One of my employees at work is reading Orson Scott Card’s novel Ender’s Game.
“Who,” he asked me a few days ago, “do you think should play Ender in an Ender’s Game movie?”
I thought about this a few moments, sighed, and said, “Of all the child actors I know, the only one I can think of that could play Ender convincingly would be Dakota Fanning.”
“But, Ender’s a boy!” he said.
I shrugged. “Can you think of a boy actor working today that’s young enough to portray Ender? Maybe Erik Per Sullivan would have been great a few years ago–Dewey is Ender-like at times–but he’s too old now. Fanning has the acting chops to convey Ender’s emotional arc.” I paused for dramatic effect. “And changing Ender’s gender would strip out the creepy incest subtext from the later books.”
“What?!?” he said.
“Forget I said anything, anything at all.”
No, it wouldn’t strip out the creepy incest subtext, it would simply make it the much-more-socially-acceptable lesbian incest subtext. 😉
Nice to know I’m not the only one to get that vibe from the Ender/Valentine relationship. 🙂
‘Course, that subtext is more prevalent in the later books when the characters are adults. 😉
You people are sick.
I think it’s a fascinating idea to switch the gender of Ender. Putting aside the truthful fact that a lesbian incestuous sub-text would be much more acceptable to Middle America. I think the intriguing part would be the idea that the two women characters would be so much stronger and morally sound. Whereas Peter would force discussion of whether or not the Writers/Directors of the film meant to metaphor the male race with Peter. Although Dakata is a tremendous actor, she to may be way too old to play Ender. They will have to find a young actor around the age of 8 who can play 6. They really shouldn’t have too much trouble finding this actor. The real trick as mentioned in someone else comment is trying to have this next “Child Star” work with a vast array of emotion, confidence, and sensitivity. Any word of something in Pre-Production?
I was thinking that the Peter/Valentine relationship was even creepier. Nice to know I’m not the only one getting a weird vibe from it.