When Mad Max: Fury Road was first released, it sparked a massive backlash from MRAs and anti-feminists who saw the film as a feminist intrusion into what they had previously seen as the alpha male safe space of the Mad Max universe. They pointed to the centering of Furiosa and other female characters in the film (instead of the traditional protagonist, Mad Max) and the consulting role played by Eve Ensler (also known mononymously as V), the award-winning playwright, performer, feminist, and activist known for such international hits as The Vagina Monologues, The Good Body, and In the Body of the World.
And, yet, one of the first times women were depicted in the movie, it was undoubtedly through the male gaze, as literal lingerie models in skimpy white muslin were hosed down in the desert.
“I basically rolled my eyes at that. And then I started thinking, this actually subverts the cliche,” says Feminists for Liberty Executive Director Kat Murti in a new episode of Libertarianism.org’s Pop & Locke podcast. “These are sex slaves, they didn’t choose those clothes for themselves, they didn’t wanna wear that stuff, and this is actually their first moment of freedom.”
“It’s not surprising, they look like lingerie models because they were kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery by Immortan Joe, probably for that reason….They used their first moment of freedom…to get water, which is this precious resource, and to cut off their chastity belts….so I think that really flipped it on its head for me.”
The movie, a thrilling visual metaphor, continues in that vein, subverting widely accepted ideas about patriarchy and matriarchy, says Kat.
“What we find out is that the women and the men, they’re all just people.”
