"Dune: Part 2" Revolutionizes Frank Herbert's Work with Queer Representation

Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of "Dune: Part Two" rewrites the homophobic source material of Frank Herbert's novels into a queer cinema, shedding the harmful stereotypes and allowing queerness to flow beneath the surface of the adaptation. The film transforms characters like Baron Valdimir Harkonnen and Feyd-Rautha, and introduces queer subtext in the relationships between the characters, creating a sci-fi world where queerness is palpable and opening the series up to a queer reading devoid of the original homophobia that plagued Herbert’s work.