Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

urulokid:

leradny:

leizycat:

I WOULD have reblogged this really cool thing I read about Mad Max: Fury Road, if the person hadn’t called it a “feminist” movie.

Yes, it was a very good movie, and it had many strong female characters, but it was not a feminist movie.

It’s not yours. it wasn’t made for you. Just because you enjoyed it doesn’t make it “feminist”.

Was it advertised as feminist? No. Was it MADE to be feminist? No. As a matter of fact, Charlize (Furiosa) even said “ George [Miller] didn’t have a feminist agenda up his sleeve” - and despite her pushing Mad Max as a feminist movie, it wasn’t one. It was just a good move.

Fuck off. Seriously.

ummmmmmmm, just on logic terms this is completely nonsensical

say you never intended to throw a ball into a basket but it lands there anyway and everyone’s like “THAT WAS SUCH A GREAT FREE THROW”, would you react with such vitriol and say “FUCK OFF BASKETBALL FANS, I NEVER INTENDED IT TO BE A FREE THROW”

like what is so wrong with fury road being appreciated for respecting women??? we’re not trying to grab it away from you, we’re just saying “so mad max respects women and we, as feminists, REALLY ENJOY IT THANK YOU GEORGE MILLER.”

[rubs my icky GIRL hands all over mad max fury road] this is MINE now

(via adelindschade)

Ranting About Feminism: It’s racist for you to ask me to overlook no diversity. And I’m not fucking doing it.

bonehandledknife:

redshoesnblueskies:

anothertgwfan:

busy-beaver:

fangirljeanne:

awkwardthuggin:

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 color, 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 color.

There are THREE women of color 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 two 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 colors 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 color, 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 color in the film, though by virtue of the dominate culture in the film being literally white male supremacy, the only men of color 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 color.

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 color. 

THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU 

I’m a Maori woman and it means so much to me to hear someone say FINALLY point this out. I wanna say this to ALL of tumblr so LISTEN UP!

The line between POC and White is very blurred in my culture. There are no ‘full’ Maori left, so everyone is biracial. I wanna point out that this is a very old way of thinking, as nowadays if you’re Maori then that’s it. YOU. ARE. MAORI. 

No matter what you look like, you are Tangata Whenua (people of the land). But I’ll be using it to get my point across. 

There are people with all sorts of different skin colours in my culture now and It makes me SEETHE whenever I see comments like the op. How DARE you dismiss ANYONE FROM A CULTURE THAT ISN’T EVEN YOUR OWN, just because you have been taught to only see in black and white and you can’t accept the fact that they’re from said culture JUST because they don’t ‘look like it’. For us, having people with dark skin, light skin and everything inbetween is NORMAL and we don’t question it. 

So don’t you DARE say that those beautiful woman in that film ‘DON’T COUNT’ We aren’t just some three letter word that you can label us with at your convenience. ‘PoC’ is not some super secret club. You don’t get to decide who is Maori and who is not. So you take that racist BS and shove it because we’re not interested. Especially when it is coming from someone who knows nothing about our culture and the people in it. 

Also, I know your intentions were good but PLEASE don’t refer to us as ‘white-passing’ as it’s just another way to isolate people within their own culture. We are Maori. End of story.

(emphasis mine)

Co-sign from this NZ-raised Polynesian woman.

We’re all mixed here. All of us. It’s so normal that we don’t put a freaking percentage on it and we realise that heritage and ethnicity is more than the colour of your skin, your particular shade of brown or how ‘ethnic’ your features are. It’s what you are.

One of my favourite parts of this movie was to see my people on a movie screen. It’s so rare for those of us of polynesian heritage to see ourselves reflected back in cinema and to see posts and articles that erase our culture or dismiss our heritage because we aren’t dark enough for someone of another culture is not only racist and ignorant, it’s also incredibly hurtful.

#mad max   #racism   #fucking finally   #it’s taken ages to find a good post on this   #reblogging for commentary   (fel-as-in-tumbld)

This hasn’t gone around in a while, and the Fury Road fandom has spread out a bunch so I’m reblogging. This is important, intersectional representation is important.

[a not-unimportant tangent: whitewashing of the warboys is commented on frequently, yet below the white-power hierarchy there are a lot of POC warboys (are there enough? probably not); it’s just hard to find them since they are all painted white in homage to their oppressor/god. What this tells us about the in-universe racism is clear, and what this tells us about the movie’s meta-commentary on racism is clear.  It’s not that the movie is whitewashed so much as the in-universe racism causes the war boys to literally whitewash themselves. 

You add to that that Joe - despite the in-universe racism - has 2 WOC in his ‘wives’, evoking the horrid yet universal fetishization of WOC by their enslavers….That’s damning and self aware commentary on racism by the movie.  It is not perfect…but it’s also not omitted.]

Reblogging this because it’s been awhile and I have many new followers and while I admit that the POC representation could be better in the movie with more Aboriginal actors both male and female, it’s fairly hypocritical of posts arguing for representation when they are committing acts of erasure themselves.

Additionally the fact that these boys are metaphorically ‘raised white’ speaks to Australia’s historically bad and ongoing issue with white men raping indigenous women and stealing their children to be raised as white.

When “act of genocide” was used in the 1997 landmark report Bringing Them Home, which revealed that thousands of Indigenous children had been stolen from their communities by white institutions and systematically abused, a campaign of denial was launched by a far-right clique around the then prime minister John Howard. It included those who called themselves the Galatians Group, then Quadrant, then the Bennelong Society; the Murdoch press was their voice. (x)

Mad Max is a story made by an Australian director, honed by an Australian screenwriter, and I wished people would stop forgetting that.

(Source: sleezy)

Water Your Eyes Doing

bonehandledknife:

This is part of an ongoing discussion about film theory and its execution Mad Max Fury Road. I’ve talked, at length, about how composition how it can objectify a body, how it doesn’t matter if the body is in motion, how Mad Max mostly avoids the objectification by use of center frame, how Golden Rule framing isn’t necessarily objectifying.

Additionally, here is post breaking down how composition, lighting, and blocking (actor position) systemically deemphasized the female body in the My Name Is Max scene.

But lets get to the most controversial scene in Mad Max in terms of feminist theory, the infamous Water scene. I’ve been frankly putting this off because if you get into the larger visual, narrative, and thematic context of this scene, this post will never end. This is even before delving into the the meta-context of genre and tropes. So I’ve decided to narrow the scope of this post down as far as I can in terms of pure composition and practical concerns. However, if you have meta on these topics, please let me know by ask or via reblog and I will add as a footnote below the cut-tag.

Let me first point out though that we have spent the few minutes prior to this scene with Max waking up from the sandstorm (having flashbacks), getting freaked out by the needle in his skin, and about to shoot a man’s wrist off to get free.

He then has another flashback, notice the sound effect, but the flashback is triggered by a very specific thing:

Girl’s voices. Like Glory. Like, say, voices he finds when he turns around the corner, of the Wives:

A note on why I use both Golden Rule and Rule of Thirds: The Golden Rule, while is more effective/precise is ridiculously hard to eyeball on-the-go and while filming moving images. Rule of Thirds is often ‘good enough.’ Film as a medium is not photography or painting, it’s a medium intent on capturing moving objects, and sometimes the demands of the shoot means that you end up with the ‘best try,’ especially if it’s an action shot containing either internal or external movement (ie. either in-camera objects moving or the view itself moving). What is more likely to be specifically composed are still shots, wide shots, or the beginning/ends of shots/pans.

Which you can see here. Look at how BOTH the Rule of Thirds and Golden Rule lines up with the landforms at the horizon. Look at how precisely the War Rig lands on the major diagonal.

Now look at what happens when the camera lands in it’s final position and the Wives come into focus:

Nothing lands on any of the 8 major sweetspots (the crosshairs of the Golden or the Third. The Dag’s back bent over the boltcutters is centerframed. And check out what falls on the horitzonal Golden:

The water. Angharad is bent over and covering her face, Toast’s head is blocking Capable’s chest. Look at that space between the vertical Third. It’s the chastity belt.

I am telling you right now that it would be easy as pie to take that belt and put it past the lower third where it wouldn’t be seen or to the far left. If they really hated it they could have told the people who erase wires in visual fx to erase the belts or to move them. It’s position is not an accident.

For some comparison here is some concept art of the scene (found in The Art of Mad Max Fury Road):

Even if they were more clothed, look at how more objectifying their poses are, how the butts are subtly (or not subtly) turned towards the viewer instead of slightly away from our gaze (compare Toast and Angharad to the two wives on the right in the art) and how Furiosa was supposed to have been freeing them, instead of the wives freeing themselves.

Here’s the full picture:

Notice the absence of the belts and the placement of the hose. Look at how Furiosa and the gun are on the Golden.

Let’s go further into the movie itself however. (warning, lots of pictures)

Keep reading

solitarymushroom:

mumblingsage:

Melita Jurisic mswyrr:

mumblingsage:

cygnaut:

mumblingsage:

I swear Fury Road is made up of 90% dramatic/ironic/painful echoes by volume.

For instance, Max and Angharad both fall off of the Rig after rescuing the driver (Angharad using the boltcutters on the harpooned wheel, Max body-checking multiple polecats away from Furiosa). 

And both times Capable and Dag try to save them by reaching out from the backseat. They only succeed once. 

It occurred to me the other day that Angharad dies in the back of the Gigahorse, where the Organic Mechanic does his impromptu c-section. The same place where Furiosa almost dies but is saved by Max.

Yes! I had that realization on my 3rd viewing and actual tears came to my usually-dry eyes. UGH.

one thing though - what the Organic Mechanic does is not a c-section imo. a c-section is a surgery during which the woman/pregnant person is treated as a person/a patient. what the Organic Mechanic did was cut a woman open like breaking open a Christmas cracker to get the goodies inside. He’s treating her as a thing, an incubator whose only worth is to create a male heir.

It’s dismemberment, not surgery.

The reason why I’m pointing this out is that it’s not just that Angharad dies in that palce and Furiosa lives, but that Angharad is treated as a thing by OM whereas Max… revisits his own physical exploitation and being treated as a thing to treat Furiosa with infinite care.

The thing that remains the same btw is that a woman/women are with both Angharad and Furiosa, loving them and grieving them. Miss Giddy holds Angharad as she passes away, always seeing her as a person; the Vuvalini and the sisters comfort/hold Furiosa.

The major difference is the definition of humanity/masculinity the man involved is working from - are you capable of giving life of yourself or do you just take from those who can, ripping it out of them?

The final note is that OM is the man that violated Max’s body, though it’s Max’s choice that makes him different/in community with the women there not merely having been victimized.

AND ANOTHER THING

The 3 people helping Max save Furiosa are the Dag, Capable, and the Vuvalini played by Melita Jurisic. Each of them lost someone they were particularly close to during the final chase–Dag lost Keep, Capable lost Nux, and while I’m arguing Joy Smither’s Vuvalini was ‘Melita’s’ BFF we might, even if headcanon fails, say she’s lost her sisters as a whole (Valkyrie and Maadi, too!). And I’m very into the symbolism and emotional punch of having the people who are grieving most being the ones to keep Furiosa from dying, too.

I really loved that bit about Angharad being treated like a thing but Max revisits his own exploitation. Like you know when Slit throws a lance past Max’s face at the beginning, kinda using him to aim and later Furiosa uses the same side to make that awesome shot? This reminded me of that. But seriously there is so much deep thinking going on and my thoughts are just ‘I wonder if the war pup at the beginning is taking Max’s hair so he can make some kinda cuddly toy for himself’.

(via bonehandledknife)

mad max ramble (aka i cannot contain all my mad max feelings)

petals42:

Okay, dudes, so I saw mad max yesterday and AM STILL REELING.

Like, I had heard all the feminist hype about this movie and was very excited to go see it, but I had the secret fear that it would still let me down. Like, I was afraid it had been OVERhyped. So I tried to go in calmly. CALM, COOL, AND COLLECTED. That was me.

WAS.

WAS IS THE KEY WORD THERE. Because I walked out of it FUCKING GRINNING AND I WAS NONE OF THOSE THINGS ANYMORE BECAUSE MAD MAX WAS THE GREATEST THING EVER!!!!!

Here are the ways that Mad Max was AWESOME (not comprehensive and in no particular order. Putting it in list form just makes me look like I am a little less crazy than I actually am. Note: there are spoilers! and cursing- lots of cursing.)

• So the beginning is kind of what I expected. Max captured by weird dudes, Furiosa is like the most honored warrior and in charge of driving the biggest truck (coolio) and the escaping wives are very explicit in their message (also coolio. gotta be explicit with these things) but, still, LETS SKIP FORWARD TO THE GOOD PARTS:
• In the first meeting of Max and Furiosa- THEY BOTH TRY TO KILL ONE ANOTHER. Like… there is no instant friendship of “I will help you with these women” or “We need your help because we are women.” NO. THEY BOTH ATTACK. FURIOSA THROWS THE FIRST PUNCH. 
• Also, THE WIVES FUCKING TAKE PART IN THIS FIGHT! They are not fighters and don’t know what they’re doing but they fucking GRAB THE CHAIN that is attached to that fucker’s head and START YANKING. WOMEN WHO DON’T HAVE THE SKILLS STILL FIGHTIN BACK. oh god, just… it’s too good. 
• Within like a DAY of meeting her, Max is following Furiosa’s orders like it’s his MUTHAFUCKING JOB. Just does whatever she says. he is still holding a gun on the wives UNTIL SHE TELLS HIM TO GET UP AND DRIVE. and then he does that. Because she’s a badass. and you listen to the badass.
• Okay, this is one of my biggest things in life so maybe other people won’t even notice it- but BOTH MAX AND FURIOSA DRIVE. Like, it’s not assumed that because Max is the man, he is going to drive all the time. It’s her car. She can drive it. He can take a nap in the passenger seat. GAH, YAASSS.
• The gun scene. You’ve all already heard about it. Max is a bad shot. Furiosa is a better shot. HE JUST LETS HER USE HIS SHOULDER. Just take me up now. I am done.
• Okay, but don’t take me up because then i would miss this next part and this is great. This might be my favorite part. Are you ready? Because Mad Max, the title character of this movie, is about to go on a solo-mission. A dangerous, manly mission by himself to beat one of the big bads and steal his supplies. He’s going alone, as men do, into the night. It’s probably going to be violent and badass and - OOPS NO WAIT. WE DON’T EVEN SEE IT. Like… I don’t think people realize what a big deal this is. Because it’s harder to see things that aren’t there but… BUT GUYS. This could have been a BIG FREAKING DEAL. MAX’S SOLO MISSION AND IT IS NOT IN THE MOVIE. Like, let that sink in. Nope, no solo mission for you Max. We don’t even care enough to watch that. That’s boring. It’s been done. WE DON’T EVEN NEED TO SEE IT.

Keep reading

thewinstonisin:

to be honest, i am never going to not love fury road. and i am never going to not love fury road for the exact same reason that i am never going to not love pacific rim: because they are movies that focus uncompromisingly on women and on the stories of women and do not pick at them or highlight their flaws or put them in conflict with other women so that the dudebros in the corner can yell “catfight!” and whistle.

pacific rim doesn’t pass the bechdel test of course, but it is still a movie where i can very readily believe that guillermo del toro asked somebody “do we really need a mildly attractive white boy who isn’t portayed as a sack of shit for the majority of the movie as a protagonist?” and some stuffy hollywood exec informed him that he had to have at least one so he sighed and picked charlie hunnam out of a lineup and informed him that his job was to stand there and look pretty with his shirt off and smile adoringly at rinko kikuchi whenever she was onscreen, which he did fantastically. also idris elba and a narrative centered around a found family featuring a black father and a japanese daughter that culminates in the kind of love so profound that the last words she says to him don’t even need to be translated for a non-japanese-speaking audience.

fury road is a movie that was edited by a woman because george miller literally did not fucking trust a man to do it justice, and even our beloved sad puppy protaganist still has his moment where we all yell at him to just let furiosa and the girls in the truck you miserable bastard you all want the same thing and then they turn an MRA into a feminist willing to die for the cause, and they put naked women on the screen without making me want to curl up inside and die, and killed women to show us how that made other women feel, and brought literal fucking hellfire down on the patriarchy to grind them into rubble. also, ALSO, the only reason this ridiculous fucking plan even worked in the end was because LITERAL CHILDREN and enslaved women lowered the platform and opened the floodgates to water, which is essentially the same as salvation when you live in a post-nuclear desert hellscape run by god-kings who waste thousands of gallons of gasoline just to track down their escaped sex slaves. also actual polynesian actresses in a movie set in australia. also a complete lack of rape scene or discussion of sex, crude or otherwise. also the person who everybody knows is the protag of fury road in the same way everyone knows mako is the protag of pacific rim even though the trailers will do their best to convince the MRAs otherwise is an amputee driven by the same immense boiler of screaming fury that i, as an abuse victim and as a feminist and as someone who has had friends go through way worse shit than i did, feel on a regular basis, and we don’t need to know the full story of what happened; we know that she was kidnapped, we know her mother is dead, we know that it’s probably been twenty years of literal hell for her, and we know that she is not above dying to save four girls who yell at her when she tries to kill someone that has been sent to bring them back to immortan joe.

this is not the wink wink nudge nudge feminism of joss “i quit twitter bc feminists were harassing me” whedon. these are movies that make me feel like they are opening floodgates to stories where megan fox can show up onscreen and be taken seriously instead of objectified, and lucy liu can play any damn character she wants in reboots of stories that used to just be about arrogant white boys, and laverne cox doesn’t have to be asked what her fucking crotch looks like before people can hold a conversation with her.

pacific rim and fury road, as colorful (literally, there is an entire post on this site about modern hollywood and it’s shitty, drained-of-color-to-feel-”gritty” movies) narratives about hope and love, actually make me, a decrepit, sarcastic husk of a human being, 1) cry about two people nodding at each other and touching foreheads, and 2) actually believe that our cinema will one day stop being such a white sausagefest.

movies that can do that are a big deal.

(Source: thentherewasfury, via bonehandledknife)

yahtzee63:

ecouter-bien:

redshoesnblueskies:

bonehandledknife:

redshoesnblueskies:

aelberethgilthoniel:

redshoesnblueskies:

mswyrr:

oneangryshot:

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.

#this entire last scene was a love scene disguised as a car chase I swear (via mumblingsage)

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. 

(via bonehandledknife)

6th time thoughts: don’t be the people who missed seeing Star Wars in the theater. you’ll regret it.

redshoesnblueskies:

flamethrowing-hurdy-gurdy:

redshoesnblueskies:

1. I was lucky enough to see Star Wars in the theater when it came out.  I cannot TELL you how many scifi & film fans I’ve talked to since who deeply regret never having seen it on the big screen, let alone having had the chance to see it before anyone really understood what it was, what it would do to genre film, how that effect would ripple out to mainstream cinema.  To see Star Wars before you were prepared for anything remotely like it…it wasn’t an experience that could be duplicated by watching it at home, or by watching an indie theater big screen showing years later.

Fury Road is that experience.  

Don’t miss seeing it on the big screen.  Don’t be all those people who say, ‘Damn, I can’t believe I didn’t see this game changer action art-house rock opera (say it with me now) FUCKING MOVIE…in the theater.’

2. By this point I sit in strung anticipation silencing my phone and tucking away my purse…and when the first soundtrack cues hit the speakers I slide down in my seat so that all I can see is the screen.  It feels like a friend, like a presence.  I am transported.

This is ridiculous.  No other piece of visual media has ever done this to me. A few rare and precious fics and books, but nothing on a screen.  Nothing through speakers.  

But I have surrendered.  I don’t care that it seems ridiculous.  I just don’t care.  Because it makes me so deeply deeply happy.

3. I had to get my phone fixed before I went to the theater today.  I ended up striding around the store with out flung arms describing the practical effects to the phone guys.  I think I alarmed them.  (one decided to go on that recommendation.  the other dismissed the movie as whatevs)

4. More and more I see this complete polarization in reactions to the movie, and I find myself wondering how much of it stems from visual processing differences and how much of it arises from..hmm..for want of a better term I’ll have to say film literacy (no intent to sound snobbish - some people do not gain any enjoyment for movies by saturating themselves in commentary tracks and comparisons of cinematography and such. either you’re obsessed or you’re not. those who are not probably have more peace in their souls.).

I can completely see how people who process visuals in a different way than I do, could look at the movie and see ‘motion, sand, more motion, visually full of sameness. also? sand.’

i can also see how people who haven’t spent endless fascinated hours pouring over the language of film, the intricacies of building a visual story, the subtleties of character development in acting rather than scripting, could look at this movie and say, ‘Plot? what plot?  Character differentiation?  There was none!’  They respond to a different kind of story telling, and Fury Road doesn’t hit the beats they need.

reaction A: ‘all I saw was sand’ 

reaction B: ‘UNBELIEVABLE. WORK OF ART. [say it with me now] THIS FUCKING MOVIE’

…not many reactions in between.

5. Similarly, I keep reading reviews that dismiss the ongoing obsession so many of us have with Fury Road under the heading ‘it’s all about the women for them - that’s cool, whatever.’

This is one area where I feel pretty heated - because its NOT about the presence of fully developed women in this film, or the lack of gender slurs in this film, or the absence of microagressions of any kind in this film, or the lack of male-gaze camera work in this film, or even that it passes the Bechdel test, the Mako Mori test or any other test one could care to drum up that denotes excellent representation of women in film.

I don’t love this movie because of those things - the cultural course correction of those things allow me to be completely undefended before this movie.  I don’t have to have my genre-savvy-female-filter turned on.  Because the movie isn’t hurting me, I am free to see the phenomenal piece of work that it is.

I love the movie for the movie itself - for everything it is as a visual masterpiece; stripped of all distracting character inconsequentials to reveal the people themselves; a story so fundamental to accumulated millennia of human myth that it resonates for absolutely anyone - the journey, the struggle, and the return home with new wisdom.

This movie welcomes me with complete integrity, with George Miller’s delighted child-like smile, ecstatic to share the experience.  

‘Come and play!’ it says; and I do.

“ the cultural course correction of those things allow me to be completely undefended before this movie. “

That’s it, that’s what it was, you nailed it. That’s why it’s so relaxing even though it’s so violent??? 

I’m so relieved to see other people go as batshit over this film as I have. 

And about film literacy- I actually think most people are far more film literate than the industry expects them to be, or is trying to mould them to be. I think even people without film degrees know when they’re being fed the same old stale crap over and over again. I think they, too, appreciate when the film isn’t “hurting” them with lazy plot devices.

I have a degree like that and I’ve worked on films, so my perspective is different, but I’ve also been resigned to consuming and being unsatisfied with what was given to me? 

Because I believe in blockbuster cinema being important. It’s the one that reaches the masses, the one people know. Arthouse films are great and all but only a handful of people see them, and their development (both individual and collective) gets bogged down by budget constraints and lack of exposure and the need to define themselves as alternative and so on and so on. Then on the other side you have blockbusters that cost millions but don’t use them to make anything significant?

Cinema is supposed to be an exchange of ideas. An accessible exchange of ideas, too. Where was all that? Why was there such a gap between my desire to see a huge movie on a huge screen, and my desire to see a good story told on film?

I love movies. I really do. I love big movies that sweep you away. So I kept watching films on the big screen, films that were called ‘great’ and which all turned out to only be marketed as such. 

I finally gave up. Stopped going to the cinema. I was disillusioned.

And then this FUCKING MOVIE came along and made me so happy.

I didn’t expect it to! At first I didn’t even know why??? But it was a shock. I finally felt like someone cared about what they were making, and respected me enough as a viewer not to just give me the standard formula. I’d learned not to expect this at all from action films.

I felt like a kid again, watching a film where nothing was certain and everything was unknown and fascinating, and I think that makes sense because action-adventure films were a whole different story when I was younger. At first, each one was an innovation, the genre and all its myriad rivulets had to be discovered. Then at some point they became the standard popcorn genre, a trusted formula emerged, and they all started feeling much the same. Everything was epic. Everything felt mediocre.

And this fucking movie suddenly made me realise what I’d been missing. Respect. Respect for the art form, for its potential, and for the audience come to watch it.

All the more immense because you know this could have been an uninspired, ‘safe’ remake and still been profitable. Maybe this is naive but it really feels like this wasn’t made for the money in my pocket, but to actually be an amazing work of art, first of all? That it wasn’t about ‘what works’ but ‘what story do I want to tell’?

(^ the above is not a documented study, it’s just my general impression of how cinema has touched me through the years. Sorry bout that, we can’t all be pros. :P)

I actually think most people are far more film literate than the industry expects them to be, or is trying to mould them to be. I think even people without film degrees know when they’re being fed the same old stale crap over and over again. I think they, too, appreciate when the film isn’t “hurting” them with lazy plot devices.

Yes!!  You’re expressing this much better than I. :D  I feel like I can’t quite unpack this idea.  It’s confounding the info just a bit that there are people who are: 

1. educated in film formally; 

2. educated in film via unhealthy obsession with it; and 

3. people with primarily a strong instinct for story telling as their compass

 - who all fall into the category of “people who get what this film accomplished, as part of what made them love it.”

And then there’s the ‘George Miller paid the audience the high compliment of respect’ part of the picture.  I agree completely - people have a well honed instinct for when a movie is patronizing them.  They know when a movie takes them seriously, has faith that they are astute and paying attention and appreciate subtle elements over 2x4 exposition.  They know when they’re seeing something quality.  No one needs to be steeped in the history of film or the academics of good story telling to GET that.  No one needs to be told when they’re being given respect - that’s something anyone can perceive, whether or not they can name all the academic film theory talking points, or would care to.  Nail right on the head, hurdy-gurdy!

Now I want a pithy term that doesn’t carry snobbish connotations :D  What encompasses ‘film literate’ and/or ‘knows what respect looks like’ and/or 'great instincts for a well told story’ ??

(via bonehandledknife)