I don’t know how many of you guys know about it but this new movie, “Mad Max” just came out and has already reached critical acclaim. I haven’t seen it , but it’s supposed to be this groundbreaking masterpiece and a huge step for feminism. Which is all good and dandy In theory. But on tumblr there’s been a lot of criticism because the ALL white cast (with the minor exception of Zoe Kravitz). One of the most frustrating things about these types of movies and conversations is that there’s ALWAYS these white feminists that want to tell POC that we have to overlook lack of diversity and basically “take one for the team” (the team being feminism/woman). No. I’m not going to do it. It is fucking disrespectful and borderline racist for you, a white person, to tell minority women that we have to ignore not being represented. Since turning 18 and starting to really think about racism and the media, it is especially uncomfortable for me to watch movies and tv shows with NO people of color. This world is mostly non white and it simply doesn’t make sense for our media to not represent it. And as for feminism, this is not the first time this has happened. When Girls came out, minority women were expected to ignore the show having an all white cast because it was written and directed by Lena Dunham. And anyone who dared to not ignore this issue was considered “non progressive”. This is why I don’t identity as feminist. Because this is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable for these huge steps for feminism to not include people of color. And if you’re white and telling people to get over it, you’re a part of the fucking problem.
Okay, I don’t want to take away from some really great points you’re making about how white feminism often downplay or outright dismiss the representation of women of colour, especially in discussions of mainstream media WOC are often silenced or ignored.
However, I need to point a few errors that are a common form of microaggression that I see pop up all the time in intersectional discussions of representation, specifically in regard to the recognition of indigenous women of colour.
There are THREE women of colour in Mad Max Fury Road. Zoe Kravitz (which you already listed), but also Courtney Eaton and Megan Gale. Eaton and Gale are biracial Maori women. The presence of Polynesian women in this film and a fictional future are incredibly important on multiple levels.
The Mad Max films are set in a post-apocalyptic Australia. In fact, the franchise began as Australian films, George Miller the writer/director/creator of this world is Australian. This is not merely a geographic location, but an important cultural context for the films.
What’s important about the location and the presence of Polyneisan women within this future world is how their very roles reflect the history of colonialism in the Pacific region. Polynesian people were forced to relocate, our cultures and even identities erased. Many of us are biracial and our own ethic identity are often erased due to a form of cultural genocide that was not unlike what was done to Indigenous people of the Americas.
Polynesian women have long been viewed as tokens of exotic beauty. Taken as trophies, and forced in to sex work. Not unlike Fragile. Some, like The Valkyrie who actively fought against colonial oppressors. While Zoe/Toast is biracial black and Ashkenzai jew, she too represents an aspect of WOC’s journey through white supremacy and colonialism which was the driving force behind the trans-atlantic slave trade.
Polynesians often are erased, or mistakenly seen as white passing often because White Western culture only teaches how to see black or white, ignoring or wholesale erasing all the many colours in between. One of the really ugly truths behind why so many indigenous people are “white passing” is because of the long legacy of us being raped by white oppressors. Many of us only being valued as “pretty” sexual objects for the enjoyment and consumption of white men.
There is a BIG difference between being white passing and having your ethnicity erase from mainstream awareness. People, even POC, default code Polynesian women as white because they only SEE the parts of our features that are stereotypically viewed to be “white.”
I immediately recognizing Fragile and The Valkyrie as women of colour, and was deeply moved about how their presence and individual roles in this film reflects the struggles of many indigenous women throughout history and to see them empowered and fighting back against their oppressors made my heart soar.
Also there ARE other people of colour in the film, though by virtue of the dominate culture in the film being literally white male supremacy, the only men of colour we see are in the lowest cast of society. Not uncommon in colonialism either, given how white men see MOC as a threat to their power and masculinity.
My only real complaint about race in this film is the lack of Indigenous Australians in leading roles. There are a few of them crowd shots of the Citadel’s lower class, and at the end of the film we see a disabled Indigenous Australian man become the focus of a full two second shot, acting as the face of the oppressed class as he is quite literally is lifted up to salvation by women of colour.
There are powerful visual moments in this film, that tell not just a story of punching down the patriarchy, but of the dismantling of colonial oppression where indigenous women play key roles in the fight and future of the world.
So please don’t steal this context from the these women. It is very important to many women of colour.
I wish there was a codeword for “you sprung that plan on me too last-minute and I didn’t have enough time to mentally prepare myself” because I feel kinda bad when someone spontaneously invites me to do something and I’m just like no no no no I need wARNING I have to have enough time to build up my social energy
Really we need to give a hand to the Mad Max marketing team for how they advertised because that’s the juicy little cherry on top of this massive piece of art
Did anyone get the plot from the tv spots? Anything about the wives? They let the cars and scenery and explosions take center stage without hinting at the main storyline, because exploding badass cars is what the fans and the hypermasculine dudebros/neckbeards cared about. So they went in droves to opening weekend.
And then they went public to bitch about the feminist plot, and that’s when the feminists flocked to the theaters.
So not only did the ad guys NOT have to mention the plot, since the angry butthurt meninists did it for them, those guys already paid to see it. They got the dudebro money upfront then sat back while people who heard the message came around.
That’s fucking brilliance there.
I have no idea if it was deliberate but it sure as hell worked, because everyone feminist I know and their literal mother is all over this shit.
I love giving and receiving fic reviews, but for a long time the whole process of writing a review used to be very fraught because I wanted to show my appreciation but I didn’t want to leave a generic “Loved this, please write more!” like every other comment the author had already gotten and was probably sick of. (Note - as an author, we do not get sick of these comments. We do not get sick of any comments.) But I figured something out a while ago and I figured I’d share it. How to leave a good comment on a fic: PICK A LINE.
Literally any line. Pick it as you’re reading. If a phrase or a sentence or a paragraph jumps out at you, highlight it and hit Ctrl+C. Then save that puppy until the comment section, paste it in, and let the author know why you liked it.
“___” My favorite line, it was hilarious!
“___” I’m gonna cry! Poor Character B!
“___” That is totally something Character A would say.
“___” omg this totally sums up their whole relationship, doesn’t it?
I’m a writer who is friends with a lot of writers. I have never met a writer who didn’t fucking love this. Worried that you’re not leaving a comprehensive review? It’s okay. Tell the author about the five-word sentence that you loved in their 10K word fic, and they will glow. I’m telling you this is foolproof. Take the stress out of commenting. Pick a line. Make a writer’s day.
yes
yesyesyes
AHHH YES! THE PERFECT REMARK TO MAKE.
No, seriously, I shit you not. I have written four complete novels. I self-published the first and the second accidentally aqcuired me an agent and now the third’s getting edited for publishing. I also have self-esteem issues like WOW, and every single person who has told me “You’re a great writer, here’s this over-arching statement that is detailed and genuine” gets an anxious, skeptical response. Because how do you even accept a compliment like that. It’s like being told “You’re really smart” and then you kind of shuffle and go, “Uh, thanks?”
BUT THE PEOPLE WHO COMMENT ON A SPECIFIC LINE. BE STILL MY HEART. THE PEOPLE WHO READ MY WRITING AND START LAUGHING AND LOOK UP TO TELL ME “THIS IS A GREAT LINE, I LOVE THIS CHARACTER’S SENSE OF HUMOR” OR WHO MAKE A DISTRESSED NOISE AND SAY “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO MY FAVORITE CHARACTER, THIS ONE LINE IS SO HEARTBREAKING”.
Those are the people who make me turn scarlet and duck my head and cover my mouth because my awkward grin is awful. Those are the people who make me WANT to talk to them about my writing, about the characters who live in my mind and the words that run through my veins. Those are the people who I remember when I reread something I wrote and hear the voices of every critic I’ve ever had telling me to pull my head out of the clouds, when I feel like I’m drowning in a black sea of my own inadequacy. Those are the people who I very awkwardly and tentatively tell “So…I wrote a new thing…if you maybe…wanna, you know, take a look at it…if you’re not too busy…or something.”
What if birthmarks are the places that actually killed us in our past life? Like there’s this girl from school whose birthmark is a line on her neck. What if her throat was cut? I know this guy who has his birthmark on his whole left cheek. What if he was shot? My little sisters birthmark is a line straight down her stomach. What if she died on the operating table?
I have one on my balls what does that mean
You had some killer sex.
I don’t really have birthmarks. DOes that mean I’m on my first go-round?
I want one of those scenes in a dude bro film where “tomboy” chick has to wear a dress to go undercover or whatever, but instead of the guys drooling as she walks down the stairs, they’re like “k. U need to stop. Go put the cargo pants back on. You look super uncomfortable and awkward in that. Brutus, you go be the fake prostitute.”
I’m just imagining this super ripped guy called Brutus being like ‘YESSS!!! I’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE THE FAKE PROSTITUTE!! Now is my time to shine!!’
So I went and saw Mad Max a second time with one of its visual effects workers, and we had some pretty cool discussions about the movie. He also let me flip through a storyboard book he was given really fast and so here’s a list of a bunch of stuff he told me…
• Angharad’s scars are from self-harm
• The scenes were filmed in order of how they appear in the movie
• Rictus Erectus’ baby head necklace represents that he has the mind of a child
• Mother’s Milk is turned into cheese
• Someone cut off Furiosa’s arm so besides that she’s completely healthy
• Immortan Joe is the most powerful out of himself, Bullet Farmer, and People Eater
• The Bird People (the ones on stilts in the Green Place) eat crows
• Rictus is pretty much immune to pain
• Originally History Woman/Miss Giddy was going to be killed by Joe to symbolize that he doesn’t care about the past, only the present where he is powerful
• On the original story boards there was going to be a scene where the wives are sitting in the War Rig and singing to each other
• The flashes of Max’s daughter represent his fears trying to escape so that Max can accept himself
• When Max is watching everyone go across the salts and his daughter makes him hit his head, for a brief instant her face turns into the face of the guy who shoots Max
• Nux imprinted on Capable and loves her because she was the first person to show him true kindness. They have more of a strong platonic bond than a romantic bond
Me: oh yea, sorry about that. Let me apply “harder” this time. I’ll be sure to write my contact info extra “hard” this time. I’ll make sure to touch up my resume and make it hella “hard” this time around too.
preach
Adults: You just need to hit the pavement, knock on some doors, call the hiring manager!
Every job application ever: PLEASE NO UNSOLICITED VISITS OR PHONE CALLS.
Fact: Our reception pool forwards the names of people who call unsolicited on to HR, who puts the names on a DO NOT HIRE, CANNOT FOLLOW DIRECTIONS list.
This is what is the most terrifying about re-beginning the job search.
Fact: My brother was a store manager at AT&T for several years, and handled the hiring process. People that would call and call about the job wouldn’t get hired because, “They seemed to be the kind of people that would constantly need attention on the job, or wouldn’t make a good fit in customer service, because they don’t have the patience to wait for us to call them back.”
Meanwhile I’ve always been taught to do exactly those things because it “shows that you care and take initiative”
I’d like to cancel my subscription to Menstrual Cycle Monthly
I’m sorry, it appears you’ve taken out a fifty-sixty year subscription. However, we can pause it for nine months as long as you sign a contract that says you’ll take out a subscription to Baby Daily for at least eighteen years
Damn those Terms and Conditions.
i didn’t even read them i’ve made a terrible mistake
Having trolled some of the AO3 Fury Road tag, I’ve learned something interesting.
I am AGGRRESSIVELY here for everything involving Max and Furiosa.
I like them best as Epic Lifelong Drift-Compatible Postapocalypse Badass Bros. They are the BroTP to end all BroTPs. But hey.
Aromantic casual sex buddies who snark and spar? I’m down, let’s go, I’m so down with that shit.
Asexual partners who drive around and sleep next to each other because it makes them feel safe? Give it to me.
Soul mates in every way, sexual, romantic, practical, all of the above, who cobble together a slapdash system for running the Citadel and work through their issues? Hell yeah, hELL FUCKING YEAH.
Long-suffering pseudo-parents to the Wives (who ship it like FedEx) and the War Boys (who worship both of their badassery in a much more healthy way than they worshipped Joe)? I AM READY.
Witness me becoming absolute trash.
In maybe, MAYBE, eight hours, this post has gotten more notes than anything I’ve ever posted. Scratch that, possibly more notes than EVERYTHING I’ve ever posted, put together.
Having trolled some of the AO3 Fury Road tag, I’ve learned something interesting.
I am AGGRRESSIVELY here for everything involving Max and Furiosa.
I like them best as Epic Lifelong Drift-Compatible Postapocalypse Badass Bros. They are the BroTP to end all BroTPs. But hey.
Aromantic casual sex buddies who snark and spar? I’m down, let’s go, I’m so down with that shit.
Asexual partners who drive around and sleep next to each other because it makes them feel safe? Give it to me.
Soul mates in every way, sexual, romantic, practical, all of the above, who cobble together a slapdash system for running the Citadel and work through their issues? Hell yeah, hELL FUCKING YEAH.
Long-suffering pseudo-parents to the Wives (who ship it like FedEx) and the War Boys (who worship both of their badassery in a much more healthy way than they worshipped Joe)? I AM READY.
the kid that sits behind me in geometry is a really good artist and once I turned around and he was spending an extensive amount of time shading in the collarbones of the guy he was drawing, so I whispered
“careful John, your gay is showing”
and he just winked
So, apparently John has a tumblr and if he sees this I will track all of you down and rip your beating hearts from your chest one by one
okay so i’ve seen at least one Daredevil/Elementary fic where claire patches up sherlock but like where’s the fic where joan patches up matt
pre-weird little devil horns, of course, when he was just a dude all in black who sometimes bit off more than he could chew
like maybe he’s stumbling around half dead near the brownstone when joan runs across him, her phone already out to call 911 or captain gregson or both at the same time judging from this fucker’s getup, and he does his usual *clearly dying of a stab wound voice* No Don’t Take Me To A Hospital I Am Paranoid And Illegal routine, just call claire or drive me to this address if you wanna help
and joan’s like what the fuck no i don’t run a nyc corpse delivery service and that’s what you’ll definitely be if i try to truck you all the way to hell’s kitchen, fuck, get inside
Science fiction is a genre that loves its stuff. For a genre of ideas, the invention frequently takes center stage as the manifestation of those ideas, as the crucial prop of the plot twists, and as the symbol of whatever deeper meaning we find in stories of the Future-That-Could-Be. In a world of outlandish vehicles, practical prosthetics, and that damn guitar, the humble boltcutter may be the most powerfully symbolic object in Mad Max: Fury Road.
The recurring skull/skull-in-steering-wheel motif certainly dominates the beginning of the movie. What are the women and the audience left with at the end, though? For a story of escape and freedom, in which locks and chains make repeated appearances, we need a symbol similarly oriented around getting out, away, loose. Not a key, I’d argue, nor a vehicle, but the boltcutter: a tool favorable for the physically weak, independent of any of their oppressors, and designed to dismantle that which binds.
(Warning: under the cut, spoilers for everything. Seriously, much spoiler, so details, very warning.)
Is using honey bad? It would be hard for me to give that up because I love it so much.
16 oz of honey requires 1152 bees to travel 112,000 miles and visit 4.5 million flowers.
Most of the honey we get at supermarkets and stores don’t come from natural hives.
Honey is an animal product, produced when bees digest nectar they have collected and then regurgitate it. It is an animal product, just like an egg or milk. Yes, a bee is an insect and not technically considered an animal by many people, but a bee’s body changes the composition of what it ingests, just like other animals.
However, there is another reason vegans won’t eat honey, and that is because it is harmful to another living creature. According to Daniel Hammer, bees do experience pain and suffering while they are being exploited for their products (not just honey but also beeswax, royal jelly, and more). There is simply no way beekeepers, humane or otherwise, can avoid harming or killing bees while they are extracting the bees’ products. Many vegans choose their lifestyle because they wish to avoid harming any other creature, and so they choose not to eat honey.
Check out this couple of articles that are pretty complete about everything around this topic :)
I feel like everyone forgets that there was an actual sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where the elevator gets trapped up in space and the family and Wonka witness a bunch of deadly aliens attack another shuttle and said aliens eat at least twenty people and one of the grandmothers is erased from existence and Wonka and Charlie have to scramble to save her and in the end, they’re all invited to the White House to meet the president.
I just…I feel like this should be talked about more…
