Mad Max and the pressure to be a badass
There may be a few mild spoilers in here if you know absolutely nothing at all about Fury Road, and have never seen any Mad Max movies (which you should, because they are mindbending).
I saw Fury Road and I loved it like everyone. I have really missed the Mad Max universe and I'm really hopeful that they make the other three movies George Miller wants to make.
First of all, this series has defined what we think of as the post-apocalyptic aesthetic and without it we probably wouldn't have Burning Man, art cars, or the entire Maker scene. Even though the biker marauders are psychopathic killing machines, it looks like SO MUCH FUN to ride around the desert in leather shorts, football pads, and a feather Mohawk. Clearly it is or there wouldn't be so many Burners.
There's a lot of hullabaloo about the so-called feminist agenda of this film, but these accusations are being made by people who have never watched Mad Max. George Miller's sympathy has always been primarily with how the Wasteland is the hardest on women and children, and every Mad Max movie has featured badass women of all ages and adorable spunky kids (some of whom actually survive). Fury Road doesn't change that dynamic. It's possible that this scenario reads differently now than it did 30 years ago (yes, Beyond Thunderdome was 30 goddam years ago OMG). Thunderdome had Max under the screws of Aunty for more than 2/3 of the movie.
The Max arc goes like this - Max gets overtaken by a stronger group of people and pressed into service in a conflict he has nothing to do with. He's humiliated for the first third of the film as he plots his escape, He joins forces with a rebel leader who wants freedom for his or her people, helps them get it. They ask him to stay but he doesn't. In Fury Road, his time in the Wasteland has done really bad things to his brainmeats, and the story is told from his point of view, so the story is pretty straightforward without a lot of backstory or exposition. Max isn't in the mood for a lot of chit-chat so most of what's going on has to be inferred from the action. The dialog is half Aussie slang mixed with made up Wasteland patois. My favorite term from the film is a "blackthumb", which is a mechanic.
Anyhow, I liked the women in this film you were supposed to like (and you aren't supposed to like all of them), and a lot of people online sure love women who can commit horrible acts of violence. I have a real problem with this worship of "badass women" - I think it's misguided.
I spent a LOT of my life trying to be a super-badass. I come form a long line of them so it came relatively easy - I can drive, sail, or pilot most vehicles that travel on land, air, or sea. I can handle most firearms and several hand-to-hand weapons, I have very good survival skills, and spent many years studying the martial arts. I stopped doing that a while ago because I realized that it was very hard to have a peaceful life while I was preparing for war all the time. I always wanted to protect myself, and I found that the more I worked at it, the more in danger I was. I never really had very good peace of mind and I attracted more dangerous people with bad intentions than I ever did when quit all that stuff. I also learned that my 5'4", 125lb arthritic frame will never overpower a 6'4", 200lb man no matter what they show in movies. The strong and mean are always at an advantage when you try to win through violence, that's just reality.
One of the principles of Aikido is to look for the path of no resistance - in order to exert a force in one direction, you have to divert energy from other areas, so by looking for the areas of weakness, you can neutralize a situation. This is where I choose to hone my skills, and it would be nice if we could glorify characters (men and women) who solve conflicts peacefully with strategy and cleverness instead of just big guns and smashing faces.
I saw Fury Road and I loved it like everyone. I have really missed the Mad Max universe and I'm really hopeful that they make the other three movies George Miller wants to make.
First of all, this series has defined what we think of as the post-apocalyptic aesthetic and without it we probably wouldn't have Burning Man, art cars, or the entire Maker scene. Even though the biker marauders are psychopathic killing machines, it looks like SO MUCH FUN to ride around the desert in leather shorts, football pads, and a feather Mohawk. Clearly it is or there wouldn't be so many Burners.
There's a lot of hullabaloo about the so-called feminist agenda of this film, but these accusations are being made by people who have never watched Mad Max. George Miller's sympathy has always been primarily with how the Wasteland is the hardest on women and children, and every Mad Max movie has featured badass women of all ages and adorable spunky kids (some of whom actually survive). Fury Road doesn't change that dynamic. It's possible that this scenario reads differently now than it did 30 years ago (yes, Beyond Thunderdome was 30 goddam years ago OMG). Thunderdome had Max under the screws of Aunty for more than 2/3 of the movie.
The Max arc goes like this - Max gets overtaken by a stronger group of people and pressed into service in a conflict he has nothing to do with. He's humiliated for the first third of the film as he plots his escape, He joins forces with a rebel leader who wants freedom for his or her people, helps them get it. They ask him to stay but he doesn't. In Fury Road, his time in the Wasteland has done really bad things to his brainmeats, and the story is told from his point of view, so the story is pretty straightforward without a lot of backstory or exposition. Max isn't in the mood for a lot of chit-chat so most of what's going on has to be inferred from the action. The dialog is half Aussie slang mixed with made up Wasteland patois. My favorite term from the film is a "blackthumb", which is a mechanic.
Anyhow, I liked the women in this film you were supposed to like (and you aren't supposed to like all of them), and a lot of people online sure love women who can commit horrible acts of violence. I have a real problem with this worship of "badass women" - I think it's misguided.
I spent a LOT of my life trying to be a super-badass. I come form a long line of them so it came relatively easy - I can drive, sail, or pilot most vehicles that travel on land, air, or sea. I can handle most firearms and several hand-to-hand weapons, I have very good survival skills, and spent many years studying the martial arts. I stopped doing that a while ago because I realized that it was very hard to have a peaceful life while I was preparing for war all the time. I always wanted to protect myself, and I found that the more I worked at it, the more in danger I was. I never really had very good peace of mind and I attracted more dangerous people with bad intentions than I ever did when quit all that stuff. I also learned that my 5'4", 125lb arthritic frame will never overpower a 6'4", 200lb man no matter what they show in movies. The strong and mean are always at an advantage when you try to win through violence, that's just reality.
One of the principles of Aikido is to look for the path of no resistance - in order to exert a force in one direction, you have to divert energy from other areas, so by looking for the areas of weakness, you can neutralize a situation. This is where I choose to hone my skills, and it would be nice if we could glorify characters (men and women) who solve conflicts peacefully with strategy and cleverness instead of just big guns and smashing faces.