Mad Max: Fury Road is about a citadel in a post-Apocalyptic world where a dictator named Immortan keeps women prisoner for breeding War Boys and producing “Mother’s milk.” When his young wives escape, they leave behind the message “We are not things.” Imperator Furiosa, Immortan’s top war-rig driver, helps them flee and together these powerful women dominate the cast, so much so that Mad Max often feels like a secondary character in his own movie.
For this, Mad Max: Fury Road was quickly hailed as feminist,
but Feminist Frequency founder Anita Sarkeesian--central to the Gamergate
controversy--begged to differ in a series of tweets expressing her thoughts on
the film, which I present continuously here:
"On the surface, Mad Max is about resisting a cartoonish version of misogyny. But that resistance takes the form of more glorified violence. Fury Road is different from many action films in that it lets some women participate as equal partners in a cinematic orgy of male violence. Feminism doesn't simply mean women getting to partake in typical badass 'guy stuff.' Feminism is about redefining our social value system. As a film Mad Max absolutely adores its gritty future. The camera caresses acts of violence in the same way it caresses the brides' bodies. 'We are not things' is a great line, but doesn’t work when the plot and especially the camera treats them like things from start to finish. Mad Max's villains are caricatures of misogyny which makes overt misogynists angry but does not challenge more prevalent forms of sexism. Viewers get to feel good about hating cartoon misogyny without questioning themselves or examining how sexism actually works in our society. It makes me profoundly sad that mainstream pop culture now interprets feminism to mean 'women can drive fast and stoically kill people too!'”There is, of course, something to this critique, but there is much to question: Does the camera really caress the wives’ bodies? Is cartoon misogyny so ineffectual? What about the violence of the films’ protagonists is “male”? Why this Eighties-style moral crusader's condemnation of fictional violence? Don’t women enjoy guns and car chases, too? And why downplay the feminist content that does exist in the film? However, what I want to focus on is the certainty Sarkeesian brings to interpretation--an activity by nature closed to objective truth--and the resulting reductionist approach to art.
I first began wrestling with the questions of feminist
interpretation after seeing the Greta Garbo film Queen Christina (1933). Queen
Christina dresses and acts like a man, resists control by men--especially through marriage--and is determined to live as she pleases despite social norms.
In a famous scene at the end of the film, she stands alone at the prow of a
boat, alone and with nothing but her own will to determine her future.
At the time, I had this to say about the film:
"But there are limits to Queen Christina’s feminism. What are we to make of her penchant for dressing as, and even pretending to be, a man? Is she proving how even a woman should be able to do anything she pleases? Or does she feel that a woman cannot be equal as a woman but only by becoming a man? And what of her obsessive rejection of men early in the film? Can she not realize herself as a woman except through rejection of men? There is an awful lot of man in this formulation of woman."
This kind of questioning is what makes interpretation so enjoyable, rewarding and profound. Likewise, Sarkeesian’s tweets raise interesting issues regarding the portrayal of women in Mad Max: Fury Road and what that portrayal says about the treatment of women in our society. Exploring such issues would certainly be fruitful--from an interpretive as well as social justice perspective--but Sarkeesian is not content to question the text and let it speak. Instead, she appears to approach her text with the usual answers prepped.
I’m reminded of a passage in “The New Sexism: Liberating Art
and Beauty” (1993) by contrarian feminist Camille Paglia:
“I have despaired about the tendentiousness, ignorance, and mediocrity of feminist attitudes toward art and beauty. Issues of quality and standards have been foolishly abandoned by liberals, who now interpret aesthetics as nothing but a mask for ideology. What madness is abroad in the land when only neoconservatives will defend the grandeur of art?” (emphasis mine)
To many feminists like Sarkeesian, a work of art’s worth is determined by its congruence to a particular agenda.
Mad Max creator and director George Miller displays throughout
the series a much broader conception of art--using as well as questioning
typical stereotypes of men and women as warlike and motherly, respectively--and
a richer understanding of the twists and unexpected turns found in the human spirit, often in
unsettling ways subversive to both dominant (e.g., patriarchal) and reactionary
(feminist) ideologies. In keeping with previous installments in the series, Mad Max: Fury Road
addresses ideology without pushing one--as does much art both high and low throughout history.
Popular culture and its legions of fans are now embracing
feminism in theory and practice more than ever before, as evidenced by those
celebrating Mad Max: Fury Road’s feminist streak, but many fans balk when they
sense culture critics reducing their favorite characters, stories and franchises--and
the magic in them--to a caricature in the service of naysayers' propaganda.
I don’t know if this strain of feminism will triumph, but I do
hope it achieves its broader objectives of equal rights and opportunities for
women rather than fall to a backlash by
conservative forces. Most likely, it will serve as the basis for a new
synthesis in feminist ideas, hopefully a strain of feminism that corrects
current flaws much as the feminism of today arose out of a critique of earlier
feminisms.
The Limits of Feminism in Queen Christina
The Miley Cyrus Affair
Katy Perry vs. the Social Consciousness Nazis
The Impotent and the Potent (on the manosphere)
Two Narratives, Both Alike in Dignity (Teen Titans #1)
Thor Is the Woman of the Day!
An Open Letter to Feminists
The Rise and Fall of Kate Kane aka Batwoman
Nihilism and the Batgirl #41 Variant Cover Fracas
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