When Male Development Fails

I haven’t read the books, but the movies Dune 1 and 2 are a male formation story with a failed Bildung. It’s rare to find in the entire male Bildungsroman genre a tale of a comparable fiasco of a masculine identity building. In female growing-up tales, yes, a woman’s failure to grow up is not only frequent but coquettishly embraced, in particular where feminism has triumphed. In the male versions of the genre, you don’t find that much failure, especially not in the colossal and obvious proportions of Dune.

At the end of his development, the hero of a Bildungsroman must become his own person. That’s the whole point of every one of these stories. He looks for his own way, has a conflict with his family or social milieu, breaks away, stumbles, recovers, stumbles again, and finally forges his own path.

Dune 2, on the other hand, ends with Paul dramatically rejecting his own happiness in order to follow the wishes of his mom and avenge the memory of his dad. The parents own him completely. Paul puts even his sexuality in service of his mom’s desires. Even in 19th-century female Bildungsromane, a heroine would resist being married off to some dude her dad finds useful, so this is as dramatic a capitulation as the genre allows. This goes to show that no amount of superpowers and prophetic visions will make the process of growing up easier.

I very much hope the poor dude grows a pair in the upcoming episodes and sends the helicopter mommy packing but no spoilers, I beg you.