More on Mad Max
I bookmarked this post by giandujakiss from a few days back until I could see the film, and now I have I can't help but quote here because I agree with everything...
This is a typical Hollywood approach to romance, where women are "love interests" - meaning, the story is about men, and men things, and women are the B plot. Which in addition to all of the other problems, inherently makes the romances uninteresting - they aren't part of the excitement and intensity of the main story. It's one of the reasons (not the only reason, but one of them) why we have slash - because the stories we're told about men's relationships are much more interesting and intense than the ones we're told about heterosexual relationships. Stories about men's relationships are about relationships. Stories about men's relationships with women are about sex.
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So - back to Mad Max! Which had one of the most compelling heterosexual movie romances I've seen in a really long time. Because even though Max and Furiosa's relationship was not pitched as a "romance," their relationship was the emotional core of the movie. Furiosa wasn't a tacked on extra to the man's plot; it was her story, and the story of how they worked together. The movie cared as much about her character development as it did about his, and their relationship grew organically from the adventure. In general, it's reached the point where I don't want Hollywood to put any kind of heterosexual romance in a movie because they'll fuck it up - except if they're all like Max and Furiosa, then hell yes, I'm all in.
Source
This is a typical Hollywood approach to romance, where women are "love interests" - meaning, the story is about men, and men things, and women are the B plot. Which in addition to all of the other problems, inherently makes the romances uninteresting - they aren't part of the excitement and intensity of the main story. It's one of the reasons (not the only reason, but one of them) why we have slash - because the stories we're told about men's relationships are much more interesting and intense than the ones we're told about heterosexual relationships. Stories about men's relationships are about relationships. Stories about men's relationships with women are about sex.
[...]
So - back to Mad Max! Which had one of the most compelling heterosexual movie romances I've seen in a really long time. Because even though Max and Furiosa's relationship was not pitched as a "romance," their relationship was the emotional core of the movie. Furiosa wasn't a tacked on extra to the man's plot; it was her story, and the story of how they worked together. The movie cared as much about her character development as it did about his, and their relationship grew organically from the adventure. In general, it's reached the point where I don't want Hollywood to put any kind of heterosexual romance in a movie because they'll fuck it up - except if they're all like Max and Furiosa, then hell yes, I'm all in.
Source