Flash Gordon, Genderbent

Here’s a remake I want to see: the 1980 Flash Gordon, recreated exactly shot for shot, but with all its characters gender-flipped.

Here’s a remake I want to see: the 1980 Flash Gordon, recreated exactly shot for shot, but with all its characters gender-flipped.

I first had the idea last April. I forget why, but it occurred to me all the names in the film are unisex: Flash, Ming, Klytus, Barin and Vultan could quite easily be women’s names, just as Dale Arden and General Kala could be men. (Hans Zarkov is harder, but I decided Hans could be short for Hanna, the same way Jools can mean Julia and Amanita from Sense8 gets called Neets.) Once I started imagining Flash Gordon genderbent, I realised it would make a perfect film—and be true to the original’s style.

This Flash Gordon has an almost entirely female cast, with women speaking almost all its lines and not generally being sexualised; the first ten seconds pass the Bechdel when Ming tells Klytus she’s bored and demands a world to burn. Keeping the costumes, script and production design from the first film—just with gender-switched characters and new pronouns—makes it even more camp. Everyone looks, sounds and behaves the way they did before… with one difference.

Flash Gordon is still muscled, blonde and all-American, with her own name printed in bold letters across her chest; Ming the Merciless is still bald, goateed and dastardly, with plans to conquer Earth and force Dale to marry her; Zarkov is still a mad scientist with her own space rocket. The villains still dress in sequins and giant shoulder pads, an older man flogs Prince Aura in his sheer jumpsuit, and Flash still zooms toward the capital as her theme plays, rescuing Dale before Ming makes him her plaything.

Queen would return to rerecord the songs, this time with vocals by Lady Gaga, who would perform dual roles as Flash and Ming. Barin would be portrayed by Laverne Cox, complete with whip-fight and billowing hair; meanwhile, Miriam Margolyes would replace Brian Blessed as Vultan. I’m not sure who would play Zarkov, but Jeremy Jordan would be a perfectly ditzy and bedamselled Dale. Gwendoline Christie would appear as Klytus. Prince Aura’s actor would be a twink with a background in gay porn.

All the best moments would still be performed; all the great lines would still be said. (‘Gordon’s alive.’ ‘Dive, my hawkmen.’ ‘Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the earth.’) In every way—bar one—it would be a reenactment of the classic original: just queerer, campier and more surreal. I only wish I could make it myself.