I saw Mad Max Fury Road (hereafter just called Mad Max) in IMAX and loved it. It was like pure cocaine and I’ve never done cocaine...I’m just pretty sure thats what it would be like. I bought the blu Ray, watched it a few times. It’s a great movie. Last night I watched it again, this time not just watching the insane stunt work, or the practical effects, old school film making. Instead this time, I paid attention to its message.
Right now it’s all spoilers...so...ya know,,,warning I guess?
To me Mad Max isn’t about the environment, which is an argument I’ve heard. It’s about gender politics. Mad Max show cases two very different forms of society and establishes that neither would really work. First male driven, the other female driven. Immortan Joe’s society is entirely male centric. I doubt I need to explain all the toxic masculinity symbols in it, but they have literal cancer on everyone who supports it. Men control everything and the on,y women are either milk machines or breeding tools.
On the other hand there is the group of many mothers, whose society has collapsed. To drive home what is missing, they have boxes and seed, but no way to make them grow (again...not very subtle).
Now...the ideal solution comes in our two leads. Max and Furiosa, by the way, I think the movie has a pair of protagonists, as they both have arcs, and neither character works without the other. This is because in the beginning of the movie, both character fails at pretty much EVERYTHING they try to do, as they are both too stubborn to work with anyone else. They both reject society and societal norms. It’s onky when they begin to work together, actually functioning together (Max gives Furiosa the sniper rifle to fire while using his shoulder to steady the gun barrel) that the two start to succeed at.....anything?
The point of Mad Max is this, as far as I can see, thinking of society in terms of which gender is in charge is wrong, and leads to ruin either way because it should be a relationship, a partnership of all involved. Partnerships are how you succeed. Not dominance. Though...flaming guitars are never a bad idea.