all recall, baron Harkonnen was like rubbing oil on him, and so the visual dichotomy of like Sting and all his like cut glory, and then the actor playing Baron Harkonnen, who I don't know if he was actually a fat actor or not, but covered in boils. Didn't he have a?

Jake Cohen:

diaper that helped him float or something. Yeah, I think in the book it's some kind of hover belt that makes his weight not matter it makes him just kind of float in the air and not have to worry about his weight.

Emily Guy Birken:

But yeah, it is essentially a big floating diaper in the movie. And so I mean and I remember being so repulsed by that as a kid, watching the movie and not really thinking about it of a larger body compared to someone who is like what is considered like the masculine ideal. It's interesting that they're trying to rewrite that in the new films, because that is gross.

Jake Cohen:

He's still pretty gross in the new films and I think, still bays in oil.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

So they've still got some of that going for him so and if I can just like say out loud, like the change that I heard you describe with chani, is that we've got this really bleak and pessimistic view of power and humanity from Herbert, and what I heard is that this new film actually puts in the mind and the mouth of a female character a recognition that that's a problem, that in in the person who is her romantic partner. So the skepticism that I think ultimately is Herbert's lesson for us, the skepticism of anyone who would set themselves up as a leader you know, an unquestioned leader in this way is put explicitly in the mouth and the minds of this female character, which is what I think you're pointing to as the feminist take on this. Am I reflecting that accurately?

Jake Cohen:

pointing to as the as the feminist take on this do I.

Jake Cohen:

Am I reflecting that accurately? Yeah, yeah, a lot of times in the the book at least, it was kind of chani is just supportive and, um, generally in love with paul, and in the the book she's very much kind of or sorry. In the new movie she's very much outspoken about, like, what he should be doing or not doing and very much like tries to stop all of this. Uh, like goes into this crowd where only the like male leaders of each tribe and are allowed to speak and just tries to be like you've got to stop this, like this is going to be horrible for everyone, kind of thing. Um and uh, um, I think the uh, the messiah will go into.

Jake Cohen:

I'm curious is what they do with that, because, uh, princess arulian and her very much are at odds over, like, uh, having an heir, uh and getting to have a kid with paul, um and fighting over that. And I'm very curious to see how they'll kind of change that, because they've really changed chani's character more than anything else to kind of give her that, that power and that voice to like be essentially the voice of herbert saying this is all horrible and we need to stop this before billions of people die yeah, yeah, wow, okay, um, so we've been talking for a long minute now, jake.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

is there anything that you wanted to make sure that you shared with the listeners to Deep Thoughts that we haven't touched on yet?

Jake Cohen:

it's. It's hard.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Uh, there's a lot of, uh frank herbert's talk about like uh, environmentalism in there as well, with the planet that I think we haven't dove into, but um, yeah emily, while we have jake, is there anything about dune that you wanted to kind of make sure that we talked about, since you read it and reread it as a kid that we haven't touched on?

Emily Guy Birken:

well, I I have wondered a little bit. You know you talked a little bit about, like, where the inspiration came from. If I recall correctly, like frank herbert took a lot of inspiration from middle eastern culture. Uh, is that correct?

Jake Cohen:

I think you mentioned algeria yeah, I, because it's a lot of Lawrence of Arabia and the. Algerian Revolution, though it seems to take a lot from just kind of Middle Eastern culture in general, but in a weird almost blended way in the way that he kind of blends the religions, so it's never quite one-to-one, but it's. It's very much taken from, kind of like a lot of uh arab cultures.

Emily Guy Birken:

Do you know if he had any like personal experience and it's totally fine if you don't, I'm just I'm curious where. If this was something where he read a lot, or if it was something where he was, like you know, lived there for a little while, or, or, or anything like that. Or if this was something where he was, like you know, lived there for a little while, or, or, or, or anything like that. Or if this was just you know, typical white guy like I, like that. It's going in my book.

Jake Cohen:

I have no idea. I think he was Catholic and like there is like that orange Catholic Bible, but I I honestly have no idea what his actual like thoughts on different religions is Gotcha.

Emily Guy Birken:

I'm glad you mentioned that, the the orange Catholic Bible and that cause. I remember thinking that the Benny Gesserit were like nuns, but like kick ass. Not that nuns can't be kick ass.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Except for the whole like sex to manipulate people thing.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, it was the insularity and the female only. Yeah, and if I recall correctly, the costuming in at least the David Lynch film, I think, is part of what had me thinking of them as being like nuns.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, I recall sort of a habit style headdress. Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm gonna see if I can reflect back some highlights from our conversation. So you all both need to like help me out here, because there's a lot here that like some of which we like just skimmed so like there's just so much that like it's almost like we need multiple episodes for this one. But I'll do my best. So this franchise, I don't want to limit us. So we talked about the books, we talked about the 84 movie, we talked about the. Briefly, jake reminded us that Sci-Fi Channel did a miniseries and now there're these new movies.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

But this world that Frank Herbert created has so many like influences and like it was, it was such deep world building. That was one of the. My big takeaways is just how deep and rich the world building was, so much so that it really deeply influenced other future science fiction writers and content creators, including George Lucas, but not exclusively. We started with Emily recognizing sort of a resonance, with a sort of post-colonial critique, whereby there was an allegory with you know, paul, saying you know, you know, I'm gonna come in and fix your world by making it more like my world. And we know the viewers or readers, or we learn that by doing so he will literally kill the gods of the native to the planet, which, by the way, the entire universe needs, because the gods are the way that they produce the resource by which we can travel through space.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I heard, like a fundamental rejection of the idea of good and evil actually at least embodied in humans, that human beings are kind of essentially wired to pursue their own best interest, regardless of who else it hurts. And that seemed to be also regardless of what kind of governing structure we're talking about in terms of systemic or structural harm, because there's the singular charismatic leader, messiah type, who is dangerous, and that's the guy that herbert was like stop, don't like him. I know I wrote him but don't like him. But there's also sort of the empire, but there's also sort of the feudal like. All of them are bad, including the sisterhood of nuns who aren't nuts, and presumably it wasn't stated outright, but I think we are safe to assume that only cis women can be part of the nuns who aren't nuns whose name I'm totally blanking on, benny Kasseret, thank you and only cis men can be a part of the ten Mentat. Mentat Tenpat is from Loki.

Emily Guy Birken:

The men.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Whatever you said, mentat yes from loki the men. Whatever you said, mentat yes, um, and only a cis man could be the messiah figure who had like a four word name. That jake said several times that I did not capture, which I think is actually hebrew, oddly enough. Quisat, say it again.

Jake Cohen:

Quisach Haderach.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I mean like Haderach. It's the what.

Jake Cohen:

Yeah, quisach Haderach, it's. Uh, I am probably pronouncing it a little bit wrong, but it's the Hebrew word for the ability to like miraculously travel between two places in a brief time.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Well, hadarach sounds kind of like Hadzarek the way, so, huh, interesting yeah or like a contraction of the road.

Jake Cohen:

It's something based like. A lot of the terms are actually from like interesting, a kind of some sort of language Interesting.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, I will be looking that up later, folks.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

The other thing that came up a couple of times, which I have very little, little historical knowledge about, but Jake seems to have, is Lawrence of Arabia and his role in the Algerian revolution and that sort of as like a backdrop, kind of informing what's happening in the plot of this finally built world.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

And then the last thing that I heard and then you guys should fill in and things that I'm forgetting fill in and things that I'm forgetting is the ways in which the new movie makers have tried to correct some of the things that don't age well about the original book and maybe the 1984 film, including making the House of Harkonnen's bad behavior. They're putting some bad behavior on heterosexual people as well as gay people and, uh, chani, who is the romantic partner of the hero, slash anti-hero, uh, we've given her a lot more agency, power and voice to actually channel herbert saying don't trust this. We shouldn't put this much power in any single human, because humans can't be trusted, even the man that I purportedly love, or at least am romantically involved with, um, and and that you, jake, identified that as a sort of more feminist interpretation, certainly of this character and maybe of the um, the world as a whole by by by having this character. So those are the highlights that I heard. What did I miss, y'all?

Emily Guy Birken:

Jake mentioned a bunch of different things that have been influenced by it, like tremors. I'm actually realizing, as you're summing this up, tracy, you've never read Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Doesn't sound familiar.

Emily Guy Birken:

Okay, and Jake and I were talking before we started recording that he has not either, but it's this epic fantasy. The basis of the story is there is this well of magic that something happened. And it's very bioessentialist, this fantasy, because any men who try to access magic go insane. And women are able to access the magic, and so the messiah in in the wheel of time world is a man who would be able to get back the magic. And I'm now realizing, like robert jordan clearly read dune um I mean I'm sure they all did, but uh, that that kind of like it.

Emily Guy Birken:

I had forgotten that. That that was why the Bene Gesserit were all women. Was that their ability to access the memories?

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Genetic memories yeah genetic memories of the women going back Through the spice poison, right, yeah, yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

Right, like yeah, yeah, I was not able to, like, I didn't have any sense of the intersectionality of transgender folks and things like that, but the fact that there are these really grand ideas that Herbert wrote in the 60s and some of them really don't age well, but they keep getting reiterated because he was so influential.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

It's really interesting too that you named that too, that your younger self thought that was feminist, but ultimately, like what the Messiah is I'm putting air quotes around that is like the man who can take the women's power.

Emily Guy Birken:

Well, take his own power.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

but yes, Okay, I didn't read it.

Emily Guy Birken:

I don't think I would enjoy it if I read it again now. I read it when I was 17. And there were aspects of it that I did not like. That I was like a dude definitely wrote this, but that I was like all the women have the magic. That's cool.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

And that's not good enough. We need to find a man who can have it too. Mm-hmm, and that's not good enough. We need to find a man who can have it too. All right, well, I'm just gonna leave that alone, because we've been talking for a long minute. Jake is there anything that you want to say before I wrap us up entirely I don't think so.

Jake Cohen:

I feel like there's been many, many college theses written on uh duneune so it's Dune and Dune Messiah are well worth the read, even as they're very text rich, and there's a reason why everyone who tries to make the movie makes it way way too long.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Well, a listener if you're like yelling at your headphones right now, like, but you forgot you guys, please let us know what are your deep thoughts about our deep thoughts? What did we? What did we miss? What do you wish we had nuanced more? What surprised you? Let us know. You can reach out to us. You can actually send us a text message. There's a little button that says tend to send a text message and for real, we'll get it. Or there's a little button that says send a text message and for real, we'll get it. Or you can send us an email at guygirlsmedia at gmailcom and we will also get that. So, emily, next week, it's you.

Emily Guy Birken:

What deep thoughts are you bringing me? So it's going to be kind of a pattern interrupt. I'm bringing you my deep thoughts about Nightmare on Elm Street, which I actually have not ever seen. I will be watching it between now and then. Wow, but Freddy Krueger loomed large in my childhood, yeah, and even though I grew to love horror, I was terrified.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

He was totally the boogeyman. He was the boogeyman when I was a kid, yeah, so I am really looking forward to that. You've like reached out to us with your deep thoughts about our deep thoughts, so thank you for sharing them with our listeners as well. And, em, I will see you next time. See you next time, all right, thank you. Do you like stickers? Sure, we all do. If you head over to guygirlsmediacom slash, sign up and share your address with us, we'll send you a sticker. It really is that easy, but don't wait, there's a limited quantity. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember, pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?