the reason male comic book fans work themselves into a frenzied rage over “fake geek girls“ is because they think they can’t get a girlfriend because of their love for comic books (a.k.a nerdiness). if they accept that geek girls genuinely love comic books, then they’re left with the cold harsh reality that it’s not their nerdiness that makes them unattractive to women, but the fact that they are misogynistic condescending dickbags who need to be avoided AT ALL COSTS
That line from The Social Network? “You are going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd. And I want you to know from the bottom of my heart that that won’t be true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole.”
My last post, about Furiosa and how she’s different from so many women in action films, is kinda blowing up right now–which I think just proves my point about how hungry people are for a diversity of female characters.
But Mad Max: Fury Road is not just filled with awesome women. It treats its male characters in ways that I think can only be seen as deliberate attempts to undermine what we expect a male hero in an action movie to be and do.
Talking about tropes is a little different when you’re talking about the overrepresented group. The most basic trope for men in any genre of film is universality. Men–in the US, specifically white men–are the default protagonist. Men can be and do pretty much anything on film. Female characters, because there are fewer of them, are much more likely to be carrying the impossible weight of trying to represent everything about their gender, instead of just being characters with one of many possible stories.
Of course, within the action genre, there are certain expectations for the male hero. On the surface, Max seems to meet all of them. He’s buff and gruff–he barely says two words for the first thirty minutes or so of the movie. Physically, he’s the textbook picture of scruffy action masculinity.
I’ve got a cheekbone scrape to show I’ve been in a fight and also draw your attention to my eyes. Is it working?
But here’s where things get interesting. Because while Max may look like your typical action hero, most of what he does in the plot of the film is anything but.
The first sequence of an action movie is often a piece of action that may be only marginally related to the main plot, but shows the hero’s competence, skill and bravery, and primes the audience for the kind of action that’s going to come.
Think of the beginning of any James Bond movie ever. Or this:
Max definitely gets a propulsive action sequence at the beginning of Fury Road. But it’s the exact opposite of Indy sliding under the stone slab with a second left to grab his whip. Before the opening credits even roll, Max is chased down, crashes his car, is taken prisoner, tries to escape and fails.
Opening shot. I’m so alone.
The whole sequence that serves as Max’s character introduction is about how isolated, traumatized, vulnerable and trapped he is. He’s mute and feral, tormented by hallucinations of dead loved ones he couldn’t save, and outnumbered in the tunnels of the Citadel by manic War Boys. He immediately fails at the basic measures of competence in this world–escape from danger by fighting and driving–and is captured and enslaved.
He’s an animal in a cage, bound, muzzled, leashed and hung upside down (Max spends some key moments upside down in this movie) to be slowly exsanguinated. It’s the most un-heroic character introduction you can imagine taking place in this world.
Okay, this is definitely worse than being alone.
In the early parts of the movie, George Miller makes sure that some of the iconic symbols of Max’s power and identity from earlier films get taken away or fail him. His Interceptor winds up in the War Boys’ chop shop in the first ten minutes. When Max happens across a sawed-off shotgun very much like the one you might remember from earlier installments of the franchise…
…it doesn’t work. Max is even stripped of his signature leather jacket, although he eventually gets it back.
Worst day ever.
Furiosa gets a much more classical hero’s introduction. In a fantastically economical sequence, the film introduces her–mysterious but clearly respected and powerful, first fully seen behind the wheel–along with her antagonist Immortan Joe, and the War Rig itself, the truck that functions as both a character and a key location in the movie. We also learn important information about the ideology and physical layout of the Citadel; this is basically all the time the movie spends on exposition.
Structurally, Furiosa’s actions do the lion’s share of the work of driving the plot forward. A screenplay is built around a character pursuing a goal despite obstacles. Furiosa’s goal is obvious–escape to the Green Place with the Five Wives. She is the reason we’re watching this moment as a movie, as opposed to all the other days when she went on normal, non-movie-worthy supply runs to Gas Town and back. On this day, she makes a choice that sets in motion the action of the film.
Max enters Furiosa’s story not as a savior, but as an antagonist. He’s an obstacle in her path, stealing her truck and shooting at the people she’s trying to protect, waving a gun around, reacting not out of confidence or power but because he is scared and hurt and desperate, capable of thinking only of his own survival.
Furiosa–who’s as smart and strategic as she is skilled and brave–realizes that she can turn Max into an ally if she calms him down and helps him, and that having him as a member of her team is more useful than simply waiting to shank him when his guard is down. She offers him concrete aid (a tool to remove the muzzle from his face) and a powerful measure of trust (the secret code to start the War Rig) when he’s done nothing to deserve it. It works, and she essentially wins him to her side through de-escalation. And so Max becomes not the initiator of the main action, but an antecedent to Furiosa’s plan, already in motion.
And it turns out that they fight incredibly well together, as we see during the Rock Riders’ attack. Max drives, but Furiosa knows to use the truck’s plow to put out an engine fire with sand. Max reloads weapons for her and hands them up while she picks off attackers through the retractable roof of the truck. At one moment, he fires a pistol between her legs as she’s balanced on the seat and the dashboard, and neither one of them misses a beat. It’s Max’s first action sequence that feels classically heroic, and if we’re still unsure, the soaring music cue tells us so. We finally see Max’s full fighting potential–not as a lone warrior, but as part of a team.
Throughout most of the rest of the movie, Max and Furiosa share the main action beats equally. They’re pursued by three warlords: the Bullet Farmer, the People Eater, and Immortan Joe. They take down the Bullet Farmer together. Furiosa blinds him with an expert long shot steadied on Max’s shoulder, and Max skulks off into the darkness to blow up his car, in what would presumably be a major action sequence in most movies but doesn’t even merit screen time in Fury Road.
In the final, monster chase-battle that takes up most of the third act, Max goes after a secondary henchman, the People Eater, while Furiosa–gravely wounded at this point–attacks and kills Joe. We know this is the only way it can happen if she is to have a satisfying character arc, defending her team of warriors and getting the revenge she has wanted since childhood. Meanwhile Nux, who’s grown up wanting nothing more than martyrdom in battle, gets exactly that, but for the cause of revolution instead of tyranny. For his self-sacrifice he earns the privilege of driving the War Rig, the film’s hero vehicle, into a kamikaze crash that will ensure the safe passage of the rest of the team.
If the action is being driven by Furiosa’s choices, it’s worth asking why Max is there at all. And here is where Fury Road does us one better than just replacing a lone male hero with a lone female one.
Fury Road is a dual protagonist narrative. Max isn’t there just as a supporting character. But because Furiosa’s storyline does so much of the heavy lifting in terms of moving the plot along, Max is freed up to have a story that’s mostly about his feelings.
Of course, he does plenty of fighting–everyone fights in this world. But the main change his character undergoes from the beginning of the movie to the end is emotional. For Max, the movie is about re-learning trust and solidarity and the value of human connection, even if all those things carry the risk of grief.
In a world full of violent death, Max has shut himself off from caring about anyone and anything but his own survival, because that seems less painful. But it’s not. He’s plagued by trauma and guilt, which manifests itself in hallucinations of people he’s seen die. In the first act of the movie, these visions are a constant presence. They impede his progress at critical moments, punishing him for past failures he can’t undo.
Over the course of the second act, when Max is around people he learns he can trust, his flashbacks mostly disappear. He still has nightmares–this isn’t trauma that’s going to be healed overnight. But he has someone to tell him it’s okay when he jolts awake, someone we know is just as capable of protecting him as he is of protecting anyone. For the first time in a long time, he’s not alone, and that starts to matter to him.
As soon as Max separates from Furiosa and the other women, the visions reappear. But this time, they urge him forward, back into an alliance with Furiosa. They even save his life in battle. They serve a different purpose when he has something worth staying alive for.
In this context, Max riding up with a plan to capture the Citadel feels much less like a stereotypical action-hero-to-the-rescue moment, and much more like someone who’s realized they’d rather die fighting alongside people they care about than survive alone. He’s not doing it out of a chivalrous, self-sacrificing desire to help them. He’s doing it to heal himself.
This is also why the scenes of Max trying to save Furiosa’s life at the end of the film are so powerful. Healing and caretaking are often the provenance of women in the action realm, where taking care of wounds is a substitute for, or a prelude to, other forms of intimacy.
Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, The Terminator
Matt Murdock and Claire Temple, Marvel’s Daredevil
The scenes of Max taking care of Furiosa are not just impactful because they’re a reversal of this trope. They are the culmination of Max’s entire journey over the course of the film. He cares enough not just to pump his own blood into Furiosa’s body, but to invest new levels of trust into their relationship (finally telling her his name) even thought he knows she might die. He’s decided the connection is worth the risk.
It’s not totally clear where Max is headed as we fade out on the movie’s final scene. But the last time we see him, he’s not alone.
finally telling anyonehis name since the first move.
But yes, this meta is awesome. I have no regrets about long posts, can you tell?
No one could even argue that she was a threat. A teenage black girl a child in her swim suit unarmed and no feasible way to hide any weapon on her got fucking slammed into the ground and was treated like a rag doll by an officer who is probably 3 times her age and weight. How can you really justify that? Then pull out your gun when people try to defend her! He came out there with sole intent to hurt those black kids
And when people say that “She should’ve kept quiet!” Don’t y’all remember the VERY FIRST FREAKING AMENDMENT that y’all just absolutely rave about when you wanna say something racist? Respectability politics is dead, and you can’t arrest a child for talking. Attitude problems are for her parents to deal with, not for the police. His feelings were hurt cuz a little girl had the nerve to stand up to his B.S. That arrest was illegal, because she did NOT commit a crime.
clingy and annoying doesn’t bother me when it’s from the right person
yes yes 100 times yes I literally do not give a fuck if my boyfriend sends me a picture of a car he likes at 3am even if I don’t like fucking cars his first thought was I know I'ma send that to my fucking girlfriend like yes fucking yes I love that shit
YES THIS.
But also. For those of us who sometimes desperately need space. It is not that we don’t love you. Just that we need to not be around anyone, that we would not be around OURSELVES if that were possible. We will be back and then we’ll probably be just as clingy.
That is why the older generation is trying to suppress your vote. They know that you can change the world they destroyed.
The first step we should take is getting Bernie Sanders elected President of the United States. We should show the world that we refuse to stand aside while an older and smaller generation insists on the destruction of our Democracy.
This is just the beginning, This is the first year we have as the largest voting generation in US History.
Let’s make the most of it.
Those of us almost-old folks who are NOT fucking assholes and who are getting fucked by the system are relying on you to fix what we could not because we were too few.
And we believe in you completely because you already show every sign of being extraordinary.
Also, please do not forget to vote in Congressional races - we cannot let them control both houses any longer. We need a progressive intelligent President AND a Senate AND House of Representatives so they can work together. Also, your next President will likely be appointing Supreme Court Justices - we want good appointments to go through! If we lose the Presidency and Congress, it will be lights out.
GUYS I WAS SINGING IN THE SHOWER AND I THOUGHT I WAS ALONE IN THE BATHROOM ‘CAUSE IT’S A COMMUNAL BATHROOM AND WHEN I FINISHED AND SHUT OFF THE SHOWER PEOPLE FREAKING APPLAUDED
I DON’T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND I NEARLY HAD A HEART ATTACK
GUYS
I’m laughing more than I should…..
GUYS THIS WASN’T SUPPOSED TO GET ANY NOTES WHAT ARE YOU DOING
GUYS
are you kidding this is hilarious
SO A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ASKING WHAT I WAS SINGING
AND I WAS SINGING ON MY OWN
BECAUSE I THOUGHT I WAS
ON MY OWN
GUYS
To be honest I think your url makes this all the more funny.
So there’s a girl I went to high school with who has one arm. And she never talked about it and usually tried to hide it and just generally seemed kind of embarrassed about it.
And the other day she posted a status on Facebook about how excited she was that she will get to have the BEST Furiosa costume this Halloween, because of a feature she used to dislike about herself.
And if u don’t think that’s the tightest shit ever which proves why representation for physical disabilities matters, then get out.
Ok so we know that some wizards marry Muggles, which means that at
some point in the relationship there has to be a conversation that goes,
“Honey, I’m a witch. Stop laughing. This is my wand, I send letter by
owls, and can travel in your fireplace.” And for some people, once their
partner gets out their wand and does a spell, they believe it and
adjust. But there has to be some Muggles that NOPED right out of there.
So
like is there a Department of Breakups inside the Obliviation office
for when things go wrong? Do you have to send a sad little owl to the
Ministry to have your ex’s memories erased after the relationship ends?
Bringing a whole new meaning to Muggle Liaison Office.
My best friend trusts me so much she gave me her phone and had me sext a guy on her behalf while she’s driving. This is the realest relationship I’ve ever had
No offense but I don’t like……….care about the military
“no offense but i dont like………..care about people who sacrifice for the well being of the country”
i really hate the number of notes on this
the American military is sensationalized, overfunded and frequently used to commit acts of brutality on foreign countries and launch violent invasions on civilians
I care about soldiers, sure, but you could not pay me give a single fuck about the military as a construct
the number of notes on this post is 110% founded and your commentary is unnecessary
First of all my mom just celebrated her 49th birthday. We went to San Andreas to enjoy some solid B-movie destruction and laugh at the science.
Second of all (as I have previously mentioned) my mom is bisexual as frick. Like. A perfect Kinsey three who raised me on a steady diet of Lucy Lawless and Lucy Liu as a motherfreaking badasses, among other gorgeous ladies.
Third of all my mom thinks that the fandom’s executive decision that Steve Rogers is also bisexual as frick is the best thing ever.
Fourth of all (and this is the real point here) my mom ships Steve/Peggy and Steve/Bucky with equal verve and as hardcore as anyone I’ve ever met.
vikings made their woman handle the finances because they thought math is witchcraft
During a military campaign, Vlad the Impaler, the basis for Dracula, once pulled his troops out of a major engagement in a valley at dusk so that the sun was in their enemies’ eyes. Once they were over the hill, they set loose a bunch of rabid bats who flew away from the sun (towards the enemy) and attacked them, leading to significant infection in their ranks, and Vlad’s eventual victory. Because of how the bats appeared from where Vlad’s soldiers appeared to be at dusk, myth stated that the soldiers turned into bats at night, which is where the “Dracula can change into a bat” thing came from.
The pet bird that you have overlooking your balcony shit talks me whenever I go out on my own balcony.
Please do something about your cat it keeps breaking into my apartment via the windows and I don’t know how. Plus it knows how to open fridges.
Look I know that life is difficult and we all have ways to cope but do you really have to do so with loud Dupstep music at 3 in the morning? (Bonus points if the dubstep listener is the cute/tiny one)
Every time you cook you set off the smoke alarm so you know what I’m just going to teach you how to cook.
I found you passed out in front of my door so I just dragged you into my home and put you on the couch please don’t scream.
I don’t know if you know this but I can hear you singing anime theme songs in the shower every morning and I like almost all the shows you watch.
Wow my pet snake looks so cute this morning and I’d be even happier if I actually had a pet snake.
My apartment key apparently also works on your apartment door? (Also I accidentally let your cat out.)
We both have 3DSs’s and Street pass each other every day and have conversation using the personal message feature (and sometimes we play games together)
You sleepwalk a lot and sometimes you knock on my door so I have to lead you back to your apartment.
You took the last of my favorite snack from the vending machine next to our apartment. Battle me in Pokemon for it?
Someone keeps printing out cute cat pictures/messages on my wireless printer and I’m determined to find out whom.
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!!’
