I definitely sympathize with you, re: D*ne stans bc every time I critique it - and I have read both D*ne and D*ne Messiah, so I can't be accused of not knowing the books - I get both 'It's not Orientalist and it's actually criticizing white saviours' and 'Yeah, it's politically incorrect, but Herbert was a white man in the 1960s, so it's unfair to expect him to know what racism is', and it's like, yes, it doesn't read like the usual straightforward white saviour story, so I get the frustration, and there is some critique about saviour figures (more cult of personality and beware the ubermensch more than WHITE saviours specifically though imo) - but in the end, and no matter how bad things get later, the colonizer outsider DOES unite and liberate the space Arab Muslims, who are unsuccessful in freeing themselves without him, and said racialized group doesn't really have much or any agency on their own, in addition to the bloodthirsty Muslim religious fanatics racism where they worship a white false messiah and kill billions in his name; so whatever Herbert's intentions were, and despite his attempts at critique, he ultimately shoots himself in the foot by the end.
oh this is so real. where the argument that Herbert or really any person claiming their problematic story is a critique of the problematic thing falls down is where the perspective is. Like, sure, you can claim the Dune books/movies are actually a critique of the white saviour, etc but the movie can't be a critique of the white saviour AND only be from the white saviour perspective. Critique requires the act of standing back and really looking at something, a bigger picture that's not as a twist, but as the primary viewpoint. The films can't be a critique of whiteness because we're inside the whiteness the whole time. It's really frustrating when people try to argue that Dune is a critique of white saviourism and colonialism just because the characters feel bad sometimes. That's not a critique. Critique isn't, "bad feelings". But people who are fans of that kind of thinking wanna believe that so bad because if all being critical is is feeling bad then it means they don't have to interrogate their own racism or engage with perspectives other than their own.
