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| Alien anyone? I liked Trinity better anyway. Furiosa (played by actress Charlize Theron) is not that special see 11 movies to watch instead of 50 shades |
The original Mad Max movie in 1979 was an Australian low budget film, one that incidentally launched Mel Gibson's career. Given the fact that making movies is just business it was about time they redid it. Then again they also redid Poltergeist.
Some people go crazy over the idea of strong women in this movie. Femdom, drool, drool. News flash: there have always been strong women throughout history, just as there always have been strong men. Fury Road essentially tells the story of two goodies, one female and one male, escaping the clutches of some dreadful post-apocalyptic dictator, who uses women as breeding farms and controls the population by withholding aqua-cola (water), something rather inconvenient if you live in the desert.
Survival is key
So the strong female character - looking for redemption - is trying to save a bunch of fertile women forced to continue the evil overlord's dynasty. And yes he is ghastly by the way. The scene where they throw of their chastity belts and stamp on it, while Mad Max is still in chains, is hilarious. But does this setting - Furiosa, the strong female lead, looking for redemption - teaming up with the lost soul that is Mad Max, make this a movie with a strong femdom theme? Njet: not in a million years. Two people are looking for meaning in their life. In a dried out desert with a bunch of suicidal maniacs, desperate for whatever opportunity to kill themselves and enter Walhalla, it is all about survival. Mad Max escapes from the baddies, good for him, they were harvesting his blood and kind of unfortunate, slowly killing him in the process. Meanwhile Furiosa has betrayed her evil master, which leaves them no choice but to work together. In true Hollywood style they both wrestle with their past and that is what leads them to their "unexpected" choice to join forces, never mind that if they don't, they will be captured by the bad guy and suffered a slow and horrible death.
So what is it really about: a well trained female soldier and a male equivalent. As it turns out the woman is the better marksman of the two and the guy knows it - of course only when they have only one bullet left - so what next? Some see whatever femdom element they prefer in it. But for those with a background in the military or people a bit more seasoned in teamwork, it simply makes sense. Number one fires the gun and misses, twice. Number two watches him miss and knows knows she has a better chance than number one, so she takes the last shot. Number one does not object, he is a professional and knows they are fighting for their lives. She would never ask for the gun if she wasn't sure her skills surpassed his. On a side note: the world's best snipers are women, because their hands are smaller, which gives them better control of the gun.
Desire vs reality
It doesn't matter if you're some douche bag who believes Fury Road is a threat to male hegemony of the opposite who believes the movies heralds the impending ascend of female superiority. Femdom is just a game. Only those who are truly disturbed want to see either sex being superior. Looking for it in a simple adventure movie is plain unhealthy.
So why am I cross about someone looking for a strong woman dominating a man in a futuristic road movie? All forms of racism are rooted in observable differences in physical appearance between people. Instead of advocating equality between the sexes, someone decides to look for those differences in order to satisfy their - highly personal - sexual preferences. It reeks of desperation and whatever strength or dominance such a person might have shown in the past, back before when desperation ruled desire, all strength evaporates. Despair is all that's left, turning its object into a laughing stock. Desperation to get once fix equals dependence, a byword for unacceptable weakness. Learn from Furiosa (or Max - they are more akin than you think - but that is probably a step to far).
Both then and now, racism is the excuse of the Western World - yes, my world too - when it needs an excuses to legitimize slavery or exploit those who are different (something that - adding insult to injury - works both ways). And then somebody comes along who is into kink, rather desperately. There are varying degrees of BDSM afficionado, but the more extreme ones are often those where one cannot live without it, not realizing apart from air, water and food, almost everything else is a choice. Go down that rabbit hole and all of a sudden everything is filtered through the lense of femdom: always looking for a detail that might reveal a hidden clue as to how something, anything can be re-re-interpreted as at least a little bit femdumby. Once desire turns desperation (defined as one cannot live without the notion that femdom is part of the invisible fabric which holds the universe together), whatever strength said person once possessed, now has turned into despicable, selfish dependence on viewing the world through femdom-coloured glasses
Why not accept that two people (no need for gender), both skilled in their craft, jointly rescue others, who are (portrayed) as helpless, hapless and female. It's still Hollywood.
Even better, rather than cheering at the achievements of female lead Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron, think about why woman are still not deemed ready for infantry regiments in the army. If you love femdom, you'll surely love the chance for women to have an equal chance to prove how strong, stoic and heroic they can be (and often die a horrible death in the process), defending their country. A bit more serious, if you think I am joking just look at the fabulous women in Kurdistan fighting side by side with the men against ISIS.
No matter how often I read stories like that, it is hard to believe that deep down people really yearn for a dual society, where people are separated into superior people (which those who desire such a divide obviously belong to) and the ones they deem as lesser people, based on some arbitrary physical characteristic, all because some people need that to make them happy. If you believe so, maybe you should read up on the Milgram experiment.
Would you accept a world were brown eyes rule blue eyes? So why would you cosent to a world where women rule over men, conveniently forgetting that the average woman has two children, meaning three quarters of them have at least one son.
In the end desperation, especially the kind fuelled by irate desire, is painful to watch and [shame on me] makes you look down on those desperate enough to need it.
What about the movie?
OK, forget about the whole woman/man thing. Fury Road is a great movie. Two hours of almost non-stop action. They reduced the whole feelings thing to a bare minimum. The designs are beautiful, a lot of thought has gone into them. The movie was shot close to the source, amidst the red sand dunes of Namibia. That, by itself is all you need to no to go and see it.
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