Thursday 21 May 2015

Mad Max: Fury Road explains perfectly why the patriarchy sucks for men too

*Spoilers for Mad Max: Fury Road ahead, obviously*

I am hoping you clicked on this article because you, like so many people out there, have suddenly been made aware of 'Meninists' - also MRAs, or Mens Rights Activists - because of a Return of Kings article demanding a boycott of Mad Max: Fury Road.  (Guardian article linked, because if you visit the original they'll get ad money).

This is them, patrolling the YouTube comments section.
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"Men are being tricked by explosions and boobs into watching feminist propaganda!" They cry. "We wanted this film to be just for us (along with all the others this summer, and all other summers)!" Hell, they're even upset at a 'piece of American culture being ruined' (ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the funding, director, lead, writers and locations of the original Max films are all Australian, as is this one).

They also complain that the film is called Mad Max, yet Furiosa seems to do most of the fighting. If we remove gender from the equation, it does admittedly seem a little odd that the titular character takes such a back seat. But in this landscape of reboots, sequels and studios being terrified of taking a chance on new intellectual properties, nobody would have thrown this kind of budget behind Imperator Furiosa: Awesome Robot Arm the movie.

Even though we would all watch the crap out of that movie.
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If you're upset at a movie being affected by financial concerns, then boy are you writing about the wrong multi-billion dollar industry. Plus, the clue is right there in the subtitle: Fury Road. Greek mythological spirits of vengeance, notably female. The film is almost literally called 'The highway of angry women.' It could only have been clearer if they'd called it The Vagina Monorail (A title which I'm copyrighting and working on as we speak).


There's also the complaint that Max literally spends the first quarter of the film helpless. Because he does. Captured by the enemy and put in direct threat to raise the stakes for the hero. 'Damselled,' one might go so far as to say.

Now I guess guys know how women must feel watching every single action film ever
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But lets put to one side the metaphorical significance of the women running the perfect society, and the men running the power-hungry and abusive one. Lets put aside the fact that the face of the patriarchy in this film is literally a grinning skull and the entire plot is motivated by his sense of entitlement. These are all valid symbols and points for discussion, but not the point I want to get at.

So let's assume that yes, Mad Max does have a more feminist stance than the rest of the summer blockbusters. But that does not mean that it doesn't have a very important message for men. In fact it does have a message for us. A very powerful and important message that is most applicable specifically to men, and it is this:

 The patriarchy is bad for you too. 

"But surely if the patriarchy is a system run by men, it can't be bad for men?" I hear you ask. Well, firstly, it is bad, and secondly don't call me Shirley.

To show why it's bad for men specifically, let's look at the two male leads in the film: Nux and Max.

Nux

"Fackin' straya!"
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One of the things the partiarchy does is define the role of 'manly' men. In fact the ROK article (which I don't want to encourage by linking) specifically complains about expecting:
"A straight-up guy flick. No fucking around. Perhaps even a little, hidden acknowledgement from the director that when the shit hits the fan, it will be men like Jack Donovan Mad Max who will be in charge."
Patriarchy reinforces the perception of what a man is. What 'manly' behaviour is. It tells you what is acceptable to like, and dislike. This askMen article sums up the current, pig-headed state of play being forced on us. Anger is the only emotion we are 'allowed.' It's not manly to get upset or feel fear, so get angry! After all, that never caused anyone any problems (hint: wars).

Taken to it's logical extreme, this is the kind of thinking that creates the warboys. The only way to get out of the mob of the overworked underclass is through war and through violence. But when Nux curls up into the fetal position atop the rig, he reveals just how fucked his life is under the patriarchy - tumours, brutality, death and fear on a daily basis. Even his name is a Latin term figuratively used to mean something worthless, the root for many European words meaning 'nothing.' Under patriarchy, men are disposable nothings - expendable, in other words.

He eventually unburdens himself of his repressed pain - often the root cause of male rage - to a woman, outside of the male-dominated environment that he's been raised in. In a safe space, devoid of other men reinforcing his behaviour, he's suddenly not an arsehole, and he begins his character arc of changing into one of the good guys, detaching himself from the blind rage that's led him thus far. 

"Wait, aren't you played by the guy who is hot in other films?"
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Imagine though if he'd met Max at that point. Two men, broken by anger, who would have fought each other and died, and they'd both be worse off for it (as would the plot). Entrenched male anger reinforces anger in other men. This is one of the stupidest things about the patriarchy - that it turns men into angry, repressed arseholes who aggressively force emotional repression on others, sometimes without even realising they're doing it.

And that's the patriarchy in a nutshell. That's why it's bad for men too. It's also about changing men into a destructive force, as well as keeping women down. It reduces men into angry caricatures to the point that when they sit and watch a film where the male lead is helpless for a few scenes, they go nuts and spew rage all over the first outlet to hand. By getting mad they are literally proving my point. 

"I WILL SHOOT YOU IN THE OPINION!"
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That's not to say it's their fault as individuals. Patriarchy is a structure, not a person with a master plan. It's like a memetic virus, and it's kind of infected a lot of human society. As psychologist and counsellor Tara Palmatier puts it:
"Men come into this world in touch with their feelings. They are taught to ignore and mistrust their feelings as boys and often ridiculed or shut down for expressing their feelings as men."
Like with Nux in the Citadel, where the only way he can get Slitz to let him drive is with a synchronised display of aggression after being mocked for his weakness. So don't blame those who's minds and emotions have been corralled by a society that tells them to feel nothing but anger. Blame the society that raises a generation of young men to repress everything human about themselves.

And then of course, there's Max.

'Mad' Max Rockatansky

"Eeurngh." - Max

Max is a man who literally has nothing left but anger and fear driving him. He even says, right at the start of the trailer:
"I am a man reduced to a single instinct: Survive."
Max is a stoic, taciturn man's man, right down to the dusty leather jacket and gruff voice. But the problem is that we start off by finding out the source of his madness - his dead wife and child. And this is absolutely unacceptable to the patriarchal hero. Since this is an Aussie film, I'm going to let Men's Line Australia themselves explain this:
"Men often feel that they need to be self-reliant. They are sometimes focussed on providing for their loved ones and hide their own emotions. This behaviour is reinforced everyday in the stereotype of the heroic male, so often represented in popular culture. Fearless, resourceful, stoic and usually facing adversity alone, these characters tell us a lot about what is considered to be ideal male behaviour within our society. "
And yet Max is still going. Still keeping up the shallow, surface fighting and anger while being empty inside. Still desperately trying to hold on to what is expected of him as a man, while being hounded by the power structure that expects it of him.

"WHY. WON'T. YOU. VALIDATE ME!"
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Psychologist Ron Potter-Efron could have been giving a character description of Max when he describes his anger management patients:
"Anger is the emotion they can trust, the one that might keep danger at bay. As they grew up, they continued to use anger to make people they regard as dangerous back away. By the time you see them, they regard just about every person in their lives as "dangerous."
Which is exactly where we find Max at the point that he meets Furiosa. It's played for laughs, but as we see him scramble for every single gun he can find, pointing them at the one ally he stumbles across, you realise Max is not going to solve this on his own. He's been broken by trying to go it alone so long, being stuck around other men reinforcing each other's behaviour.

Max is a parody of the lone male hero. Unlike Nux though, Max is forced by necessity to trust those around him, only doing so when it's his greatest chance for survival. But once he is free of that desperate, clawing fight or flight response, he comes into his own as a real hero. The hallucinations are gone, he is able to plan responses to the attacks instead of blindly responding to them, and he's even instrumental in suggesting the salvation of what's left of society (By installing a group of people who have seeds in the last fertile land around - not just because they're women, as the MRAs are insisting). 

"My vagina will save us all!"
© 2015 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved
I realise it might seem like I'm saying "poor, poor angry men." But that's not the point I want to make. I think that between Max and Nux, there's the beginnings of an explanation in this film as to ingrained behaviour in men, and how it contributes to / is exacerbated by the patriarchy. This is not to say we're off the hook for our anger.

Nor is it to say for one moment that we have it worse, or our struggle under patriarchy is as bad as women's, because it isn't. It just isn't. I shouldn't even need to provide links, it's not.

But to me, Fury Road was an attempt to explain that the patriarchy isn't really working for either gender. It's showing how broken it can be for men as well, the monsters and ridiculous cliches it turns us into. Max, Nux and most of the other men in the film (except the awesome guitar guy) are parodies of masculinity, and maybe that's what the MRAs hate so much. They're being shown up as self-defeating and slightly silly.

So yeah. Maybe Fury Road is a little bit 'feminist propaganda,' but in a good way. One of the big goals of feminism is to smash the cabal of manly men who've decided that it's their way or the highway. Well, in Fury Road it looks like both the male and female heroes literally chose the highway.

And then the highway exploded and it was awesome.
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But Fury Road is not the bad guy for metaphorically showing the patriarchy up. Neither am I the bad guy for trying to explain it. Nor is the media wrong for mentioning it a lot - it comes up a lot because its influence is fucking everywhere.

But unfortunately, there is no Immortan Joe to slay in order to get rid of it. There's only us. We can be Nux, releasing our pain by talking about it in safe spaces. We can be Max, desperately holding on to what it is to be a man until it either drives us insane or kills us. Or we could give in to the anger and become Joes, attacking anyone who dares try and break free of the system even he isn't happy under. 

Either way, if you dislike the patriarchy described here, think about what you want to do about it. First thing is to go see Fury Road, because it'll really piss the MRAs off. 

***

For further reading, there's an excellent article in The Mary Sue about Feminism in Fury Road, and of course the original paranoia riddled tripe that spawned this post (please don't click on it unless you have adblock).

If you are feeling angry now, there's this WebMD article about anger management. If you're not angry but want to comment, feel free below. 

2 comments:

  1. I just came back from Fury Road, and I really enjoyed your article! Great insight, and it makes me consider a second watch to catch what you mentioned. Thanks!

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  2. Fantastic post, oh feminist ally :) This kind of clarity is hard to come by on my side of the pond. Thanks so much for writing it!

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