Postfeminism in Mad Max

2015 saw the revival of an old trilogy; that of the iconic Max Max. Fury Road, this new installment in the series, offers a stark and surprisingly postfeminist change. It puts a woman at the center of the story, one that gets to overthrow a patriarchal tyrant. By comparing this radical change to the three older (1979) movies, and taking into account that they were all- including Fury Road- written by the same director, it's easier to see a cultural shift.

The original Mad Max was about the stereotypical macho post-apocalyptic survivalist lone wolf. In the words of Noah Berlatski from The Establishment, "Director George Miller’s series is devoted to manly men beating their manly chests while grunting and butting chests and cars and other manly bits. Tough guy, glowering-cowboy-biker-machismo and leather, and guns, and brutal death in gladiatorial combat: That’s what Mad Max was originally all about, not feminism." The various communities into which Max drifts in the second and third films are also anchored by women and the associated children. Men are sometimes in charge — but all-male communities in these films tend to be gangs, not civilizations. Men man the barricades of civilization to protect women from the barbaric manly hordes amidst the grinding of gear shifts, biceps, and gender stereotypes. 

Fury Road is a radical break. In this post apocalyptic world women are characters can hold on their own. They are on the forefront of the story and Max is an unlucky bystander that gets caught up in the mess, eventually helping Furiosa and the other characters escape from slavery. Fury Road is a film that actively deflates one of misogynists' most treasured fantasies (and boy did they cry out in displeasure when the movie came out). The apocalypse is supposed to be a place where women’s freedom goes to die, yet this movie turns that trope on its head. Immortan Joe’s harem of women are actively fighting for their freedom. “WE ARE NOT THINGS” they write on the walls of their prison. 

“Fury Road,” explains Adi Robertson from The Verge “explicitly balances Max's journey with a story about women and women's agency. The real threat is that even the women who are everything anti-feminists smugly predict — enslaved, fragile, sheltered — can be brave and competent.” There's a feminist concept usually summed up as "the patriarchy hurts men too" — men die in war, men die in all manners relating to their expected gender roles, pushed into high-risk jobs and defined by their earning capacity. It's the idea that our gender stereotypes end up limiting everyone, not just women. Fury Road plays this out very literally. Villain Immortan Joe's patriarchal society privileges and is run by men. His "warboys" seem well above women in the food chain, set to enter Valhalla when they die. They're also short-lived, interchangeable, and desperate for approval. Nux, a young, brainwashed warboy, has a fragile and violent masculinity that makes him deadly, but the moment he slips up, he loses everything. "Who killed the world?" Is written on the walls of the vault prison, and and it is said by Angharad just before she threw out Nux from the war rig: 


Angharad: Breeding stock! (relating to them)  Battle fodder! (relating to him)

Nux: No, I am awaited!

Angharad: You're an old man's battle fodder!

Angharad: Killing everyone and everything!

Nux: We're not to blame!

Angharad: Then who killed the world?

This line is directed at the ruthless dictators and their brutal followers based on power and aggression, incarnated by Immortan and his admirers. Directed toward the system that led to the war-torn, nuclear-bombed, water-lacking and dystopian world they're now in.


Maybe most importantly, the movie doesn't just try to avoid making women's subjugation titillating (think Game of Thrones), it rarely gives the audience the satisfaction of seeing it at all. And that's a huge step. George Miller created characters that are empowered. Not victims, or sideckicks, or damsels in distress. The women here, though they have been terribly wronged, are intelligent, fierce, strong and yet still loving and compassionate. 


It doesn't end there. Fury Road takes feminism a step further into Post-feminism, showing Max and Furiosa as equal partners.

In this scene Max fails at hitting his target twice in a row and so accepts that his female companion, Furiosa, should take the shot because of her superior skill. it is uncommon for the male hero of an action film to hand the reins over to a woman when women generally are the overly-sexualized sidekick in this genre. But it's not just women-empowerment. It's equality. Max and Furiosa treat each other with equal respect, not blind but not influenced by the gender of each other. They treat each other more like brothers in arms. They work in powerful, seamless teamwork. "Throughout the film, Max works with Furiosa as a partner. She doesn’t forbid him to participate because of his gender, or claim superiority. He, in turn, doesn’t patronize or condescend her, or challenge her authority because he sees her as lesser, and extends the same common courtesy to the film’s other females." - Cinemablography.

 Max also serves as a good intersectional feminist role model for men because he never acts entitled to receive sexual favors from Furiosa or the wives as compensation for his assistance, and never makes unwanted sexual advances on a woman. In fact, Max never makes any sexual advances. He proves that women and men can just be friends and\or work together without things becoming physical. It's beyond feminism; it's post-feminism.

(Examples: The roles they play are equal in stance. They help each other, and in one scene Max even plays the nurturing role as he fights to save Furiousa's life.)