“Nobody barks orders to Mad Max!” If you’re familiar with this quote, I am sorry for your loss. If you’re a normal decent human being, then you’d be surprised to know that a man by the name of Aaron Clarey. This inadequately-raised-human-being stated that quote in response to the infuriating crime that George C. Miller, creator of the Mad Max franchise, had apparently perpetrated on men. He posited in his podcast that Tom Hardy’s Mad Max shouldn’t play second fiddle to Oscar Winner Charlize Theron’s Imperator Furiosa in the 2015 critically acclaimed Mad Max: Fury Road. A movie that not only redefined what a modern action film should look like and be directed as, but it upended the very notion that the “action film” should only be a male-dominated space. George C. Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road is a prime example of a form of media “aimed at men” shaped by the lends of the Liberal Feminism Perspective. It accomplishes this by exposing its values two-fold. First it reinforces Patriarchal Society (with its oppression and de-facto-leadership) and displays a fully heteronormative hegemony. It then turns a complete one-eighty on the audience and shows us it’s resisted values, that women are now allowed in this space (both in the Australian outback desert hellscape and in our very real men-run world), are capable of leadership and agency, and gives the audience an informal lesson on Fourth Wave Feminism. If that seems like a lot, it’s because it is, Miller’s worldbuilding in this film is of a scope that couldn’t have been easily predicted by any sort of critic as anything more than just a fun return to the franchise.
Ideally, we are all familiar with this artifact of popcorn filmmaking at its finest. If not, we can go through the basics. Mad Max is a film franchise spawned from the mind of Australian filmmaker George C. Miller, who would bless the world by writing Oscar nominated films Babe and later directing Happy Feet. But before his goodwill came the post-apocalyptic desert film. Mad Max was a grungy action film made on an extremely tight budget – an indie film at that. But this Mel Gibson vehicle (his first showcase to American audiences) instantly started a franchise. A world with cultures to explode in a world devoid of resources, a world that would do anything for even just a drip of gasoline to ride on across the infinite outback wasteland, a world that turned a man fully mad. Max has seldom been the protagonist of his eponymous films. And, c’mon – who could upstage a 1985’s Tina Turner in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome? But Mad Max had a bit of a makeover. The character was played by Mel Gibson in the 80s – but by 2015, the actor had both grown too old to perform the action role of his youth once more, and Tom Hardy (fresh off his role as Bane in Christopher Nolan’s 2012“The Dark Knight Rises”) was cast to play the iconic Max Rockatansky. The curious addition of Charlize Theron to the cast began wild speculation as to the nature of their relationship – assuming that because she was a woman, she would play the damsel-in-distress.
Mad Max: Fury Road doesn’t so much use the damsel-in-distress trope in action films but rather it blows its conceptual head off. Charlize Theron was cast as Imperator Furiosa, a hint for longtime fans of the Mad Max mythos since only villains tend to use Imperator name (this cinematic universe’s version of “Darth” naming conventions in the Star Wars Sith Lord hierarchy). Clearly, we were going to get the cruel warlords that pervaded in every single iteration of the Mad Max film franchise. These warlords were always representative of the current time’s socio-economical worries. For example – the first Mad Max came out in 1979, and its site of struggle was different. It was more concerned in using the antagonistic warlords as liaisons for the real world struggles of war (any country embroiled in any war over any space really) and the effects of oil/resources. By 2015, these fears were still in the horizon, but Fourth Wave Feminism was in its full swing. By this point, the ideals of feminism had moved past just wanting voting rights for women, or even to be included in the workforce. No, no – this time feminism wanted equality. And furthermore, equity for all – no race, gender, or national origin should prevent a person from achieving happiness. This ideal was injected into Mad Max: Fury Road.
Well, then – I guess we have to talk about Immortan Joe. The film’s antagonist - and let’s be honest, I’m skimming through the plot because this movie is essentially a glorified two-hour long car chase scene across a desert, with real cool stunts and an amazing soul – is heteronormative hegemony, and the worst type of patriarchal society, personified . He’s an old man, decrepit, yet somehow in charge. He lacks judgement or care. He has a literal harem inside an enormous safe where he planned to impregnate his young “Wives” (insert barfing noises here). He has medals and a rank… in a society that has ceased to be. Just monuments and relics of a long-forgotten era that he clings to. Have I mentioned he has women’s breasts attached to machines that extract the milk for his personal consumption? He also controls the water, usually opening floodgates of it for a few seconds. Only to turn the valves off before people could even get enough to last them for however long his next public denial of his own impotence was a scheduled for. In laymen’s terms, Immortan Joe is the worst type of man. Not human. Not animal. Definitely not woman. The worst type of man.
Charlize Theron’s Furiosa, on the other hand, is the complete oppositional reading of Immortan Joe’s toxic masculinity. She is leadership, and honesty, and caring. Furiosa, though she carries the “Empress” title that Joe’s lackeys all have, is the ideal leader. Max, on the other hand, is more of an audience substitute. For, throughout this entire film, he is confused, dazed. Bullets fly by him and near death occurs almost on a minute to minute basis. But Max just shrugs it off, he’s done this before, he doesn’t need to prove anything to Furiosa (whose giant truck houses the “stolen” wives of Immortan Joe) anything – nor the audience. The character is there to make a statement, which is the rejection of Immortan Joe’s heteronormative hegemony and warlord system that operates under patriarchal society rules. This is evident as soon as Max is allowed to be free from his short gig as a blood bag (yes, a literal one) for one of Immortan Joe’s sickly foot soldiers, Nux. No sooner than Max has the advantage over the “War Boy” he immediately fights him and attempts to kill him – rejecting Joe’s entire value system. With Furiosa, who he not only sides with but joins her crusade to find freedom outside of Joe’s territory, Max realizes that helping others is better than going at it by yourself. In fact, his choice to help the women go back to fight Immortan Joe and retake society instead of leaving for an “all woman” Utopia could be the crux of the would-be ally, Max is the stereotypical white cis male. And in this film, his choice to become an ally should be a rallying force for Feminists everywhere: “Empowerment and freedom… can also be won with unity, sympathy and nurture.”
But then the “Men’s Rights” crowd came slithering along. Missing the entire point of the film’s subtext. A lot of men still believe in the fairy tale of the angry feminist. The woman that only wants to further feminism to usurp men from the throne of the hegemony they themselves have crafted. Men afraid to lose this power are unaware that they are the cause for that power structure to even exist. The fear of power is because they fed themselves too much power on the backs of women, men of color, anyone “other.” This examination of “otherness” and how Immortan Joe “others” women (and even his War Boys are treated like less than human), giving himself and those he considers as equals (the other Warlords) rank and prestige. His son, a mountain of a man, is seen as a disappointment because his brute strength completely overshadows any semblance of intelligence. Joe knows his son is destined to fail; he sees how inadequate he is to play the role of the oppressive patriarchal overlord. A scene in which one of the Wives dies, pregnant. Immortan’s son screams into the air and shoots machineguns, wasting precious limited ammo in the process, “I had a baby brother!” He mourns the missed chance of normality. He cannot be allowed to love a brother, he can only hate his father, because Joe has only brought on despair and violence and pessimistic capitalism. He is incapable of love, of foresight, of care for the future – others.
It’s a shame, really. That a lot of the intended audience for Mad Max: Fury Road missed the point. They couldn’t see the clear passing of the torch. Women deserve the ability to exercise their agency and lead if they are both capable and willing. At the end of the film, the patriarchy is literally ripped apart (Immortan Joe’s iconic mouth, his sole weapon, gone by the end of the film) and Furiosa returns with the Wives, and women from her original homeland, before she was kidnapped and raised to be Joe’s slave soldier. Furiosa is allowed to literally ascend back into the citadel, along with everyone except Max. Confused, she looks into the crowd. Max stares from below, he gives her a thumbs up. “It’s up to you now,” echoes of his old character should have been heard at that moment. But we knew, as did Furiosa, Max is going to give away his privilege and let women figure it out. Because letting men be in charge, in Max’s eyes, has only brought death and despair and madness to the world. And better to have a nice ride in the desert away from Fury Road, than be part of the system that murdered his wife and son – and killed the world; the heteronormative hegemony be damned.
Rating:
For my money, the best action film ever assembled. (Also, technically this was my COMM final, so here it is!)
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