Mad Max: Fury Road

The male gaze, if you can call it that, is at the water. Water that you just don't see being used like that in the Wasteland. That's why Max is staring at the women - they're being profligate with something he's not used to seeing in that kind of situation.

In that scene, we're looking through Max's eyes and seeing what he sees. And what he thinks if we can be bothered to listen.

The male gaze, if you can call it that, is at the water.

Right, but the water is on the women's bodies. So it still counts as Male Gaze.

But alot of the shots focus on the hose that's spewing the water, not the women holding the hose?

This may sound odd but I like the scene where Furiosa tries to talk max into letting them onto the war rig and find it kinda amusing.

At first she appeals to his desire to survive with the you just injured his favourite and he's not a nice man line. But that doesn't have any effect. So she looks at him, reasses any assumptions she may have made about him and tries to figure out what she can say to convince him. It's when she offers him a way to remove his mask that she gets his attention and begrudging agreement to take them along.

When the war boys captured max they stripped him of everything and treated him like a wild animal to be caged/chained and muzzled, like a thing to be used. Putting aside the more obvious reasons why he wouldn't want a metal mask stuck on permanently removing it restores some of his freedom and dignity that was stripped from him.

So in this world where survival is everyone's main priority and struggle it's not an appeal to his sense of survival that wins Max's cooperation but taking a moment of to look at a him as a person and try to understand what he might need more than just survival. That offer to help remove the chunk of metal stuck to his face may seem a small thing but it's what paves the way for the rest of the plot.

Yep. It's one of those scenes that proves Miller isn't just a talented director, he's actually rather smart at the scriptwriting thing as well. A lot of the time those two things don't go together.

Yeah. The hose is the focus of what Max is looking at. That and the water coming out from it.

I'd say it's actually a visual gag, playing with Max's continuing plunge into madness, and the comical exaggeration of mirages often seen in old cartoons and comedy movies (where people don't just see the simulacrum of water on the reflecting desert sand, but have actual hallucinations of lush oases and images of stereotypical belly dancers). Knowing George Miller's love for toying with all sorts of cinema history, this is precisely what I'd expect from him.

edited 27th May '15 2:49:12 AM by TAPETRVE

May I just add that complaining about Anita Sarkeesian's opinion of the movie is completely pointless?

Some feminists disliked the show.

Some of them, like Sarkeesian, disliked the show being called "feminist" - she says nothing of what she thinks of the movie as a whole, and even if it is oft forgotten, she said more than once that you can enjoy a piece of media as a whole despite being disappointed by how it treats some social issues. Saying that GTA V is problematic when it glorifies violence does not mean it is a bad game. Saying that the marketing around Bioshock Infinite sucks for placing the Deuteragonist on the front because he looks like your typical action hero does not mean it is a bad game. All fighting games are filled with characters with questionable designs (male or female), yet many of them also are excellent. And so on.

And some of them (a lot of them from what I gathered) really liked the movie.

I don't know, this conversation looks like a circlejerk. There is always someone to come back to the fact that s/he disagrees with her. Imagine if all movie/series/VG conversations were entirely made of people finding someone on the net they disagree with and endlessly explaining why they disagree with them.

Considering the number of messages stating how awesome the Marvel movies are, despite being - in my opinion - nowhere as glorious-looking as this Mad Max, I am a bit sad to see that almost all comments here are "I don't like what Anita Sarkeesian thinks of the movie" instead of "MY GOD THIS MOVIE IS GLORIOUS DOOF WARRIOR 4EVA".

Sarkeesian isn't even regularly debating it, and I don't think that her opinion on Mad Max can be considered as a heated argument. She stated it, people agreed, people disagreed, and this was over, she never mentioned it again. Considering how often her haters can state that she is some kind of attention whore who is only in it to get famous, if that were true, she would have written many more answers on that topic just to keep the debate raging (but I do think this critic is completely stupid anyway).

edited 27th May '15 3:02:41 AM by Julep

Like I said before, I don't think discussing it is exactly wrong. Especially since, in regards to news and topics related to Mad Max, 'Feminism' is a very big one. We also were discussing a few pages ago that we hadn't actually seen that many 'This movie is anti-men/sexist' arguments, and far more that were throwing such an argument out the window. Sarkesian poses such a counter argument.

I mean no offence but having a conversation that's entirely "This movie is fucking awesome" sounds more like a circlejerk than the discussion so far. And, so far, most everyone here seemed to be in agreement that the movie was awesome so reiterating that point seems... pointless.

And, not that I exactly disagree with your point, but if you aren't happy with the current topic of conversation, then I would suggest trying to change it. It doesn't always work to just attempt to change it, but complaining about the topic of conversation its going to really feed discussion very much. Like I said, it doesn't always work and the unwanted topic may come back, but that's just how discussions work sometimes; they can be really juicy or they can be about something you don't care much for or the discussion can sometimes be dead, but they're not something that can easily be controlled.

I saw Fury Road again and then I just then watched the original Mad Max again (I think I've seen it at least five times) as well. Seeing the small scene of Toecutter's gang siphoning fuel from a gas-truck with one guy polevaulting kinda made me realize that George Miller had his shit thought out from the beginning.

In the re-watching of Fury Road, I also noticed one thing I found pretty funny. After the "WITNESS ME!" in the first act chase scene, I noticed some of the War Boys actually shout "MEDIOCRE!" at the guy who kamikaze'd the Buzzard car ...much like what Immortan Joe tells Nux after he comically fails his mission. This leads me to believe that one War Boy must have heard Joe calling someone "mediocre" beforehand and spreaded to all of the other War Boys that it's some sort of praise from The Immortan.

edited 27th May '15 3:42:01 AM by Kentok

But why always bring Anita Sarkeesian? She is one person who is entitled to her opinions. Again, the majority of the feminists I have seen comment the movie have a positive opinion on it, but despite that the accent is made on her.

And unlike some other minotiry groups on other subjects, she did not insult anyone, or send hate messages, or screwed with an award. So the reason for focusing on her, personal obsession aside, eludes me.

I agree with this. As I noted in another thread, do I think she's wrong? Yes. Do I think her version of events is totally incorrect? Yes. But do I think we should waste pages and pages on her, making criticisms that have already been made of her many times over, in many different places? No. It's a waste of time.

Sarkeesian is the one who blundered into this film's orbit with her big heavy "this film isn't feminist because I say it isn't" tackety boots on. She's the one who opened herself up, therefore, to whatever criticism of her point of view comes her way, save of course, stupid ass death threats. Which she has got, also of course, because some people are really fucking stupid.

One wonders why she bothered doing this if it wasn't another attempt to get attention for her crusade.

Sarkeesian is the one who blundered into this film's orbit with her big heavy "this film isn't feminist because I say it isn't" tackety boots on.

She's a professional critic. And she did give reasons, just ones you don't agree on.

Yeah, I'm starting to think this is less about her view on the movie and more about her personally, which isn't alright.

I couldn't care less about Sarkeesian as a person. Her views on this particular issue I do disagree with, which is fair because that's my right as a watcher of the film.

And to be a professional critic (of films anyway), one would have to be actually employed and paid by someone to do that job. That's what a professional critic is by simple definition. She isn't.

If she's trying to draw attention to herself, then that's all the more reason for us to not discuss her. Personally I was only vaguely aware of her existence (or really the existence one of her projects, I doubt I would of been able to actually name her) prior to...an event that shall not be named blowing up, but after it did I heard about her constantly, almost entirely from people complaining about her.

Regardless. I saw the movie, thought it was awesome. I've heard a lot of speculation that they might be spinning off Furiosa into her own movie. Which could be interesting since she's now basically a warlord and will have to try to build a better nation while at the same time dealing with the harsh realities of the wasteland. Plus there's the fact that she now controls one of the few reliable sources of clean water left, and probably doesn't have a quarter the military strength at her disposal Immortan Joe did.

edited 27th May '15 7:29:36 AM by Falrinn

Not counting the men's rights faction that decided to jump to invalid conclusions about the films content before having seen it, sarkeesian is the only critic I'm aware of who has said only negative things about the film. Every other critic I'm aware of has been either entirely positive or has provided both negative and positive perspectives, acknowledged the good and bad. I think this is why sarkeesian gathers so much attention.

I also thought that the conversation on this thread had moved away from sarkeesian and onto discussing other parts of the film, primarily whether the wives or the water was being fan serviced, until someone posted about sarkeesian and brought the conversation back to that.

I think it's the water being fan serviced :P

It's also a visual indication that these women are unused to the harsh desert environment and must have come from luxury that they allow such a precious commodity as water to be spilled all over the ground but the need to be clean and wash away what has been done to you is also meant to be a common reaction to sexual assault. So the scene has multiple subtext at play.

Again: she criticized the fact that this movie was called feminist, not the movie itself.

Ex: someone says "Lord of the Rings is a feminist movie". I will answer, "Hell no, for 1042 different reasons". Not feminist at all. Still awesome.

And well, anyone who thinks that she was looking for attention is just another conspiracy theorist. If she stops talking, people who hate her will say that they won and that all she said is invalid. If she keeps talking, people who hate her will remind everyone that they hate her every time she says something. So no, she was not looking for attention, because the paranoidos that keep talking about her like she is the antechrist or something are always obsessed with her. She may have tweeted a picture she took while trekking in Alaska, and she would get insulted because she did not trek in Argentina instead.

Simply put, I think you are delusional. If you consider that she does not deserve any attention because she isn't a paid critic, then don't give her any attention. That's what I am asking for actually.

edited 27th May '15 8:07:32 AM by Julep

Enough said :-)

Whenever I see a post-apocalyptic movie now, I'm going to be dissapointed if the savage hordes aren't driven forth by a war-guitarist.

edited 27th May '15 8:06:30 AM by GutstheBerserker

And I should care about that why? Apart from this response of course, which is all you are getting.

"I don't care about what you say, so I am going to say that I don't care".

That perfectly sums up the absurd reason for which she gets mentioned again, and again, and again.

Anyway. Have some DW fanarts everyone. Or some ''Mad Max: Furry Road (No ponies, in case you are wondering).

Another one◊.

edited 27th May '15 8:20:14 AM by Julep

God I love The Doof Warrior.

I guess I know what my wallpaper will be for the forseeable future.

And yeah, is it weird that he was my favourite character in the movie?

I'm thinking of cosplaying as him.

I had something to say then but I'm going for the moral high ground on this thing, so I won't say it. Lawlz.

I wonder how many kids will cos-play as Furiosa at Halloween this year. And how many of those kids will be boys because fuck peer pressure, she's bad ass so shut the hell up, ya hear?

And also how many girls will cos-play as War Boys. For the same reason.

Honestly if I was gonna cosplay I'd go as the Bullet Farmer.

He has such an awesome hat.

Because I am a nice guy, I will give you the best ''Mad Max Fury Road'' image◊ to end any conversation you might have with annoying guys like me in the future.