Historians At The Movies
Episode 67: Dune: Part Two with Mary Hicks and Margari Hill
This week Mary Hicks and Margari Hill drop in to talk all things DUNE. We focus on Dune Part 2 but also talk about the historical influences on Frank Herbert as he wrote Dune, along with how Dune influenced the science fiction and fantasy that came afterward. We talk about the parallels between the fictional universe and historical events, such as the Ottoman Empire and the interactions between European powers and Indigenous communities. We also get into the portrayal of whiteness in the film and the complexities of women's roles and agency within the narrative. We dive into the egalitarianism in the Fremen world and the infiltration of outside values. The depiction of female spirituality and the complexity of women characters are discussed. The casting and representation in the film, particularly in relation to Middle Eastern culture, are examined. Mary and Margari also touch on the historical resonances and sensitivity in the film. The difference between a cautionary tale and a hopeful vision is explored. This conversation is one of the best we've ever had on this podcast and I hope you like it.
About our guests:
Mary Hicks is a historian of the Black Atlantic, with a focus on transnational histories of race, slavery, capitalism, migration and the making of the early modern world. Her first book, Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery, 1721-1835, reimagines the history of Portuguese exploration, colonization and oceanic commerce from the perspective of enslaved and freed black seamen laboring in the transatlantic slave trade. As the Atlantic world’s first subaltern cosmopolitans, black mariners, she argues, were integral in forging a unique commercial culture that linked the politics, economies and people of Salvador da Bahia with those of the Bight of Benin.
Margari Hill is the co-founder and Executive Director of Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative (MuslimARC), a human rights education organization. She is also a freelance writer published in How We Fight White Supremacy (2018) Time, Huffington Post, and Al Jazeera English. She earned her master’s degree in History of the Middle East and Islamic Africa from Stanford University in 2006. Her research includes transformations in Islamic education, colonial surveillance in Northern Nigeria, anti-colonial resistance among West Africans in Sudan during the early 20th century, interethnic relations in Muslim communities, anti-bias K-12 education, and the criminalization of Black Muslims. She is on the Advisory Council of Islam, Social Justice & Interreligious Engagement Program at the Union Theological Seminary. For her work, she has received numerous awards including the Council of American Islamic Relation’s (CAIR) 2020 Muslim of the Year award, Khadija bint Khuwaylid Relief Foundation Lifetime Humanitarian award in 2019, the Big Heart Award in 2017, and MPAC’s 2015 Change Maker Award. She has given talks and lectures in various universities and community centers throughout the country.
This week Mary Hicks and Margari Hill drop in to talk all things DUNE. We focus on Dune Part 2 but also talk about the historical influences on Frank Herbert as he wrote Dune, along with how Dune influenced the science fiction and fantasy that came afterward. We talk about the parallels between the fictional universe and historical events, such as the Ottoman Empire and the interactions between European powers and Indigenous communities. We also get into the portrayal of whiteness in the film and the complexities of women's roles and agency within the narrative. We dive into the egalitarianism in the Fremen world and the infiltration of outside values. The depiction of female spirituality and the complexity of women characters are discussed. The casting and representation in the film, particularly in relation to Middle Eastern culture, are examined. Mary and Margari also touch on the historical resonances and sensitivity in the film. The difference between a cautionary tale and a hopeful vision is explored. This conversation is one of the best we've ever had on this podcast and I hope you like it.
About our guests:
Mary Hicks is a historian of the Black Atlantic, with a focus on transnational histories of race, slavery, capitalism, migration and the making of the early modern world. Her first book, Captive Cosmopolitans: Black Mariners and the World of South Atlantic Slavery, 1721-1835, reimagines the history of Portuguese exploration, colonization and oceanic commerce from the perspective of enslaved and freed black seamen laboring in the transatlantic slave trade. As the Atlantic world’s first subaltern cosmopolitans, black mariners, she argues, were integral in forging a unique commercial culture that linked the politics, economies and people of Salvador da Bahia with those of the Bight of Benin.
Margari Hill is the co-founder and Executive Director of Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative (MuslimARC), a human rights education organization. She is also a freelance writer published in How We Fight White Supremacy (2018) Time, Huffington Post, and Al Jazeera English. She earned her master’s degree in History of the Middle East and Islamic Africa from Stanford University in 2006. Her research includes transformations in Islamic education, colonial surveillance in Northern Nigeria, anti-colonial resistance among West Africans in Sudan during the early 20th century, interethnic relations in Muslim communities, anti-bias K-12 education, and the criminalization of Black Muslims. She is on the Advisory Council of Islam, Social Justice & Interreligious Engagement Program at the Union Theological Seminary. For her work, she has received numerous awards including the Council of American Islamic Relation’s (CAIR) 2020 Muslim of the Year award, Khadija bint Khuwaylid Relief Foundation Lifetime Humanitarian award in 2019, the Big Heart Award in 2017, and MPAC’s 2015 Change Maker Award. She has given talks and lectures in various universities and community centers throughout the country.
Jason Herbert (00:03.383)
two nights ago. And I was like, why are you even talking to me? He's like, well, because we got to get this pot up. I'm like, Fletcher, I think your priorities are somewhat mixed up. But we're going to try to like turn this around and get this up this week because the film just came out and it's like people will want to listen to it like right away. So we'll kind of like talk about some general ideas before we spoil it because I do want to like because we have to spoil it. Right. But we'll kind of say whenever. Say. All right. You guys ready to rock?
margari (00:28.462)
Thanks for watching!
Jason Herbert (00:33.395)
All right, Mary Marguerite, how are you today?
Mary Hicks (00:37.314)
Fantastic.
margari (00:37.854)
I'm good.
Jason Herbert (00:39.527)
I'm so happy to see you both. This is cool. Um, Mary, you've, this is your second time on the pod. Marguerite's it's our first time ever talking like the three of us together. Um, Marguerite, I have to tell you something about Mary. Mary gets in trouble more often with me than any other podcast guests I've ever had. And here's why people hear about the pod and they're like, I want to come on the pod. I want to do master commander. And I'm like, I'm sorry, that's already been done. That's been taken. And people like.
Mary Hicks (01:06.103)
Yeah.
Jason Herbert (01:07.679)
Yeah, I listened to it. It was really good, but I want to, I was like, no, you can't it's done. So, uh, Mary, if you're air, if you're, if you're like ears are ever itching or anything like that, that's, that's why people ask about doing that pot all the time. I'm like, it can't, Mary already had it. So, and I guess we still have to do a key lumbar one.
Mary Hicks (01:26.502)
Yeah, I mean, I feel like at this point, I'm going to scoop up all the really great epic, uh, historical dramas. So...
Jason Herbert (01:35.143)
Okay, I'm down. Just, you know, take whatever you want. That's good. So yeah, I'm excited. Um, you guys watch this movie with the last couple days.
margari (01:45.494)
Last week. Gosh, yeah.
Jason Herbert (01:47.207)
Yeah, I have to tell you, I went in and I had the thing where I was trying to reserve the seats. And I always like to sit like dead center, like three quarters the way up. And the five 30 showing was done and then six 30, I couldn't get to see. And then I had to go to go to like seven o'clock. And now I'm being like the old guys, like, but I'll get done. It's going to be 10. I like, I was complaining to myself, like, it's going to be too late at a seven o'clock movie. You know, I, that's who I am now.
I'm Jason Herbert, Lame Podcast host. So now that, no, no. You know what I'm gonna say? I'm gonna watch Shogun tonight on my couch. Have you started watching that yet on Hulu?
Mary Hicks (02:20.219)
So no midnight showings.
margari (02:31.414)
yet, I will get started. I think I'm gonna watch it in honor of my good friend John Austin Yoshino. Like so, he said he, I mean, he's Japanese, he's black and Japanese and you know, but I was like, he watched the first one. He's like, I don't know if I could do it. So I'm gonna watch, you know, I'm gonna watch it on his behalf. But I've heard good things.
Jason Herbert (02:54.151)
Oh my God, like I'm doing this whole other thing right now where we're doing Masters of the Air for World War II. And now we've got Shogun coming out. And I know next to nothing about Japanese history, right? Just, you know, your basic stuff most lay people know, right? And I started watching it last week and I was like, oh my God. So I am ready tonight to like watch episode, I think three. So on my couch, not at, I went to bed like, I went to bed at 830 last night, Mary. Like.
I got up.
margari (03:24.947)
Yeah.
Mary Hicks (03:26.486)
Yeah, that's a good idea.
Jason Herbert (03:26.675)
No, I got up at 3.45 this morning. Like, awake. I'm not doing that again, so... No, it's fine.
Mary Hicks (03:33.046)
No. To pop on Shogun at like 9 PM and then you'll, you'll have a late night. It's a really good show. I started watching the first episode and I have to say that it was the first historical drama I've seen that accurately represents what most people's sort of dental quality was in the 17th century. Some pretty gnarly imagery of teeth. Yeah.
Jason Herbert (03:41.383)
I will. I will. I will.
Jason Herbert (03:59.604)
You're saying lack thereof?
Mary Hicks (04:02.322)
lack thereof. Not everybody had, you know, pearly whites in the 17th century.
Jason Herbert (04:08.683)
You know, one of my favorite things is like being from Kentucky. People always make fun of us for being like toothless and things like that. And I guess that's why maybe two of the best dental schools in the country are in Kentucky at the University of Kentucky and your University of Louisville. Like I always I'm like, it was my people. We don't really have the teeth thing going on, but yeah, you're right. The scene with the, with the boiling pot. I don't want to, I don't want to spoil anything was a lot. It was a lot. So, all right. Um, okay. Now that we know way too much about my.
Mary Hicks (04:30.871)
Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.
Jason Herbert (04:38.123)
dietary and nighttime viewing habits. I'll introduce you guys to our audience. Marguerite, you wanna go first?
margari (04:46.946)
So hey, audience. My name is Marguerite Hill. I am an executive director and co-founder of Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative. So that's just kind of like one of my kind of, it's my main gig right now. Like I've been doing that for about 10 years at different capacities. But I have a background, is trained as a historian of Middle East history in Islamic Africa. And yeah.
You know, I got my master's in 2006 and did field work in North Africa. And so, yeah, I'm just really excited, like, because I get to nerd out with both of you about my favorite book of all times.
Mary Hicks (05:34.236)
I'm a assistant professor of history at the University of Chicago and my area of expertise is actually the Portuguese imperial world but also the African diaspora, the transatlantic slave trade. And I just finished a book on Black mariners in the South Atlantic world in the 18th and early 19th century. So revolutionary currents, slightly different than the one we're going to talk about.
you know, regarding Dune, but, you know, similar ideas.
Jason Herbert (06:02.699)
We'll stretch, we'll stretch. When is the book coming out? I was gonna ask you, like, what's the deal?
Mary Hicks (06:06.726)
It should be out, I don't have an official pub date yet, but it will be out this fall. So. It's UNC for Amahundro. Yeah.
Jason Herbert (06:11.543)
Who's the press?
Jason Herbert (06:17.017)
Oh, we got a little HATM Discount on that.
margari (06:17.542)
I'm like, I'm like going to like, where can we order your books? I was just so nerding out and fangirling. Thank you, Jason, for bringing, like, I love just meeting really brilliant people. So this is so exciting to be here.
Jason Herbert (06:31.227)
Oh, no, this was like all we have on this on this pod are brilliant people and me. So, um, you know, it's Yeah.
Mary Hicks (06:37.77)
And Mickey buffs and sci-fi buffs, right?
margari (06:38.775)
Yeah.
Jason Herbert (06:41.727)
Yeah, we have some directors coming soon on the pod too. Like I can't release, I can't announce, like we're about to go big time. So we got Firepower coming, like it's coming, like it's about to happen. All right, well, maybe, I mean, they said they'll come. So I'm waiting to see if this is gonna happen, but I think it's gonna happen. So...
margari (06:53.062)
I can't wait. I can't wait.
Mary Hicks (07:02.55)
Well, I was happily expecting Denis Villeneuve to show up. The podcast surprise. Drop in.
Jason Herbert (07:06.867)
Oh, not yet. Well, wait, wait until we get wait till he does the next Dune film. Was it what's is it Dune Messiah? Is that is that the because he says he's got it written. And yeah, and then I will like bust out my Cajun French on him because I'm quasi multilingual. I can speak some Cajun French and some Spanish. So I'm completely literate and southern. So
margari (07:26.798)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.
Jason Herbert (07:36.523)
Oh my gosh, Denis Villeneuve does not miss. If you look at his roster, it's ridiculous. The movies he puts out, they're all crazy. So yeah. All right, you guys wanna jump in? We wanna do this one? All right, let's talk about Dune. Dune 2, I guess we're gonna talk, let's set the stage about, I guess, for Dune 2, general thoughts about before, we're not gonna spoil anything just yet. We'll do a spoiler a little bit later on so people can dive in and so forth.
If you haven't seen the film, what we're going to do is kind of set the tone so that you can kind of get caught up. Maybe it's been a little while since you've seen the first Dune film, um, or haven't read the books or anything like that. So we'll get some general impressions about what we've seen, kind of bring us up to speed and then kind of jump into the, the film itself. So, uh, Mary, Marguerite, what were your general impressions of Dune part two when you saw it?
margari (08:30.766)
I saw the sneak preview of one of the scenes, and, but when it was in the film, it was even better. Like, I mean, I just was like, whatever that the, like I know like the previews gave away a lot of things, but it was just even bigger and better in the film. So overall, I would say that.
I mean, the hype is pretty real. I mean, for me, you know, like, I mean, as a fan, I've had people who've never read the books, watch it and really enjoy it. The sound, like it was amazing in the theater. It is absolutely something you need to see in a theater because you'll feel it. It was just so big. Everything that was great about the first one, it was just bigger and more and it was like very action packed.
Like, it was really enjoyable. I look forward to watching it many more times. Like, this in the next few weeks in the theater. So, you know, it's gonna be exciting.
Jason Herbert (09:29.658)
Hahaha
Jason Herbert (09:33.099)
Oh my gosh, yes.
Mary Hicks (09:36.01)
Yeah, so I watched it on Friday in a packed theater, which is a special kind of experience because I feel like there are very few movies we get to see now in a packed theater with people who are excited to see it. And the theater I was actually at showed a montage of the previous films and mini series based on Dune. So it was really interesting, the references to that kind of filmic history and how, you know,
Jason Herbert (09:58.513)
Oh, very cool.
Mary Hicks (10:05.518)
The first adaptation of this book was 1984, David Lynch, and known for being kind of a gonzo surrealist adaptation, but also kind of trend setting for the sci-fi genre. Like, I definitely feel like there are some influences that resonated beyond Dune. And of course, like people talk about how Dune, the books, influence things like Star Wars trilogy and how it's kind of imprinted everywhere. So it definitely felt like I was part of
Jason Herbert (10:19.351)
Thank you.
Mary Hicks (10:33.814)
film history and being drawn into this broader film history. And then just in terms of, and this really struck me about the first film as well as the second, it does not look like a movie that was filmed in front of a green screen, which I'm just so drawn to. I really struggle watching things like the Marvel movies because I'm just like, this is a cartoon. I can't relate to this. But I feel like because this film focuses on practical effects.
It's very talky as a film, you know, it's very philosophical as a film and it's about the kind of political intrigue that surrounds colonial extraction and colonial warfare. It definitely felt like a different kind of blockbuster spectacle film. And I enjoyed watching it and I thought, you know, I probably won't have a similar experience to this for a long time to come. So I was happy.
Jason Herbert (11:33.715)
Yeah, I was really excited going into this. I remember when I first saw Dune and this would have been on my couch, like on the television, right? Cause we came out during COVID. We weren't really going to the theaters. I don't even remember if there was a large screen release for Dune, I can't recall. But I remember watching for the first 10, 15 minutes. And literally the thought crossed my mind. It's like, is this the best film I've ever seen in my life? For the first 10, 15 minutes, I thought that. And it's still in my mind. I was like, just blown away.
margari (11:59.01)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Herbert (12:02.951)
And you're absolutely right. Like Villeneuve's mastery of the camera and what he's trying to tell visually and with the sounds, I don't think he could be matched right now. I mean, the closest guy I could think is Nolan, but I think he's in all respect to Christopher Nolan. I think Villeneuve's even better at this. He's some of those shots that we saw in there within the, in the gladiator. All this is in the trailer. So, you know, when we see the gladiator pits, which were insane, you know, obviously Arrakis just,
It's such a spellbinding film to watch. And you're right, like to go and sit in the theater and watch this with everybody else to listen to them, ooh and ah, and things like that. It's a lot. Have you both seen all of the previous adaptations of DUDE?
margari (12:54.318)
I have. I so have. I would have to admit when I saw the sci-fi series, I stalled. Like, I couldn't do it for a long time because I just didn't want it ruined for me. But then I did watch it and I actually enjoyed the sci-fi series, which the time was like more faithful.
I saw the first one as a little girl. So that's kind of like my history was like late night HBO. I used to always watch stuff when I was, shouldn't be watching it, like Red Shoe Diaries. How was I in elementary school? Looking at it, it was weird. I was kind of weird. Not a lot of supervision, Gen X. But...
You know, in that book, I mean, the movie was so cool to me. Like the meat, like I still am like my training is like an undergrad was as a medievalist. So that medieval look, the like grotesqueness of it, like even I see the influence.
of David Lynch's Dune in things like Chronicles of Riddick, you know? Like that kind of like some of the aesthetics of it and like the planet and everything. So it's like, so I've seen every adaptation and just as, you know, like, and I watched it kind of like in anticipation for this, so I knew I was going to be, like I wasn't just stuck with
the sci-fi which had budgetary issues with that as the image. Like I already had a new image in my mind of like these Dune characters or another Dune universe. So yeah, like it's, you know, this one was very special. And I think for me, it's hard to know. Like it's, I was like, was this the best movie I ever saw? Or am I just biased because like I love the story so much. So it's like, it's very, it was very encouraging to see.
margari (14:42.85)
folks who are like kind of new to the, do you know, dooniverse, like, oh, they really enjoy the story too. And my 11 year old self is also just really reaffirmed because I was always that weird kid.
to tell people, I'm like, I saw this story, and I could never tell a linear story. I was like, this boy, his name is Paul, and he has, you know, and my friends would just walk away, totally weirded out, and now I'm like, I felt like tried. So I'm just so excited, yeah. But I'm still, you can see that glow, I light up whenever I find another person who likes Dune.
Mary Hicks (15:08.174)
I'm gonna go to bed.
Mary Hicks (15:18.71)
I actually didn't become a Dune fan until I watched the first recent movie. And so I don't have this like long history with Dune. I think what attracts me to it is just the way that it's drawing on all these historical references to create a vision of the future. And it's so powerful the way it does it. Not beyond critique and I'm sure we'll get into.
Mary Hicks (15:47.686)
space and Jean regime, you know, as Marguerite is saying, like, it's clearly working with all these medieval and early modern influences in this futuristic setting. We can also question whether or not it's space orientalism. We'll probably talk about that later. But, you know, it's just interesting the mix of past and present and future. And you almost don't get a depiction, you don't get
historically accurate depictions of colonialism and colonial scenarios on film the way you do in sci-fi, where they're imaginative and sort of construct. I think a lot of sci-fi films are less frightened to...
basically explore these colonial dynamics because they're not about real societies. They're not about, you know, here's this legacy that we need to feel ashamed of. They can create something new without all this baggage and without all this sense of complicity or the need to atone, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that they're kind of liberated in a way to delve into some of these like very complicated power dynamics in a way that's very imaginative, but grounded in.
uh, you know, precedence, I would say.
Jason Herbert (17:07.347)
Yeah, I want to jump into maybe the idea about the history behind these particular films as far as the historical inspirations before we jump into like what happens in the movies and kind of talk about and Margaret you wrote about this in some Of your pieces I read online which I'm gonna post links to Awesome. That's how I found you Mary was like go read this. I was like, okay. Um It was like this no, it's great. Are you kidding me? Um
margari (17:27.059)
Thank you.
Jason Herbert (17:30.699)
Can we talk a little bit about this idea that I guess the Northern African influences upon Frank Herbert and Dune, the idea of colonialism, the roles of religion that we see in some of these warfares and things like that. Can we kind of talk about how history informs the creation of this fiction, and then we'll kind of go from there.
margari (17:50.334)
Yeah, well, I mean, I think we've I mean, I definitely I want one. I want to go into like Oregon, right? Like where one, you know, does even like Frank Herbert's history, which is very significant, you know, like as this kind of Oregon kind of like, you know, like so he was interested in ecology. He saw these sand dunes, which were kind of potentially taking over these towns. Like they would just move and stuff. And so my dream is actually that go like I'm like, I'm planning on going to Oregon sometime this year.
But, um, and then, you know, like when he was writing it in 1965, right, in 1960s, you had a lot of, like, and from like the, from the 20s to even the 60s, there was like new, like independence movements happening in, um, in Africa, Middle East, and then you had like neo-colonialism, which is like reared its ugly heads shortly, shortly after.
So, you know, and still like ongoing, you know, like in North Africa, the Algerian Revolution. And, you know, so there was like the resistance movement in Algeria against like the Pied Noir who were like, you know, like French folks who actually lived in...
a settler colony in Algeria. And then in 1948, they declared independence so they could still maintain that dominance within Algerian society. A lot of times, you know, it's very similar, apartheid in South Africa. So like these things were happening. And the other thing is like the beautiful film, Lawrence of Arabia, right? Like there was these films that came out. And so like with my work, which I really highlighted, which is...
Because a lot of times when we imagine the Middle East and North Africa, we always imagine it being like one type of phenotype, but like who is Muslim? Who, what is, what do Arabs look like? Um, you know, what does like the Sahara look like in the Sahara is actually ethnically diverse, you know, there's indigenous folks who don't necessarily fit within our racial lines. Like identity is not formed in the same way that it is in America. So.
Jason Herbert (19:41.711)
Mm-hmm.
margari (20:00.51)
the Sahara actually consists of countries that are considered sub-Saharan too, which like Mali, you know, like you have Chad, Sudan, which is like, you know, and so like I kind of talk about the actual influence of another anti-colonial resistance movement, which was in the 19th century in Sudan, which there was a movie called Four Feathers, which came out. So Lawrence of Arabia
margari (20:30.362)
right around the time that Frank Herbert was writing was Four Feathers. And so these were like these big colonial movies and everything and you know where the British were like heroes but then we have him writing this like much more nuanced complex story.
Mary Hicks (20:47.454)
Yeah, I love, that's why I loved your take on Dune, because I noticed that exact thing, which was, for me, the previous adaptations that I saw retrospectively don't compare because it was this all white universe that they were kind of creating, and bloodlines and the mixing of bloodlines is a really important part of Dune, of course, but also that's just not faithful to the kind of medieval.
North African, Sahelian, Saharan, and also Middle Eastern, right, Arabian reality that I think is evoked through the film. And so I think the kind of multiracial casting that the new Dune film undertakes actually really underlines the kind of social complexity of this Fremen world, this fake Fremen world that they're trying to create that's a mirror of this kind of medieval North African past.
Jason Herbert (21:46.771)
Yeah, I actually love this. And I think we just go ahead and jump in from here on out. So if you're listening in, we're just going to spoil the crap out of this film from here on out and just cause we, cause there's no way like Margaret and Mary have just kind of, kind of give us the launchpad here to jump in for what we saw on screen. So stop listening if you haven't seen the film. Uh, but if you have it, keep going. Uh, this really, if I can jump in for my own thought here, it was, I really appreciated the diversity that we were seeing on screen here.
Mary Hicks (21:55.489)
Yeah.
Jason Herbert (22:15.135)
within my own scholarship and certainly within my own work, you know, as a tribal liaison, I get asked all the time, what's the native way of doing things? What's the, and like, whoa, those blanket terms really always, I hate because they'd never reflect the diversity of say, what we consider, you know, indigenous North America or anything like that. And same way here on the film, right? We kept seeing the Northern tribes, the Southern tribes, you know, different ideas and factionalisms within those. And I was like, okay, cool. They're showing this diversity that
Like you were both saying, maybe people aren't quite aware of when they think about Northern Africa, because this movie set in space, but very much in our own world. So I dug that a lot. Um, can we, you talked, Marguerite, about the blackness that we saw on screen as well as, as compared to, can we, can we talk about why that's a little bit different or why that's important here as well?
margari (23:18.748)
Yeah, well,
margari (23:36.51)
And so for Frank Herbert, like the way he lists the Fremen as being descendants of Zensunni warrior wanderers who were oppressed and in Terra, which is like our current earth, that this group of people were...
on the Nilotic, so the Nilotic Uruba, or you know, region, so along the Nile. And so these were a group of people that did not assign, like they just didn't want to be part of, they did not assign loyalty to the government and then they were expelled, you know, so they were like forced to go on this one planet and they kept getting enslaved and enslaved and enslaved. And so that's like the kind of grounded history and
which shapes the reason why like, Fremen identity was shaped by oppression. And that has parallels at that time in 1965 around oil, so around Bedouins and even oil, like there's still oil in the Sahara and things that are going on that we're not fully aware of military occupation in the Sahara.
And so how can we look at this kind of future world and understand our current world? I think that was like, it made it just so interesting, its relevance for now, but also just thinking of like, well, what happens farther in the future? Can we imagine new realities? And I think as far as in representation that Frank Herbert did envision a future that wasn't
all entirely based in Europe, that there were these influences of South Asia, of Hinduism, right, and of Islam, and Buddhism, and Catholicism, and you know, like Native American religions, and that people, you could see this diverse universe in his imagination, and I think that was like very like forward thinking, especially given like where sci-fi was in the mid-century. It was just like...
margari (25:45.382)
I didn't really see it fully and that's what made it a little bit of a tragedy for David Lynch the way that he depicted. They were all like Eastern European and G suits and everything, which was like, you know, I mean, that's where he was at that time.
Mary Hicks (26:01.026)
Which is like the Richard Pryor joke, is like he goes to watch a sci-fi film and he's like, wow, there are no black people in space. Yeah.
Jason Herbert (26:08.011)
Hahaha!
margari (26:32.667)
Yeah, which
margari (26:38.782)
You know, but it was like that within science fiction, it allows you to project in the future. And a lot of times in fantasy, even with fantasy, like as a medievalist and Mary, I'm just very much interested in like, your like understanding of like European history and Portugal, like Portugal was actually imported a lot of Africans, like the influence during the pre-modern period, during the Renaissance.
that Europe was actually a lot more diverse than people make it out to be. And that along the Iberian Peninsula for 700 years, Muslims did rule the Iberian Peninsula as a very sophisticated society. The sophisticated philosophically, technology, they kind of took Roman stuff and were like, yeah, we're gonna like amp it up. And so, but that history, it's definitely downplayed.
Mary Hicks (27:19.363)
Mm-hmm.
margari (27:32.126)
along the Iberian Peninsula and like how what happened there actually really was the spark for what would become the Renaissance. And that's actually part of like you'll see those parallels in the Dune universe and it's like you'll see like little snippets if you're like a historian you'll see like a little snippets where they actually talk about like Ramadan and Belatuz and it's ripped right out of like.
a 19th century Irving Washington story about Andalusia. Like they're like, oh, like the, you know, it's like they were eating buck lava and dah, dah. You know, like, and it's just like, they were like, and they had fountains and everything. And I was just like, wow, this reads like old school Washington Irving talking about Andalusia. And then they're like.
they're cast out. And so that kind of story, like, I'm like, this is why I love doing, because it's like you always find these little tidbits and it's like, wow, there's so much of that history. And even understanding like when the Moors were in Europe, they were from somewhere from the Middle East, some were from North African indigenous tribes. And they also, and those tribes are very, you know, those peoples, communities.
Mary Hicks (28:35.118)
Mm-hmm.
margari (28:46.058)
of the Amazigh people are very diverse itself. If they were the Almohads or the Amoravids or the Moravadun, they were in southern Morocco, even as far as Mauritania, which is West Africa. And then they were there. So I think it's important to think about how much Frank Herbert researched and that.
Mary Hicks (28:57.076)
Mm-hmm.
margari (29:09.942)
This informed his own understanding of what could possibly be. So I'm like, I'm super excited. I can't wait till they open up his archives. It'll be amazing.
Mary Hicks (29:20.63)
Yeah, that would be really revealing. I think to look at his archive to see what his influences are, because that's debated. Some people posit that this is about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, basically. That was his kind of model. But when I was watching it, especially the first one, I was struck by the parallels to Portuguese oceanic expansion. So basically, if we take the Atreides, who are the main royal house, the protagonist of the film in the book.
we can make an analogy to Avice, which is the royal house of Portugal that was responsible basically for what's called the Age of Exploration, in which Portuguese seafarers first make contact with certain parts of West Africa that we now identify as sub-Saharan West Africa. And so for me, the whole theme about going out into the ether
basically pillage, spice melange, which is the main sort of commodity that's harvested from the Fremen planet, is really a kind of parable for Portuguese seeking gold wealth in sub-Saharan Africa in the early modern period. And one of the things I think we have to get past is this idea that
In the 15th century, Portuguese seafarers were imagining North Africa and even sub-Saharan Africa as this backwards impoverished place. They were really imagining it at this place of immense wealth, sophistication, because we have to imagine these kind of ancient centers of learning, like Timbuktu, that sort of disseminated their intellectual and political influence all over the region. So.
they really thought of these places as sites of wealth, particularly related to the gold trade, which was coming out of what's now sort of modern day Ghana. And so one of the goals of these early expeditions in the 15th century, one is to conquer Muslim, you know, infidel polities. So they capture Suda in 1415, and then they move further south. But the second goal is really
Mary Hicks (31:46.05)
to gain access to what they called Arab gold. So West African gold was the purest gold in the early modern world. It was about 93% pure. And so they were really attracted to the idea of bypassing these trans-Saharan caravans that are controlled by, like you said, the Amoravids, these other very powerful Muslim polities empires that were active in the region, bypassing those and then reaching
the actual source of the gold. So that's what kind of drew them into the Atlantic world. And when they first arrived there, they're not able to overpower the peoples who are living there, right? It's not the kind of settler colonialism that defines 19th century Africa and other parts of the world. It's really this relationship that some scholars have called that of landlords and strangers. So these mariners arrive, and then also they're followed by merchants, many of whom are of Jewish,
of heritage. Many of them had converted, forcibly converted because of religious laws, purity of blood laws that are passed in the middle of the 15th century in Spain and Portugal. But they migrate there and they establish these tiny toeholds, right? And so on the planet of Arrakis, you have like one city that the visitors, the foreigners live in and the rest of the planet is Fremen.
They cannot exert territorial control over most of the planet. They just have the small toe holes from which they extract spice melange from the environment and then fly away. And so that very much is reminiscent of the kind of small colonial outposts or small trading outposts that the Portuguese would establish in West Africa called feitarias. And they also come into contact with really powerful Muslim polities.
For me, the Fremen are very similar to the Tariq, who are a kind of nomadic, pastoralist community. They convert to Islam somewhere in the sixth or seventh century, it's believed. And they're known as the people of the veil, right? So men wear a turban veil that's meant to protect them from potential harmful spirits, but also from the sand and the harsh environment in which they live. And
Mary Hicks (34:09.61)
It is people like these that the Portuguese are coming in contact with. And that is their early experience of colonialism. It's not being able to overpower people. It's really being repelled by them militarily, but trying to extract some sort of commercial advantage from these contacts by basically exporting gold from these regions and then later enslaved people. But that's really what it reminded me of. I'm sorry, I went deep into history, but it was just a really powerful metaphor, I thought.
margari (34:37.107)
I love it!
And so then it just really makes extra sense, because the Atreides, some people have said, oh, they're Greeks, right? And at that time, it was like, I mean, when we're thinking during that time, Greece was actually overtaken by the Ottoman Empire. And so with the doctrine of discovery, that was really the pope had allowed King Afonso to say, oh, you can enslave,
the wealth and take the land and do perpetual war against three groups of people. It was one is the enemies of Christ, which he meant the Jews, the Saracens, who were like Muslims, and then against pagans who at that time were Africans. And that doctrine of discovery gets utilized in the new world. But that was kind of like the foundations of that.
What I find that's like what was missing in the movie, but it's like kind of definitely implied in the books and the language, right? The Padeşah Emperor. So the Padeşah, like that's a term that's used for the Ottoman Empire. And within Orientalist books is this idea that the Ottoman Empire is the sick man of Europe. So the Ottoman Empire, which was like in Europe, but it was always like this kind of rival empire. And that becomes that impetus, right? For like the Doctrine of Discovery.
But you had the Mediterranean Europeans couldn't really sail it, like Venetians, they would always get raided by kind of Turkish sailors. So they ran the Mediterranean. So they had to get around either by going around Africa or going, or they went west and then that's where they hit the Caribbean. And so I think it is still important. And I really appreciate you, Mary, for bringing up.
margari (36:31.398)
that this notion of like the Middle East or the Muslim world is seen as backwards when it was like China used to be the center of the world like everybody was trying to get trade with China and the Silk Road was like popping and so they were just really trying to subvert like how are they not going to make the growing Ottoman Empire wealthy but like and to you know like and that was something this rivalry this idea of European dominance
wasn't a given. And so with the empire, so I was just thinking about this lately, I was like with the Sardaukar, which is also kind of like a Turkish Kurdish term, that they also had very clear influences. And so I was thinking that this stagnant empire that Frank Herbert was writing about in Dune had parallels to the Ottoman Empire.
And that in Lawrence of Arabia, right, it was the Bedouin tribes that rose up against the Ottoman Empire to collapse it. So then I was like, is this really an anti-colonial story or is this sort of like Lawrence of Arabia played out in a different way to upset to, you know, this crumbling empire, the Ottoman Empire, by the way, it's like it still has a lot of European influences because like the Ottomans, like they would actually like.
import European boys, like, you know, like to run that. So it's like, you know, like the founder of modern Egypt itself, like Muhammad Ali was Albanian, like he had like red hair. So I was like, wait a minute, you know, just thinking like the emperor sounds like a description of Muhammad Ali, who was the founder, like he actually conquered huge tracts of land, huge parts of properties against the Ottoman Empire. So it's like,
Even the geopolitics for that Frank Herbert was talking about was like so sophisticated and he was just like sneaky and getting that in. So it's so exciting. I love that you brought in the Portuguese aspect and it just really helps because, you know, who played the father of Paul Atreides, Duke Leto. I mean, that even within itself just blew my mind. It was like, which I mean, he did fit a lot of the description. He wasn't tall, but, you know, Oscar Isaac.
margari (38:51.118)
did fit physically, you know, like the actual descriptions, olive skin, you know, kind of like hawkish features. I was like, he's not completely like, you know, Nordic, you know, white. It's like that this is a diverse universe and it's imbued with all of these influences that we can kind of trace to, you know, places that are not in Europe.
Jason Herbert (39:17.747)
Margaret, I love the fact that you just brought up the Sardaukar as Janissaries, which I hadn't even considered watching it, and then you said that and I went UGH
margari (39:23.234)
Thank you.
Jason Herbert (39:27.051)
we saw it in Game of Thrones as well, right? The Unsullied or Janissaries, right? I mean, I had a chance when I was in grad school to take a course on the Ottoman Empire and I was like, love it. I don't love the Ottoman Empire, but I love studying it and talking about it. So I just, yeah, it's-
margari (39:29.462)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
margari (39:42.642)
Yeah, it's so weird, you know? Like, it's so, they're so weird and so interesting. And then now, like, you're seeing, like, and now in modern Turkey, like, they're kind of like, the, um, the, they have, like, the, oh, man, it's like the, Ertugrul, like, in every Muslim household, like, that's all they watch. Like, I'm like, I can't watch all, like, it's too many episodes. But it is sort of like this romanticizing the past, which is very interesting, but it's like, so interesting to see.
Ertugul like and this is before the kind of Devshirme like the Janissary Movement and like how they would actually conscript like they would actually force a child levy in But that's like very similar. It was like they use prison. So like That like what actually created the Sardaukar was like this like really rough climate But it's like that it's like that the emperor kind of did a levy to get people to fill his army
And that the film kind of makes it like, like where the Sadekar seem more like Eastern European as a, which I mean, yeah, but like the Ottomans were also Eastern European, but it's like, it sort of removes some of that in, which I think that was the kind of unfortunate thing of showing like all of the religious cultural influences, which should have been imbued throughout the whole empire.
Jason Herbert (41:08.695)
Can we talk about the whiteness of the film? I feel like the marriage is made a face. At the white guy asking the questions here. But there's obviously all these questions. The idea is like, is Paul the white? Is this a white savior film? I don't see that, but I really wanna get your thoughts on the way the whiteness is presented, maybe both in the novel, but also on screen here. What are we seeing when we talk about
margari (41:11.778)
Cool.
Mary Hicks (41:14.304)
Okay.
margari (41:25.008)
Hmm.
Jason Herbert (41:37.579)
Paul Trades, his mother, you know, Josh Brolin, Thanos. What are we seeing here with the whiteness on screen?
Mary Hicks (41:50.114)
I think it's really complicated actually. Well, I'm interested to hear what Marguerite has to say too, but I guess I will say as someone who's not Middle Eastern, has no relationship other than intellectual to that region, or North African either, to my mind, the film was trying to depict a critique of the idea, ideologies of colonial
superiority. However, in the process of doing that, it also has to acknowledge that there are many different kinds of engagement that outsiders, foreigners, colonists essentially have with colonized peoples and territories. So we have the kind of two models presented. And one is very obviously evil, which is the hearkening. They are brutal, genocidal. They're only there to plunder and extract wealth.
And even like the Baron at the beginning, he says, my Arrakis and this like super evil toad, which you get, right? The kind of colonial ethos of that, right? And then you have later Robin saying, cause he completely does not understand where the Fremen are coming from, why they're resisting Harkonnen ships extracting spice, why they're being disrupted, why they're being sabotaged, and why they're fighting guerrilla warfare, et cetera. He says they're crazy, right?
Jason Herbert (42:55.613)
Mm-hmm.
Mary Hicks (43:18.358)
basically meaning they have no politics, they are just disruptive, they're unruly, there's no rule of law, which is a classic orientalist trope, is that Middle Eastern or West, you know, North African societies are places without laws, without order that need to be ordered by a colonial presence. And so the movie is very clearly critiquing that. But I also think you have the other side of colonialism presented, right? Which is...
House of Trades, and you see it in the very beginning with Leto, like the Duke saying, we have so much to learn from the Fremen. We're going to harness their power. And what he really means is he wants to harness the kind of niche environmental knowledge that they have over this planet that he believes that they can exploit. And so he's not a genocidal colonialist, but he also wants to exploit.
the people and the resources of Fremen. And I think you see Paul in a way, and Lady Jessica following in that, in the sense that Paul is this classic kind of in Portugal, early modern Portugal, would be called Lensado figure. The people who launched themselves into the colonial society, into the colonized society, or the society you're trying to colonize, and basically become acculturated to that community.
as a way of gaining influence within that community, right? So they are the strangers of the landlord and stranger dynamic, and they were known by the Portuguese as renegades because it was unclear where their loyalties lie, right? If they're still loyal to the colonial enterprise or if they're in fact now loyal to their adoptive communities. And oftentimes they would enter into, you know.
domestic relationships with native women. They would have children in that society. They would learn the language. They would change their dress. So it was almost a complete sort of social and cultural transformation. However, they were there because they wanted to commercially exploit that post-society. And so I think that it's kind of presenting us two models of colonialism.
Mary Hicks (45:38.03)
And I don't really think the audience is supposed to come away with the notion that one is good and one is bad is that I think it's a critique of both of them. That's just my reading of it, but I'm sure there are other valid ways to look at it.
margari (45:53.606)
Yeah, what I found was like, I mean, even in the original novel, like in it, in some of the things that was kind of interesting was like, you know, like Chinese character whose father was Liet Kynes. And in the original movie that Liet Kynes is actually a
a imperial bureaucrat, like she's a scientist. So she's like, which you know, like in America, like a lot of like for African Americans, like become like kind of like middle management in government, like the government is the largest employer. And so she's like the planetologist. And, and she kind of like when she goes to Iraqis, like, you know, and he's just like, Oh, you fell in love with the Fremen warrior.
Um, and the novel, Liet Kynes, is second generation planetologist who's half Fremen, half um, Empire, but like is very feared, is very revered by, so like in that kind of essence, like Mary, which you mentioned, like that's like, that's what Liet Kynes is, is like, is sort of like loyalties in both, you know, both sides, like with the Empire, so is like the govern, you know, governs the change.
but is also very fremin in identity. And that's Chani's father. And then how Chani is described in the book is having red hair. So even then I was just like, wait. So he still was, Frank Herbert still struggling with miscegenation laws at the time. He couldn't, Paul couldn't go full native, how folks did.
Jason Herbert (47:31.808)
Hahaha!
margari (47:32.822)
Um, you know, I was just like, so that was kind of like, I was like, that's kind of a trope, but it's like, you know, there's a lot of like interesting tropes too, like whether that's like the son of the sheik, you know, like, which is the fight, like how they got out of those anti-miscegenation laws. It was like he was kidnapped and he was raised by the Bedouins and then now he's seducing these European women, you know? So it's like, but it wasn't like he was full on Arab. And so I was like, man, you know, like, I mean, they couldn't, he couldn't help himself. And then.
Jason Herbert (47:55.285)
Hahaha
margari (48:01.958)
Every description that Frank Herbert has like he's very sparse in his description of women But they're all like described like his first wife, you know I guess it's like Jessica's his first wife like he sees Jessica everywhere and like he's like everybody has like the same notions of beauty so it's sort of like I'm like Okay, Frank. I'm trying to understand here. But like in the um in the movie I think like some people had explained like the heart couldn't had red hair
Um, and so, but so does the Emperor. So there's a lot of red hair because Beverly had red hair. So it's just like, you know, which is fine. I mean, my daughter's borderline ginger was always, you know, love my gingers and everything, but so it's like, um, you know, but in the, in the, in the film, it's like, they make them look like Prometheus, you know, like the ideal Harkonnen is like, you know, like has no very little melanin. The sun is blotch, you know.
blotched out there made like as bald in a way that's alienating. And so it doesn't see the insidious nature of colonialism that is like well-meaning people, right? Like hell is like that saying, hell is paid by good intentions. You have well-meaning people who do atrocious things, commit atrocities. So some of the things that I did while I thought it was like cool for some of the look, but I did find it a little bit off-putting to make the
Harkinens so evil, so bizarre that we can't find their, you know, and like Josh Brolin is like, they're not human, they're brutal, you know? And it's like, okay, so they're not real humans doing atrocious things to indigenous peoples or to Paul. So I think that was a kind of unfortunate choice, but it's like, it's for the film, but I mean, I just think that Frank Herbert would have had them less of caricatures as opposed to being like,
These are, I mean, even though Baron Harkonnen, I mean, it is like, it's fat phobic, queer phobic, you know, like that you see in the film with like, with the Baron. But it's like, still it's like, in the film, it's like where Paul tells his mother, like, we gotta be Harkonnen's, you know? Like, we gotta be like them. Like, that's what we gotta do. As opposed to being like noble, like that's what killed Leto. He was so nice.
margari (50:28.326)
And that's what made him, that's why the emperor hated him, wanted to get rid of him. So I don't know, I still feel like power was seen as very white in Denis' vision, but you saw that the empire still was diverse itself.
people in the empire, the Bene Gesserit, like that they were a little bit, you know, like if you kind of look closely, you're like, are they Catholic nuns? Are they Muslim? You know, like what's going on? I don't know. And so I'm still kind of like struggling, not struggling, but wrestling with the, the actual view of power and then how.
It's like, wow, we're still 20,000 years in the future and like black people are still oppressed. Like, come on, can we just do better? Like, I just want to see a future where I'm not having to deal with slavery anymore, you know? Like, I think it's possible, you know? It's doable for us to get out of that paradigm.
Mary Hicks (51:33.202)
Yeah, and I mean, I think I noticed there was a lot of other film references in the film, too. And one of them was Apocalypse Now that's like referenced constantly in both movies, like image wise. And so, you know, again, going back to the original Conrad novel, you know, is that a critique of colonialism or colonialism? Is Heart of Darkness, you know, condemning it or is it reveling in the same kind of unequal power dynamic, you know?
Jason Herbert (51:41.629)
Mm-hmm.
Mary Hicks (52:03.562)
you know, imagined as intractable as colonialism is, right? So it can be read, I think, either way. And I think you can also read the film either way. So, you know, I know there've been critiques of the film saying it's like weight washing North African, Middle Eastern culture, because you have these kinds of actors standing in for, you know, actors of European descent, presumably. I mean, I don't know what Timothée Chalamet, maybe French, I don't know, is, but.
like standing in for this powerful, sensibly Islamic leader, messianic leader. So I think you could read it either way. I guess if you want to be kind to the film, you can say that in order to condemn a kind of power relation, you need to depict it. You need to depict the horrors of colonialism, which
The thing that shocked me about the second movie is like, they aren't playing around. This is like colonial violence. When you think of all the really soft depictions you get in other like, story wars, it's like, oh, it's like the rebels versus what are like a fascist empire. And it's very kind of modeling in a way. This is like not that, this is just like hardcore fighting guerrilla war. You know, people are like vomiting before they go into battle because they're so frightened. And then like people are being tortured.
Jason Herbert (53:04.206)
Mm-hmm.
Mary Hicks (53:29.598)
in sort of retribution for rebelling against this evil colonial presence. So it's not like mincing that dynamic at all.
margari (53:39.218)
Yeah, I think my big issue with both like the film and in some of the ways like, and I just had tweeted about it. It's like that it really speaks to like the fear that people have around liberation, you know, like liberation movements and that it depicted like, oh, you know, like even like in the book, like Reverend Gaius Mahayama says, like, you can't unleash those people upon the universe.
If you let the frimmin out, they're just going to sweep over the universe with their jihad. And so that type of depiction itself reifies this kind of anxiety around freedom movements or equality or just like even when folks are saying, we want to be free, we don't want to be killed anymore.
And you know, like, what does that look like for like, peace and reconciliation? Like that was like when I was a little girl in like the 80s, I was like, that's like people feared that like if South Africa was allowed to be free, like that all the black South Africans would kill the Afrikaners. And I mean, they're still there, you know, you still have a society that exists. So I think that determinism around like the Fremen who have been so oppressed would be this force that would take over.
and that Paul and his visions, which in many ways, even in that, his visions, he makes those visions come true by exploiting the mythology. And so my critique around the Orientalism is around this idea that...
that the Fremen would be these hoards, they would be worse than the Mongol Empire, Genghis Khan, and sweep over and destroy everything. And you're like, but Genghis Khan recruited a lot of people along the way to get those big armies going. People had to buy in, there's not enough Fremen to take over the whole entire universe, right? So it's like, the second part was their naivete in the film,
margari (55:51.808)
that they show like somebody like he's not the Mahdi but it was like to see which that was part of the story arc around Stilgar becoming the and if you read like children of dune become a snail man, there's chair dog snail man and a bunch of other things that are weird futars in the later books but to see the lessening of a man when Stilgar who's this traditionalist becomes to believe in Frank and Paul as a God
And so what does that look like while Gurney doesn't, you know? So Gurney still maintains his individuality, his dignity, but like Stilgar does it. And that becomes like this tragedy that's in the book, but it's also like it's played for jokes.
And then it's like, and then I think it's like, wow, like Javier Bardem playing that, it's like, I'm kind of mixed because I was like, wait, Javier Bardem, who's Spanish, who was like ruled by Arabs for like, you know, North Africans for 800 years, but now he's playing the people that were ethnically cleansed. I don't know. It's such a weird dynamic. Mary, what are your thoughts on that?
Mary Hicks (57:02.302)
Yeah, I mean, that's also interesting is like the internal dialogue in the movie between it's basically between Chani and Silgar, right, as the sort of representatives of the complexities of Fremen politics, which are like, and Chani keeps being like, no, the Fremen have to self liberate, we have to liberate ourselves. And we have to remain true basically to our kind of moral ethos in the process of our own liberation.
margari (57:11.182)
Mm-hmm.
Mary Hicks (57:31.082)
Whereas you see Stilgar wanting to basically accept this outsider, the idea of the, uh, Lisanne Alguippe, is that how you say it? Naib, yeah, as this kind of voice from the outer world, this outsider who will liberate you. And I mean, I guess I think for the audience we're supposed to be on Chani's side because she's the more well-rounded like human character and also the love interest of Paul Atreides and sort of the...
margari (57:41.246)
Oh, right, yeah.
Jason Herbert (57:41.727)
Mm-hmm.
Mary Hicks (57:59.478)
woman who's the personal betrayal she suffers at the end of the film as a mirror, I think for the political betrayal represented by, well, should I spoil it? Should I say what happens?
Jason Herbert (58:13.435)
Yeah, so what after the film?
Mary Hicks (58:17.93)
No, no, I mean, like, by the end of the film, we're left kind of with the idea that perhaps Paul has betrayed, that, you know, he starts out as this person who's willing to acclimate himself to Fremen society and to Fremen values, but by the end, he's like, no, I'm imposing my will. Basically like the Harkonnen. Yeah, it's like the same exact thing, except for he's believed and the Harkonnen are seen as forever outsiders. So
Jason Herbert (58:20.627)
Yeah, go ahead.
Mary Hicks (58:46.398)
I do think you have a kind of split there. And I mean, if you look at the historical analogies, the idea of revolutionary jihad, like we mentioned earlier, is part of West African history. The Turing intellectuals who were writing in the 18th century, the same time the Age of Revolutions is going on in Europe.
are actually coming up with this idea, generating this idea of revolutionary jihad that then is actualized in 1804 in Hausa land, which is in basically northern Nigeria. And so you see a man named Usman D'Amforio who becomes one of the religious leaders of the Sokoto Caliphate. But he basically generates this idea that
House of leadership is corrupt, it's oppressive, and it needs to be cleansed through Muslim, like through law and adherence basically to Islam. And so he's a cleric, right? He's not a military man. His son's actually the ones who take care of most of the sort of warfare side of things. But you see the potential of something like a holy war, a religious vision of liberation.
for various parts of West Africa in this period. And the film, I think is posing this idea that it's a kind of false liberation. Whether or not we wanna look on those movements and say they were false liberation, I think that's problematic. I mean, it's certainly true that not all revolutionary movements become liberatory. Some of them become quite fundamentalists and oppressive ultimately, but I don't think that's something that's
constrained just to North Africa and the Middle East, right? That's something you can see in, let's say 19th century France, right? And so it is a sort of perhaps orientalist depiction of the possibilities of liberation through, you know, religious leadership and religious ideals.
margari (01:00:54.302)
Yeah, a lot of my work, my second qualifying paper was actually on, like, so it goes, it kind of extends through, like, from Haj Umar. So, like, along that kind of, like,
Saharan region. So you had like Hajj Umar Thal who also did, you know, like he rose up against French colonial rule and then under like in Nigeria the Sokoto Halifa in the 1903 it was conquered by the British. So like my work kind of picks up from there and it's like these folks were like, oh this isn't right. So they started fleeing going towards East, going towards Sudan and so
You know, in the 19th century, early 19th, there was like the Mahdi movement in Sudan. And so they were actually fighting against Egyptian, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. And so, and so British troops and Egyptian troops that the Sudanese were fighting against.
he dies and his son takes over the mantle. So my second qualifying paper was like still like 20th century where there's a lot of like uprisings. And so I was trying to understand like, what language did they do to understand the trauma of colonialism and how did they use and deploy that? And so sometimes there's this like simplification.
around religious movements and like how people use utilize the terms to provide meaning. And I don't think that Frank like I mean Frank like you can see in his political philosophy like you know when you have like religion and politics together or like there's not the rational thinking and then so sometimes like it's just like it's a train that you it keeps moving you can't stop it. And that but the Mahdi movement was actually very successful and achieving its aims like it really
margari (01:02:48.462)
humiliated the British. Like they thought like they had Sudan and they were able to throw off like the British colonial rule. And eventually like Sudan itself, like by 1950s decided to be like, we're not gonna be part of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. We're gonna be our own country. And I think that like, sometimes like the ways that we understand
religion and you know it kind of ignores like how religion and militarism in america looks like you know like we do have a lot of that cult in our own faith you know like how we send our soldiers out to fight in wars but it makes it like this other thing and that the issues don't have the same type of meaning um especially when it comes to like
black and brown folks. And so I think there is sometimes like the film kind of flattens the Fremen, but then it's also like the idea. But I do think the idea of the Lisa and Al-Ghaib, which is significant in the fact that like, it seemed like the Zendaya Chani was saying, liberate the planet, right? It wasn't like we're gonna go across the universe. And so how I read it was like, she was like,
I thought you were just about us, but no, this is a major power grab for the entire universe and now my people are going to be part of this. And you know, like when he made the grab for the princess, as opposed to saying like, I'm Duke of Arrakis, like, so I think she would have been down for him being Duke of Arrakis. But when he's like, no, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go marry the princess and rule the universe. That's a spoiler, right? So it's just like, um.
Jason Herbert (01:04:16.053)
Mm-hmm.
Mary Hicks (01:04:17.762)
Mm-hmm.
Mary Hicks (01:04:40.13)
Thank you.
margari (01:04:41.674)
And the film like that depicts it, but it's like, I think in the book, it was like, it was kind of a given, like he was gonna likely marry some, like a royal from like a major house, and it was gonna be a political marriage.
Jason Herbert (01:04:55.959)
Well, they set this up early on in the first film, right? The idea of a consort, the idea that maybe you don't marry the one that you love and things like that to kind of, you almost know this is coming once you're introduced to Chani at the same time.
margari (01:05:04.439)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Herbert (01:05:11.583)
I always liked Zendaya, I liked her in Spider-Man stuff, things like that, I've seen her a little bit. I bought in so hard on her as an actress in this film. I thought in a lot of ways, she was the absolute star of the film. Like, Chalamet, there are a lot of great filmmakers, stars in this film. When she was on screen, she was who I wanted to watch, and the way that she sells that look of betrayal in her face, when he's like, hey, I love you, but I'm gonna go marry Florence Pugh over here.
Can we talk about women in this movie? Like, I feel like we might need about six hours because this is not just a male-driven film. Women are such an important part of this film. Chani, Jessica, the princess, your turn. Who, who? I...
Mary Hicks (01:06:01.726)
We're just going to talk about how Paul fumbled Chani at the end. Is that the whole, you know?
Jason Herbert (01:06:06.383)
Oh my god, Yak- I mean, that- isn't that the real tragedy? Is that-
Mary Hicks (01:06:10.626)
That's the real lesson of this film is don't fumble, you know, you have a good woman, don't fumble her. Yeah, no, I thought her, I thought the actually the characterizations of the women in this in both films were really interesting and prophetic. And the other thing is people were pointing out, you know, in some of the online discourses that the first film begins with Chani, and the second film ends with Chani and her perspective.
Jason Herbert (01:06:17.879)
is that she goes back to Spider-Man. Yeah.
margari (01:06:20.318)
hahahaha
Mary Hicks (01:06:39.274)
And she's the one narrating the history of Arrakis, which is really interesting too at the beginning. And she says, I wonder who our next oppressors will be, open the film, right? And then you're kind of, you know, and it's explaining this history. And so the thing that struck me about the film is the real kind of like political power of the female characters. Like they're not just there to be kind of like decorative or like for male motivation.
Like I'm fighting for my woman, but like they are in fact driving a lot of the political intrigue and movement that's happening.
margari (01:07:15.97)
Which I mean, in some ways it's like, oh gosh, Leslie Pierce talks about that within the Ottoman Empire, the ways they depicted the sultanate of the women, which is women are scheming, women are this, that was the dip downfall of the beginning of the decline of the Ottoman Empire, which is this behind the scenes power that's not fully accountable.
But it was like much more complicated like that a lot of the women did amazing things for the Ottoman Empire and the harems weren't just like Places were just women sat there and ate pom-poms and you know Pomegranates and you know like cashews or whatever, you know, like the Not cashews, but there's like another that's like, you know people like really, you know You got to like you have to take time to eat them. So it's like
Mary Hicks (01:07:59.432)
and leaves. Right.
margari (01:08:08.026)
But really, they were production houses, like the actual things that they produced in the harems. And these were like household where their sisters, the wives, they would actually produce textiles that you'd actually see in pre-modern paintings. And so I think there's always that kind of depiction, like, oh, women are powerful, but it's sneaky. That is like, and it's not legitimate.
So it's like there was some lines where I just felt kind of uncomfortable with that. Like it's like it's not like women are out there like, hey, I'm going to make this decision. And this is like for the tribe and for the people and like that's being honored. But that indirect power that women can play through relational things like the way that it's made to be is like not as like it's like they always made like been a dresser at like spooky, even though they're made to like serve.
um that it's like they were like this evil force in the universe um and it could have been played a different way right you know like it's like um and that or they were like mystics right like they're kind of like the ones that the whether like the tribal like the memories of the like wow like the reverend mothers and like what they did do um
I guess, I mean, I wrote my latest thing was like, I did feel like that the film sacrificed a lot of women of color, like both films, it was like Liet Kynes, dead, you know, like Chani betrayed, Shout Out Mapes, killed, you know, like even Shishkali, like killed. We didn't see it, you know, like.
basically like female phatokine like surviving and living thriving lives. It's like they all like really suffered under this like
margari (01:10:05.842)
this power play for the empire as opposed to being like, okay, like we've carved out this space for ourselves and autonomy from male power and hegemony. Instead, it's like either sneaky or it is like oriental, you know, like it's, it's like, it's superstitious, you know, like, but either way, it's not like legitimate in a way that like
Mary Hicks (01:10:15.724)
Mm-hmm.
margari (01:10:31.538)
a duke with his signet ring is, you know, it's like bow to my ring.
Mary Hicks (01:10:37.562)
No, and in a way that even in the books, it's right that the Bene Gesserit are kind of seen as the foils to spacing guild, is that right? The kind of because it's like the mathematical spacing guild, the rational versus the mystical Bene Gesserit, which are, you know, it's a religious sisterhood, which is trying to basically promote their political power through men. To me, it was like
margari (01:10:47.694)
Mm-hmm.
Jason Herbert (01:10:48.679)
Mm-hmm.
Mary Hicks (01:11:06.358)
the film was making a kind of the commentary on gender in the film was that in the Fremen world, there is a kind of egalitarianism, even the fact that you have women fighting and these guerrilla forces on equal footing as men. And Chani is emblematic of this. So there's a kind of radical egalitarianism in the Fremen world, which is counterposed with, even Chani says, well, we don't have dukes here among the Fremen.
which is counterposed with the world of the outside, with the world of the empire, which is very much about status, hierarchy, patrilineal power, and the rule of men. So women have to operate behind the shadows. In a way, the fact that Paul is telling Chani that he is sidelining her in order to marry.
Rulion? Is that how you say her name? I don't know how to say anyone's name in this film. The daughter of the... Laron? Okay. Florence Pugh. To marry Florence Pugh in the end is the kind of like, is the kind of infiltration of the values of the outside world of hierarchy into this Fremen world of resistance.
Jason Herbert (01:12:08.947)
Yeah, I just thought you were real loud.
margari (01:12:09.076)
Very well.
Jason Herbert (01:12:13.675)
Florence Pew. Florence Pew.
margari (01:12:15.243)
Yeah. Ha ha ha.
Jason Herbert (01:12:18.891)
Princess Pew.
Mary Hicks (01:12:28.694)
The one thing I did think was really interesting was this kind of depiction of female spirituality among the Fremen. So again, I keep using the analogy of the Tarik. And it's like, in many West African communities that adopt Islam in the medieval period, there are preexisting beliefs, religious beliefs. There are still cults of the ancestors. There's still the maintenance of matrilineal spiritual power. And the Tarik are one of the groups that practices this.
is Dahomey in West Africa in which women exercise very powerful spiritual roles. They play an important role in the royal court, supporting basically the ruler. And in some ways, they become kind of representative of this kind of body of wisdom that is meant to influence, to guide through the channeling the voice of the ancestors that's meant to guide the leader.
That is the way that these kind of ancestral cults tend to work, is that it's the weight of the past coming to bear on current political conundrums. And so you kind of see that, but you also see Lady Jessica corrupting that female spiritual practice and using it for her own kind of political ends.
Jason Herbert (01:13:49.003)
Can we talk about Jessica because she scared the shit out of me in this film. Yeah. And I feel like the two films combined, okay. Again, spoiler alert in a section that we had already said, we're spoiler field, this is what five hours of movies so far that we're in five, little over five hours of film and it just feels like it is a heel turn for everyone that we are introduced to love and the suffering, maybe Gurney is just kind of, you know, feels like he should be narrating a Ford commercial. Uh, but.
I was terrified of Jessica in this movie. I don't know if that just speaks to Rebecca Ferguson being amazing or the writing or what, but holy shit. I was terrified of her. So I guess what I liked about the presentation of women was that of course, we have Chani, who I guess is maybe staying on the path of knowing who she is. And frankly, so is Irula, Flores Pugh. You've got these two people that-
Paul's gonna go back and forth between apparently going even after this film, which is real crap. But that's just me. I don't like it. Everybody, what I like though is that you really do see women are not just treated as the pariah or the, there are real shades of character to women who have their own motivations, who were using their power. Even like you said, Mary through men at times, right? Through the Biddy Jesra and things like that. I've really kind of dug that. The fact that we,
We get the humanity out of women here, which is that humans, and Marguerite, you wrote about this, capable of awful, terrible things. And it's not just man humans, it's women humans too. You know, I dug that. I wanna ask you about casting. We got new characters in this film. Obviously this is the first time we've done Dune on this thing. What do you think about the casting in this film? We talked a little bit about Stilgar and things like that. I don't really necessarily want...
want to beat that. But I want to talk about what you like as far as like presence, what you saw on screen, who are you feeling? What do you think about the casting in this film? What did they get right? What didn't feel right? What did you think?
margari (01:16:04.414)
I mean, I think the, I mean, the Harkonnen characters, um, the Baron. Oh, I mean, that was, that was great. I felt like Christopher Walken, like I would have loved to see a little bit more quirky, a little bit more unhinged Sardaukar kind of, you know, like, maybe just like, you know.
Jason Herbert (01:16:16.855)
It's so good.
Jason Herbert (01:16:26.293)
Mm-hmm.
margari (01:16:27.774)
a little bit like a little bit of retired the was it the gangs in New York kind of thing. A little bit like a little bit more. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I love that film. And so he just was like you know so restrained as like you know so it's like but it's a nice nod to like the career so we kind of felt that I felt the the. I mean.
Jason Herbert (01:16:34.3)
Things to do in Denver when you're dead.
Jason Herbert (01:16:39.925)
Right?
margari (01:16:57.438)
I still feel a little bit a certain kind of way just from like as a depiction of Stilgar and the tragedy of Stilgar, like I still think that there some of that nuance could have been fleshed out. Like I mean there could have been, I mean there are like Arab actors who could have like really landed that, you know, and just kind of like made it a little bit less jokey because it's like it's a very serious thing and given...
given like the timing of this film, like, you know, and I just have to say it right now, like, I mean, the timing of this film, like the both like Muslim communities worldwide, it's like, I mean, are like really hurting, like just seeing, you know, what's happening in Gaza, seeing what's happening in Sudan and everything, but like the images of Gaza is like really heavy on everybody's mind. And so I know, like for a lot of folks who are
from Southwest Asia, North Africa. It just really stings to see so much of their culture depicted and not a major speaking role for Aswana, like Arab, Amazigh, any kind of Middle Eastern, Iranian. We had David Desmalshian. I'm probably butchering his name. He was great as a Harkonnen. But it's like, I think that.
You know, like I think naming that, right, it's like it's very difficult for them to see so much of their culture and not have any major roles. Is, you know, that made me very uncomfortable. And I think that it's, and it while driving some of that point home, it just is very unfortunate. Like that's like one of the major flaws I find in the film that they probably should have had more consultants.
Mary Hicks (01:18:29.986)
Mm-hmm.
margari (01:18:48.354)
from the region to deal with things more sensitively. And then also casting wise, being mindful in how that could have enriched the world. The character could have been embodied in a way that would have shown more dignity to both the character and the story. So I think Javier Bardem playing up for laughs because he doesn't know what it's like to witness, to being a...
Mary Hicks (01:18:53.143)
Mm-hmm.
Mary Hicks (01:19:04.746)
Mm.
margari (01:19:15.47)
colonial subject like when you've been colonized like it's like you'll feel it and maybe there would have been a little bit more push back around why he believed maybe like played that up to being like Yeah, I think this guy could get us to the you know, like maybe Lisa and guy would have been not like Oh, we need a savior, but we need somebody who is part of the Empire Understands that world to get us to where we need to go. I think that would have played up a little bit more dignified
than like, oh, we believe in this savior because that's what he kind of played it as. So I think that like, that's my biggest critique is like the Stilgar character, Chani I could kind of understand, but like in some ways it's like, it still would have been great to have a Swanna, like a actress play her to really get at the kind of like aspirations of a Fremen, you know, of someone who's been colonized for-
Mary Hicks (01:20:06.465)
you
margari (01:20:11.394)
generations and what does that look like when you think you have an ally but that ally just used you to get to what they want you know like that betrayal like i mean i could feel that betrayal but and that's like i just don't know if they like they kind of separate it from the present which is like so present right now in this moment like my like i know everything when i go my timeline looks very different than some of my other peers but it's like we're feeling
neocolonialism, military occupation, wars, like this stuff is so real, it's not distant in the future. And so it's like, how do you know, even the actors talking about it, it's like, it's not done with the same sensitivity that needs to be in like kind of care for community that is dealing with the repercussions of like, imagining what does like, what does it look like when oppressed people fight for their liberation? And that's what people are doing right now. And they're depicted as like,
irrational and human, not real human beings, and their lives aren't worth anything. And it's, you know, it's very painful right now for us. So I could see even the biggest Dune fans coming from the Swana, like Black, Arab, South Asian, Middle Eastern communities are like really kind of struggling with the film.
Jason Herbert (01:21:32.598)
Mary?
Mary Hicks (01:21:33.394)
Yeah, I totally agree with Marguerite. That was one of the things I was thinking about afterwards, because the imagery is so... I mean, the thing that Frank Herbert couldn't have anticipated when he wrote Dune is that the United States would be, in an ongoing war, in one country in the Middle East or another, ongoing bombings for the last 40 plus years.
um, military operations in this kind of region, the, the fictional depiction of, of Arrakis is based upon. And so watching some of the scenes, um, like the scene in which the Harkonnen basically like carpet bomb an entire area of the desert, um, it just brings up, it's, it evokes more than the movie. I mean, it's evoking more than a kind of like sci-fi
religious belief in power and colonialism, it's actually evoking a kind of lived history that globally people have experienced, but also people in the United States have been watching as the people who are part of the country that's perpetrating this. And so I thought.
they kind of pulled their punches a little bit in making it more realistic than the 84 version had been or closer to a kind of historical analogy than that version had been. But then they kind of backed off a little bit and didn't allow those resonances to be fully articulated. And I think the casting is a part of that. And yeah, I also thought Harvey Parton was miscast. As great as he is, I just sort of feel like.
you know, the people who I felt did best were the kind of Duncan Idaho's and Gurnee Halleck's who were like bringing the American cowboy energy, which like American actors can really do. It's like, yee-haw, I'm a cowboy, you know, in the movie. So they totally brought that. And I was like, you know what, they're great. But the other parts that probably could have used a little bit more depth, I think some of the actors struggled to meet that. Yeah, even though I have...
margari (01:23:37.035)
Yeah.
Jason Herbert (01:23:37.342)
Mm.
Jason Herbert (01:23:40.803)
Hahaha
Mary Hicks (01:23:58.506)
to say that the leads surprised me just in terms of, Timothy Chalamet and Zendaya surprised me just in terms of the kind of emotional range that they brought to their roles. Like I didn't know they were capable of that as actors. So that was surprising in a good way. But I totally take like Marguerite's point about the kind of lack of sensitivity to the historical resonances of what they were, what they were portraying.
Jason Herbert (01:24:24.439)
I had a heart tra- I had- good.
margari (01:24:26.992)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and I just want to, you know, like, because
you know, even though like we may be like the small community, the American Muslim community, but I mean, I've had like friends and peers like who have lost family members like just recently, like, you know, like, they're like, Oh, like one of my friends, like, Hala Hijazi, who, like, she's just like, Yeah, like, 11 of my family members have been killed in Gaza, like, so their buildings have been bombed. And another one, Dr. Zarina grew all like, and it was like something in Syria, like,
margari (01:24:59.612)
but it was like a US-made bomb that killed her in-laws. And it was like, they were just there in a building and we were just like, oh, boop. And it's like a little blip, but it's like the fallout, like this is like, these are people's lives. So I think, yeah, like naming that. And so then it's like, when it's so far out, it's seen as like, oh, this is far out in the future, but.
You know, like, so like having these discussions of what does this mean now? You know, like, how does this resonate now? And also, how could this be activating, triggering for folks who either survived, you know that, or they've had family members who are buried under the rubble?
And so, and then how can that help us understand and have some empathy when there is a complete lack of empathy now, but like people are they, are we relating to the Fremen and their oppression or are we still dehumanizing them by saying that, okay, we have to keep them oppressed because if we don't, they'll go on jihad. That's my only concern is that the narrative may be used to still justify.
And believe me, there are present foreign policy things where films have shaped people justifying, like, okay, pulling out of places like Rwanda, and letting a genocide happen, or not intervening humanitarian aid, because they're actually going in and looking at these kind of tropes.
Mary Hicks (01:26:17.378)
Mm-hmm.
margari (01:26:32.202)
and saying like, yeah, we're not policing the world or we're policing this because we've seen, you know, like it's my concern is that bias can still inform foreign policy and what we as voters, it's Super Tuesday, what we may be seeing as acceptable politics based on film tropes that really aren't, you know, don't have a bearing.
in what is like the live reality of colonized people and seeing how they can, there have been people that have done truth and reconciliation and work together past conflict. Will this still, you know, like, are we going to look at the film and still be justifying, like, oh yeah, like if we allow folks to be fully free.
they're gonna like that means our annihilation. So that's my only like kind of like when they're just like now it goes to jihad and it's like all about the or the holy war and it's about the Fremen's holy war as opposed to Paul getting his revenge on the lance rod because that's what he in order to keep his power.
he has to basically pummel them and he's using, but he's gonna, I feel like he's kind of copping out by blaming the Fremen and it's like, well you needed the Fremen to do what you wanted to do. So I don't know, it's kind of a, I feel a little bit mixed, you know, so I'm speaking back to the novel as, as you know, as a subaltern subject.
Jason Herbert (01:27:57.943)
Alright.
Mary Hicks (01:27:57.946)
And I will say, I don't want to take too long at this point, but I do think there's something about like Dune as being this kind of like cautionary tale. It's about ecological degradation. It's about nuclear holocaust potentially. It's about what happens when you place your faith in a messianic religious leader and you just sort of forego every other, you know, you just throw caution to the wind and you become a kind of blind follower. It's about...
the real, I guess, perils of being a colonizer because you become this monstrous figure as you see with the Harkonnens, right? But if everything's a cautionary tale, there is no like positive vision for justice and transformation, you know? And like as Marguerite was saying at the very beginning of the podcast, it's like, can't we imagine a future that's more hopeful or more transformative?
Jason Herbert (01:28:57.087)
Did you have a favorite part of the film?
margari (01:29:01.282)
Ooh, so many.
Jason Herbert (01:29:03.095)
One scene, one moment, or I don't know, storyline, something. What's your favorite, when you were watching this movie, because I think all three of us came out of this movie, just rocked, but we think about this movie. What's your favorite part of the movie? Because I know I've got mine. What sticks in your head?
Mary Hicks (01:29:23.502)
Okay, so I'll say, can I have two for parts one and two?
Jason Herbert (01:29:26.971)
You can have to because this is your second podcast and also I owe you another one for when your book comes out. So yes, you can have to How about colonizing you're taking over this pod?
Mary Hicks (01:29:34.146)
So I think the first movie, there was an amazing scene in which House Arrakis receives basically sovereignty over Arrakis. And there's this really elaborate ceremony, which is so medieval. There's this great book called Ceremonies of Possession, which is about how, by Patricia See, which is about how Europeans basically performed sovereignty.
before you actually can have sovereignty over a space, control it, you have to perform that. And there's all these like beautiful textiles and ceremonial garb in it that are very like historical looking to me. And then in the second movie, the opening sequence in which the Harkonnen boyars, I guess, are trying to infiltrate this area of the desert, new area of the desert. And there's just like this kind of silent battle happening between the two forces.
And there's not a lot of sound and just people are like falling out of the sky being shot. And I just thought the imagery of that was like really powerful and conveyed this kind of the terms of warfare in this, you know, far away, what is meant to be a far away, remote place that is perilous.
Jason Herbert (01:30:54.583)
Can I jump on that real fast about Momoa? In that first, actually think about that first film. I don't think we've seen Jason Momoa be that good in the film. I think this movie gets, he doesn't feel like he's overacting. He's, his version of Duncan Idaho, this just kind of big brotherly, but yet like that scene where he's like, does the thing and he knows he's about to go die and he takes out like 19 Sardaukar. I read that like the character continues to come back over and over and over again.
I think it's the best memo we've ever seen on screen. I really, cause he's, he feels understated in this movie or in the first one, but I'm sorry. Go ahead, Marguerite.
margari (01:31:39.086)
Yeah, no thank you. I mean those are like both beautiful amazing images. For me it was definitely the, I mean the sand writing scene like as a fan and as somebody's seeing kind of like how like that's different from you know like there was like it was kind of like calm it was a little bit awkward with the first one.
But it just really blew my mind how dangerous it was, but also here is a rite of passage. It's also just recognizing this film is really about a 15 year old boy who comes to you, and he's 16 when he comes to rule the universe, so you know it's gonna be nuts.
I mean, my daughter is like 12. Oh my God. You know, like I'm just like, ah, like if you gave her authority, it'd be bananas, right? So it's like, you know, but just seeing him kind of come into his own and to see how collectively the Fremen kind of worked and, you know, his kind of like getting embraced by, you know, the culture. So that was like just a very, it's like when the power of Shai Halu was amazing to see like the significance of that.
I don't think that people fully, from the film, kind of understand the relationship between Spice, the poison, you know? That wasn't elaborate, but I think you kind of get a sense of the power of Shy-Haloo. So I think that was, for me, that was obviously, for me, a no-brainer. And then there was some of the understated things, you know, like...
that were just really amazing. I mean, his transformation after he gains the memories, right? Like, so then it's like he becomes no longer a 16. Because I think by this time, he's like probably like maybe 16. As a 16-year-old boy to like now, he's got like all sorts of memories and otherness that his mother had. I feel like that was like there's a subtle, like there is that shift in him.
margari (01:33:41.738)
So I felt like that was like a really good Timothy Chalamet moment, you know. And there was like a lot of other like really great, great scenes that just stand out. But I just felt like that, like his speech and like, you know, I'm gonna do like a whole thing, a montage of all the stooping. It's just like the prison yard stooping, any of that, you know, like they just love to get, you know, get low. I, you know, any of those scenes are also great for me.
Jason Herbert (01:34:10.207)
I gotta give you mine because it's my podcast. I'm a love story. I love it. Like I and the betrayal the way that she sells it we talked about this earlier but like I was all in on Paul and Chani and I know this is coming and the way she's I'm like god damn you Paul you son of a you know oh god
Mary Hicks (01:34:34.495)
You crazy kids are gonna make it oh. Hehehehe.
margari (01:34:37.726)
Hahaha
Jason Herbert (01:34:38.399)
You know, yeah, been there. So, all right.
margari (01:34:44.71)
Me too, me too.
Mary Hicks (01:34:46.05)
It's traumatic. It would be traumatic, that ending for some people.
Jason Herbert (01:34:49.839)
All right. Yeah. All right. Um, all right. Give me a, this is a technically history podcast. Give me a, give me a history related book you like. Uh, people want to read more history around Dune. What should they be reading?
Mary Hicks (01:35:07.918)
Should I go first, Marguerite? Do you want? So I wrote down some. So the two books, I mentioned Ceremonies of Possession. The two books, it reminded me of Georgie Brooks, Landlords and Strangers, which is about colonialism in West Africa, a great book. And then also there's a really interesting art history book called Caravans of Gold, which is about the gold trade.
margari (01:35:09.737)
Hi, go ahead.
Jason Herbert (01:35:13.261)
Oh, I-
Mary Hicks (01:35:38.302)
Um, it's Kathleen Burzak about the gold trade across the Sahara and how this commodity, it brought people together. It brought worlds together, which is essentially what Dune is about. How spice melange is bringing together these disparate people and causing all these like very explosive political confrontations and it transforms people's worlds, right? There are spiritual horizons, everything, you know, their, their love lives. Uh, Jason.
Jason Herbert (01:36:07.315)
No, so we're not going to save the L word on this pot ever again.
margari (01:36:13.946)
So I would go back in history to understand some of the political philosophy. So reading Ibn Khaldun's Al Muqaddima, which is the introduction of his whole thing, and I would love to see all the volumes written, but Ibn Khaldun, who was a pre-modern historian,
you know, like this kind of cycle of history. And so you'll see that within Dune and a little bit of like his own history, like, you know, like it's like, it's kind of tied in there. So I definitely would recommend that. I'm trying to, I mean, there's been so many like really good books that have come out on like the history of, you know, like Islam, you know, like just.
But some of them are like problematic. So like don't, you know, like read some of the orientalist ones because it's going to like frame that. But I think reading about.
Like Mary talked about Uthman Danfodio, like in his son, Muhammad Bella, but I would actually read like about Nana Asma'u, who is like, who was like his, who was his daughter who educated the women in that. So it's like, you know, so anything like, read Nana Asma'u's poetry and see like how she played a major role as a political force in the Sokoto Caliphate. So yeah, like there's a really good book,
that actually has a collection of her writings, which would include her history.
Jason Herbert (01:37:52.499)
Neither of you said do in the novel, I'm just saying.
margari (01:37:56.599)
That's a given, read more Dune. There's like some really great, great work.
Mary Hicks (01:37:56.7)
That's implied.
Jason Herbert (01:37:59.551)
so much so much dune all right last good
Mary Hicks (01:38:02.178)
We didn't write anything on psychotropic substances, so that we left to the audience to find. You need to find a spice that expands your consciousness, like Paul has. Find some encounters.
margari (01:38:09.042)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Jason Herbert (01:38:14.155)
find us there you go find a dealer all right last question is doing a history movie
Mary Hicks (01:38:16.843)
I'm gonna go.
margari (01:38:26.918)
I think it's a book about history. Like, it's shaped like it is... You start out with a history of Dune, so, and it spoils itself throughout that. So, it's really in the importance of epigenetics in history.
Mary Hicks (01:38:46.23)
Yeah, it's like a meta commentary on history because it's about how people's narration of their own history and imagining of the generations and this kind of generational continuity really brings to bear on how they conceive of themselves operating in the present. And so I think it's like an argument for like, yes, we have to understand our history to know what we're doing right now. Because you have to, in order, I mean, Paul, in order to like awaken his, you know, the part of his consciousness that will then lead to him being a leader, he asked to.
drink this water of knowledge of the past and find out all the secrets.
Jason Herbert (01:39:19.819)
Perfect. Guys, I was looking forward to this pod for so many weeks, ever since we started talking about doing this. I went and watched the movie, stayed up way past my bedtime. This was awesome. Thank you both so much. Where can people find you on the online? Half of social media went down this morning. Where can people find you if they wanna know you better on Twitter, elsewhere?
Mary Hicks (01:39:47.562)
My handle is Dr. Mary Hicks. Yeah, find me there.
margari (01:39:53.062)
My handle is margaretaziza So you can find me there But on both, I mean my Instagram is not that great, but I still you know I'm still on X the platform formerly known as Twitter
Jason Herbert (01:40:10.795)
We're all there. It's our own personal oracus. I don't know how I was gonna bring this to a close, but we'll be back to see you guys when we do Messiah in like three or four more years, yeah?
margari (01:40:22.334)
Yes, look forward to it.
Jason Herbert (01:40:23.879)
All right, awesome. Guys, thank you so much.
margari (01:40:28.566)
Thank you.