Fig1
Fig2
"Mad Max Fury Road is like the Handmaids Tale its a dystopia that imagines white women in the future suffering from the oppression visited on women of colour." (Berlatsky,2018)
Mad Max Fury Road is a film that is a women in prison exploitation. This sub genre is usually one of the most despised in terms of B-movies past era's but in this case has proven its influence on what is still out there today.
Feminist heroism and Patriarchy is shown when Charlize Theron who plays Furiosa is freeing women from sex slavery, these women look like supermodels dressed in lingerie and these are mainly white except from two women of colour. This shy's away from the roots of exploitation possibly because the borrowed 40 year old exploitation films and representations of these women and male heroes is still apparent as being far too radical for the mainstream.
For example Men in a WIP (Women in Prison film) are seen as sometimes villains in this case we have the evil patriarch Joe ( Hugh Keays-Bryne), love interests, or sympathetic characters as an example but not really as heroes which brings us to the characters Nux (Nicolas Hault) who was originally one of the villain Joe's war boys becomes a protagonist because of his transformation of love for the character Capable ( Riley Keogh.) It is true that the women are heroically saving each other but the white man or men are still the ones who sacrifice or help save the white women and even women of colour. This straightens out the dynamics for WIP films. As the film is not saying all men are that way and women are superior which means there is not an inequality in terms of the Binary Opposites and it is more balanced.
Fig3
The Male Saviour max who is exiled from society due to his madness is seen similar to that of a western hero. The cast of characters share this in-equality because of the evil patriarch.
In the shot above you can see not only the cinematography which focuses on the centre of the screen at all times but also the white protagonist at the end of the film being Furiosa as she is accepted by society and being raised up helping the other citizens without the Evil patriarch alive anymore in this shot there is a mutual respect and change and around him are women of colour all around him going towards her. Rather than Max being the one in dominion after the saviour the one who is now empowered is Furiosa (Charlize Theron.) Mad Max and Rux have been supporting the women who are continuing to progressing their battle-hardened resourcefulness and commitment to the feminist revolution of both genders being an equal. However there are people which disagree with this equality of male and female for example their are Mens Rights Activists that do not like this film. " Fury Road was not going to be a film made for men. It was going to be a Feminist piece of propaganda posing as a guys flick."-Clarey
He says that the trailers focused way more Furiosa than Max who seemed like he had cameo appearances, and not many lines form Tom Hardy. "Nobody barks orders to Mad Max."
And goes on to conclude that when Charlize Theron states " Im not a fan of scrawny little girls trying to kick butt". And Clarey is saying that they are forcing a feminism lecture down our throats. And that the film proves women and feminists in general are dysfunctional by nature and cannot be trusted with anything.
Bibliography
Anon, (2018). [image] Available at: https://elipunto.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/mad-max-fury-road-cast.jpg
Anon, (2018). [image] Available at: http://fannypack.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/hardy-miller-mad-max-furyroad-road-warrior.jpg
Berlatsky, N. (2018). Mad Max: Fury Road is less radical than its B-movie influences. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/26/mad-max-fury-road-less-radical-exploitation-influences
Vincent, A. (2018). Why men's rights activists hate Mad Max: Fury Road. [online] The Telegraph. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/mad-max-fury-road/mens-rights-activists-angered-feminist-movie/
No comments:
Post a Comment