this is max’s face when he realises that furiosa is climbing over to joe’s car.
he knows immediately that she will kill herself trying to kill joe. so he fights a hundred guys to get to her.
love scene disguised as a car chase….brilliant
#he legit does not take his eyes off her for the rest of the movie tho#like from the time cheedo says she’s hurt real bad#his entire goal is to get to her#look at his eyelines on the doof wagon#he is staring at her the whole time#everyone he fights#is just in the way#stopping him from getting to her#im telling you this was the most intimate movie i have ever seen#and im not even talking romantically intimate#like#dont touch me right now
intimate - that’s exactly the right word isn’t it. wow. I’m just gonna sit with that for a while…
…intimacy is what makes this movie tick, but what cultural references do we have for intimacy that aren’t actually just code for ‘romantic attraction’? But…intimacy isn’t that at all.
Max & Furiosa have chemistry from the first time they see each other, it goes sparks-to-tinder during the fight, and is fully underway by, “Does it matter?” They recognize something in each other.
Meeting someone who gets you, and who you totally get, is an overwhelmingly intimate experience. It doesn’t mater what your eventual relationship will be, intimacy will be profound and the devotion proportional. It’s the kind of rare and indefinable connection that movies are always trying to sell us - but they almost never deliver. Trying to convince us that romance or great sex or [insert trope here] are the proof of that connection doesn’t work - it’s not the real deal, and we can tell the difference.
In Max and Furiosa we have intimacy stripped of all else - and it’s almost outside our cultural ability to discern, isn’t it. But we all know it when we see it. And we’re fiercely protective of it.
“but what cultural references do we have for intimacy that aren’t actually just code for ‘romantic attraction’?”
I’m just going to point out that this is probably one of the reasons why slash fanfiction is so popular.
I mean the origins of the name comes from K/S, kirk-slash-spock, and is from their fully developed relationship and just learning each other. And you have acres of episodes where they learn to recognize each other.
This is the classic picture of what slash is, in one image (via Henry Jenkins):
When I try to explain slash to non-fans, I often reference that moment in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan where Spock is dying and Kirk stands there, a wall of glass separating the two longtime buddies.
Both of them are reaching out towards each other, their hands pressed hard against the glass, trying to establish physical contact. They both have so much they want to say and so little time to say it. Spock calls Kirk his friend, the fullest expression of their feelings anywhere in the series. Almost everyone who watches the scene feels the passion the two men share, the hunger for something more than what they are allowed. And, I tell my nonfan listeners, slash is what happens when you take away the glass.
What is interesting in the case of Fury Road however is that it puts the glass back in between.
I’m laughing with delight here - step it UP, yes! Well explained! That’s the core of ‘why slash’ - intimacy well acted and well written is compelling and we cannot help but imagine more about it. At the same time, we (as slash fans/writers) are still enacting a cultural myth that says ‘true intimacy is romantic in nature,’ - which is not true at all. Yes, there’s non-romantic slash out there, but it’s the exception.
Ah! Okay - I think I finally have an answer for you for ‘why I don’t ship them…yet’ - it’s this issue. In Fury Road the on-screen romantic potential is there - but what makes the relationship so poignant is that they don’t need it in order to have more intimacy than we can almost stand to see.
For me, acting on that potential for romance undermines the the idea that intimacy, real and profound, can exist independent of romance. And that’s important to me personally - my own quirk and no judgement on anyone else.
Yes, just yes to all of this. I think that’s why, even though I’ve read and enjoyed and squeed at fic where they’re romntically/physically intimate, I still hesitate to outright ship them. For me they already (as redshoesnblueskies said) experience this profound sense of intimacy, and while the idea of romance/physical intimacy is fun, in the end for me it doesn’t add anything to their relationship that isn’t already there in spades. It doesn’t detract from it either, of course, and goes without saying that this is all IMO.
As someone who ‘ships Max/Furiosa but is fine with the relationship as platonic, I would only add this: When I want to see Max/Furiosa shown as romantic, I don’t want to change *anything* about the way they interact. What I want is for THIS to be the way romance is portrayed – as an act of profound intimacy and trust between two equal partners with their own individual motivations. I would be hungrier for more platonic male/female friendships of such depth were I not even more hungry for romantic relationships (of any stripe) shown with the complexity TV and films usually reserve for male friendship.