this is a response to Feminist Frequency’s (Anita Sarkeesian) slew of tweets about Mad Max: Fury Road, which I first saw here on rubycue‘s blog (tweet photo credit to rubycue, I tried to reblog this traditionally as a response but either i am ignorant or you just can’t do it, so I am creating my own post)
from the top
#2 adoring your setting is somehow misogynist? if I am watching a space drama and I admire the sleek design of a spaceship then I am being a misogynist? this reasoning makes no sense, and I believe George Miller very effectively addresses sexism and misogyny in this setting
“the camera […] caresses the brides’ bodies” this happens all of 5 seconds, literally 5 seconds. after a sand storm the brides and Furiosa stop, Max catches up with them, and when Max (and the audience) see them for the first time they are washing (clothed) after spending the better part of the day in a steel tank in the desert. Max demands that they give him the hose so that he can drink, he proceeds to drown himself (almost) and that’s it. it’s a wide angle shot that could, in all fairness, be taken as objectification, but the flow of the film doesn’t seem to agree with that
let me re-address the camera objectification thing. the above shot could be taken as objectification, that is a fair criticism, but it never happens again. literally, in no other sequence in the film is there even the slightest room for interpretation as the brides being objectified. do not take my word for this though, go see the movie!
plot: there is a sequence in the film where Immortan Joe (the sex slaver/master) is firing at Furiosa, and Splendid shields Furiosa with her pregnant body. Joe yells “that’s my property!”
(source) Splendid uses her body to shield her female savior in a show of compassion and bravery, very aware of the value placed on her body as a thing by the patriarchy she was used by. she uses this against the patriarchy, becoming a savior herself in the process. if her defiance isn’t enough for you then i can give you Dag’s questioning of the desert women and her receiving life from them symbolically, Capable’s empathy and forgiveness of Nux (once a part of the patriarchy), and Cheedo’s fear turned to devious determination. all very interesting, and most definitely humanizing
#4 “Mad Max’s villains as caricatures of misogyny” that might be true for some american women, but this is a very real thing for many women around the world. I have in fact encountered college educated americans who say that a woman refusing to have sex with her husband is immoral because it is his right to be able to sleep with his wife, even if she doesn’t want to… so is the sex slaver/master motif really all that far fetched in american society? no
“doesn’t challenge more prevalent forms of sexism”
George Miller does in fact take on more common forms of sexism in american society:
(sourcesource) in this sequence Max has a limited amount of ammunition, but he repeatedly fails to hit his target, and so he puts lives at risk. he fails traditional hero, protector, and skill roles that are associated with males. with only one shot left Max gives Furiosa the gun and she makes the shot. a female is better at skill and protector roles than a male! this is somewhat similar to the ‘boys and their toys’ comment in the STEM community that prompted this. both Furiosa and the women of science show that females can thrive in traditionally male skill roles
#5 men questioning themselves and how sexism works in society: men are in fact forced to question themselves. it may seem a caricature to some, but Nux is a male who has been fooled by the patriarchy, and throughout the film he fails to meet the unrealistic expectations placed on him by said patriarchy. when all seems lost and he is depressed, who saves him? Capable does, she shows compassion and empathy, and so in time he turns his back on the patriarchy to fight for the freedom of the people he has come to love
#6 feminism as “women can drive and kill too!” except that the brides very specifically state to Furiosa when she starts killing people “you said no killing!” and when Dag first meets the women of the desert and confronts them about violence she says “and i somehow thought you all were different”. the brides are very clearly non violent pacifists
#7 “concepts of power and glorification of violence”
in the still below Dag is taking a bag of rare seeds from a dying desert woman.
(source) look at the symbolism here! a young pacifist is being handed the torch bag of seeds from the older violent generation. this is the same girl who left her home where she was a sex slave under a patriarchal system, she went into the desert where she questioned the violent tendencies of past generations, she learned about the creation of life, and now she is returning home to build a new society from the ashes of the patriarchy, a society that is based on the power of freely given not forcefully taken fertility. i don’t know of a more efficient or beautiful way to deconstruct power structures
I have in the past agreed with Anita about certain things (video games) but I most definitely do not agree with her about this
[credit for all photos to the respective sites, Mad Max: Fury Road is the property of Village Roadshow Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures]
I actually braced myself when that wide-shot happened.I mentally went, “Here we go,” because this was Max’s male gaze taking them in, and us positioned to see the scantily clad women through his eyes. It’s happened a thousand times before in the cinema, and we’re trained to expect it.
And then… he demanded water, they cut off the chastity belts, there was a brutal drag out fight for resources. The expected objectification never happened. Max, it turns out, is not that kind of creep. The women were not things he assumed were there for his pleasure, and nor did he adopt a misogynistic chivalry and assume he must save them. He took them seriously as potential threats in a dog-eat-dog world, and he got away from them as fast as he could until he realised he needed them for his own survival.
Thinking it over afterwards, I realised that Miller had deliberately set us up to expect the usual male-gaze shot in that moment, and then denied it. That told us a lot about the world we were being shown.
The next time we’re presented with a similar moment, we’re primed to think just like Max – it’s a trap. It’s a woman exploiting the expected objectifying male gaze. It’s not even a surprise it’s him that says it.
That’s form mirroring function, my friends, and it’s one of the most sophisticated forms of storytelling.
“I work for a county government. They work closely with the county animal shelter, and some kittens and cats are sent to us because we get so much traffic from the public, hopefully someone will see a kitty and adopt! In the meantime, they can socialize with the employees to get used to humans. So far over 100 cats have been adopted.” –Loocylooo
…I want to be the librarian for this fine institution.
