So, I saw Fury Road yesterday…

I saw Fury Road yesterday, and I have to tell you, it was brilliant. Yes, I AM a Mad Max fan, always have been. And yes, the movie was one long car chase, but it was a lot more. There have been a number of excellent analyses on the net about it, so I won’t slap up just another take except for this:

If the Men’s Rights Activists really THOUGHT about matters, they’d shut the fuck up. Mad Max? The Mad Max movies have never been about macho-man winning out. They’ve been about survival in an insane world. Yes, they have pitted Max against scum who seek to oppress and use others. BUT…Max has always worked with men, women, and children to overcome the villains. It’s never been solely Max vs the Bad Guy. If these whiny-assed idiots (yes, I am calling them that–same with the Gamergaters) really paid attention, they would see that Max is a loner, who ends up banding together for short times with others to make it through what’s essentially a hellacious situation.

Fury Road is not a feminist manifesto. It’s a humanist manifesto. The vision I saw there, what I took away from it, is that it takes balance–men and women working together as partners, as individuals who have both strengths and weakenesses, to tear down a corrupt regime of slavery and gross oppression.

Immortan Joe STANDS for everything the MRAs and Gamergaters promote. By freaking out about the message of this movie, they’re actually standing up for the villains.

For me, the tipping scene was when Max hands Furiosa the gun, with one bullet remaining. He’s in effect saying, “You can do this better than I can and it needs done, so take the reins here. This is your strength.” THAT…is true partnership.

Fury Road is about the destruction of corruption that oppresses basic human rights–the right to share natural resources, the rights of women not to be considered ‘breeders’/property, the rights of both men and women not to be considered just cannon fodder. Fury Road is the dystopian future that I see when I envision what would happen after a nuclear war. If it does, I just hope we have a number of men like Max, and a lot of women like Furiosa. We’ll need both.