Dearest readers, be warned! It’s come to our attention that Mad Max:Fury Road is not just an action flick with strong female characters. It is, in fact, FEMINIST PROPAGANDA. Yes, this film is sneakily trying to infect your innocent little minds with the notion that women are real human beings.
A writer on the website Return of Kings, a popular blog for “heterosexual, masculine men” (ahem), penned a piece explaining why Mad Max:Fury Road is offensive to men. Despite the fact that he hasn’t seen the film, the blogger writes: “This is the vehicle by which they are guaranteed to force a lecture on feminism down your throat. This is the Trojan Horse feminists and Hollywood leftists will use to (vainly) insist on the trope women are equal to men in all things, including physique, strength, and logic. And this is the subterfuge they will use to blur the lines between masculinity and femininity, further ruining women for men, and men for women.”
In an effort to confirm these conspiracy theories, we went straight to the source, interviewing Mad Max:Fury Road stars Charlize Theron, Zoe Kravitz, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Abbey Lee.
Charlize Theron plays Furiosa, a war-rig driver who rescues dictator Immortan’s enslaved “breeder” wives. Theron, who plays opposite Tom Hardy’s Max, makes no secret of the fact that George Miller had conjured an alpha female unlike any other she’d seen, especially in an action setting.
“When George told me he wanted to create a female Road Warrior who can stand next to this very iconic character as his equal, I believed him – and he didn’t let me down. The material allowed for two characters who don’t fall for each other, or even become friends, because there is no room for relationships in this place.”
Theron doesn’t see Furiosa as being motivated by compassion. Far from it. “She is a hero in the classic sense,” the actress asserts. “She’s driven by these very human flaws. For me, what sets her off is that she has had enough of feeling worthless as a woman, in a world where women are only good for one thing, and that’s procreating. And she’s going to take what matters most to the Immortan because he took the most valuable from her when he stole her away from her mother and then discarded her. To me, this is about not letting the bastards get away with it. I love that about her.”
Immortan’s five wives are played by actresses and models Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Abbey Lee, and actresses Zoe Kravitz, Courtney Eaton and Riley Keogh. They worked with feminist playwright Eve Ensler, who wrote The Vagina Monologues and In the Body Of The World. Huntington-Whiteley in particular says that she found working with Ensler very illuminating.
“Eve Ensler was brilliant,” Rosie Huntington- Whiteley says. “She made everything very real for us. My character Splendid is the leader and an extremely strong character. She takes a maternal approach over all her sisters, but has conflicted emotions about her pregnancy. Initially when I read the script I was kind of confused because she’s so reckless and it didn’t make sense to me why she’d be so reckless when she’s pregnant, because naturally, most women’s instinct would be maternal.
“When I started peeling the layers back on my character with Eve, it brought up a lot of interesting questions for me. Because my character has been held captive her whole life, this baby is a result of rape.
“I wanted to explore the conflict she might feel inside about being impregnated this way. For her, this journey was so important because it was the only opportunity she had to develop a maternal relationship with her child.” Zoe Kravitz also speaks highly of Ensler.
“We all felt that we didn’t want to play a group of ‘Glamazons’ in the back of a car,” she says.
“We quickly discovered that was very important to George as well. So when we learned Eve was coming, we were all really excited, and she really whipped us into shape. She really tried to have us understand what it meant to be used as an object, and the reality of that. It brought up a lot of deep things for all of us, and it got us close very quickly. It brought a certain honesty and vulnerability to all our characters.”
The production inspired Huntington-Whiteley and Abbey Lee to reflect on the role they play as models. Lee, an Australian making her film debut, was particularly enthusiastic about exploring the transformation of her character from aesthetic object into a woman who locates her strength in her will and determination.
“I found it very relieving,” she says. “To let go of the physicality in oneself and to immerse yourself in this desolate mad world was nice. Not having to worry about how you looked... I liked it.
“Compared to the other Mad Max films, it’s definitely more driven by women,” she adds. “The older films are based on fuel and men and this one is based on women and water. George didn’t do it by accident, it was very deliberate that it was a female-driven movie. Hats off to him for having the balls to let a bunch of girls run an action film. It doesn’t happen, ever. There are females in action films but they don’t take full control.”
Huntington-Whiteley agrees. “It’s a very exciting time for women,” she observes, “and I feel very privileged to have been a part of a film that portrays women in a new and very empowered way.”