“Furious Feminisms – Alternate Routes on Mad Max: Fury Road,” by A Boylan / AM Duane / M Gill / B Gurr, 2020
2015’s
Mad Max: Fury Road is
the 4th in the Road Warrior series, which takes place in a scenic
battlespace in the Australian (Namibian) desert after a probable nuclear
apocalypse. In Fury Road, various war lords have seized water, guzzoline and
bullets, using barbaric methods to enforce their control. What they eat is anyone’s guess, except
‘mothers milk’ in the Citadel, a drink only for the elite. Most who saw this film enjoyed the violent
spectacle of a group of women and two men taking on the gear-head baddies and probably
saving a crowd of helpless losers back at the water-storage mountain, the Citadel.
Into
this bar walk 4 academics who look at the film as a middle-class feminist, an
anti-slaver, a disability activist and an aesthete. Oddly, they have very few negative things to
say about the film – not even complaining about the violence – though they
think they took an ‘alternate route.’ They didn’t - perhaps just a sidetrack or two.
THE
FEMINIST
The
feminist claims that Fury Road shows
that “men killed the world.” This
contention is based on Max, a lost loner and failed savior; Immortan Joe, the
cyborgian boss of the Citadel; and the dying War Boys, who need blood infusions
to survive. They are all men! Yet even the feminist does not know how the
world ended, as the series has never made this clear. Maybe there were some women involved in that
nuclear program or the gas supply. Given present politics, there absolutely
WERE.
Middle-class
feminism ignores economics, ignores class, ignores politics and only focuses on
gender. The fascistic barbarism of these
warlords is hyper-masculine and violent; white supremacist and
male-dominated. But that is not all it
is. As the academics here recognize, one
of the delights of the film is seeing how the fragile Wives, the lost man Max, the
tough female leader Furioso, the elder Vuvalini women and one War Boy, Nux, use
violence to defeat the barbarians who dominate the desert. This does not fit into that feminist idea.
The
question a socialist may ask is – where were these people before the
apocalypse? In other words, how come
their unity is only possible after that shit-show? The Mad
Max series never explains. Instead the majority of humans in this film are
pathetic and need heroines to save them – a typical Hollywood trope.
The feminist correctly points out that, except for one competent Wife played by Zoe Kravitz, everyone surviving in Australia in Mad Max is very light-skinned. No Asians, no Aborigines, no Indians, no mixed ethnicity, no one but pale ex-Brits. This is improbable in a dystopian Australia except as ethnic exclusion. The wives even look like gauzy white-clothed super models. She identifies the stereotypes being employed as “Just Warrior” and “Beautiful Soul” – you can guess who is who. But actually Furioso and her posse become the ‘just warriors’ – breaking sex stereotypes, as so many movies and series now do. Here Max has become somewhat of a sad side-kick, no longer the ‘star’ in this saga. Modern capitalist culture at this point is just fine with a certain level of ‘empowered’ women toting guns.
Slavery
is an obvious issue in the film. Women
are hooked up to milking machines; children are forced to walk on treadmills;
Max is masked in an iron cage; the Wives are held under literal lock and key,
including chastity belts; blood is taken from prisoners like Max; some War Boys
are chained to their vehicles. Even the horde of the thirsty and downtrodden
probably wouldn’t get far in this desert – they are trapped too. Dystopian barbarism includes slavery – just
as modern capitalism benefits from slavery all over the world.
DISABILITIES
Vicious capitalism produces injuries – war and job injuries, missing health-care, hidden mines from past wars, domestic violence, crime, traffic accidents, alcohol and drug damage, toxic food and environmental diseases, etc. In this film Furioso has a prosthetic arm and needs a blood infusion from Max to continue. Immortan Joe wears a shell over his destroyed skin, while needing a breathing machine to survive. Immortan Joe’s sons are damaged as well. The War Boys have cancer and need consistent blood infusions and spritz's of silvered cocaine. Many of the destitute ‘rabble’ at the base of the Citadel have crutches or amputations. It is a broken bunch much like Game of Thrones, but they continue with injuries that have become normalized.
THE
AESTHETE
Mad
Max: Fury Road, like
the other films, is a visual feast of desert landscapes, brutal weather,
isolated life forms, dust clouds, ruination, broken vehicles, tire tracks, explosions,
cliffs and gorges. Many other films play
on the image of the desert – Lawrence of
Arabia, Red Desert, Zabriskie Point, Two-Lane Blacktop, Badlands, Blade Runner
2049 and here it is even more central.
Muted colors play a role in these films – white, brown, beige, grey,
silver, metal - while dialog is sparse.
Furioso attempts to lead the fleeing Wives, Max and Nux to the “Green
Land” – an Eden where trees still bloom, flowers play and grass is alive. The old crones of the Vuvalini have to inform
her that it no longer exists. This seems
to be the most important part of the film.
Deep Green ecologists or survivalists think that our heating world can
become an Eden again, as do Christians and all those religious folks dreaming
of Heaven. ‘Escape’ is still a possibility. The film shuts the door on that
fantasy, leaving only one choice – to fight the bastards and try to take back
‘the Citadel.’ The message could not be
clearer.
What
is missing from the aesthete’s somewhat lame angle (post post Beauty?) is any consideration of the
vehicles or oil involved. Watching this
film, the welded-together motorcycles, trucks, cars and ‘war wagons’ are the visual
stars of the show. Gussoline is needed
to keep them on the war roads. The film’s
crew had to build every one of these vehicles from scratch, making the film a
gear-head’s optic and mechanical delight.
The guy playing a double-necked fire guitar backed by a wall of speakers mounted on a
speeding truck – a real steam-punk aesthetic, that. Not sure how he could miss this. This is the problem with aesthetes. Even the Guardian called it the
CONCLUSIONS
The writers
draw the odd conclusion that because Max disappears into the crowd at the end
means he is not redeemed, and so the film sends a bad message. Yet it really shows that some people cannot
be resuscitated, even if for a time they help others. That is actually somewhat
realistic. They also complain about
Furioso’s return to the Citadel, claiming she is wasting all the water by
turning on the taps for the thirsty. Yet
these academics have no knowledge of how much water there is. Perhaps irrigated agriculture will restart,
as people have to eat. (Food is a
factual problem for all the films … hunting seems not to be sufficient, as the
thin meal of a two-headed lizard shows.)
This
little book makes conscious issues a viewer will notice subliminally, as part
of the woodwork – slavery, male supremacy, whiteness, body damage, false hopes. The film was attacked by insecure fan-boys as
a feminist screed, but consider the source of that complaint.
Prior
blog reviews on this subject, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate
our 14 year archive: “Blade Runner,” “Game of Thrones,” “American War” (Akkad); “Hunger Games,” “The Matrix,”
“The Road” (McCarthy); “Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep” (Dick) “War for the Planet of the Apes” and “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,”
“The Heart Goes Last” and “Handmaid’s Tale,” (both by Atwood); “Good
News” (Abbey); “World War Z,” “Cloud Atlas,” “Maze Runner,”
“Divergent – Insurgent,” “Children of Men”(James).
And I
bought it at May Day Books’ feminist section!
Red
Frog
August
20, 2021
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