Mad Max: Fury Road Is a Great Argument For

Patriarchy
Aaron Clareys recent article about Mad Max: Fury Road has received a torrent of
criticism from the mainstream media as well as feminist bloggers everywhere. This
outrage was born from the fact that Clarey considered the film to be feminist
propaganda cloaked in action movie excitement, and thus it wasnt worth the
watch. He writes:
Its whether men in America and around the world are going to be
duped by explosions, fire tornadoes, and desert raiders into seeing
what is guaranteed to be nothing more than feminist propaganda,
while at the same time being insulted AND tricked into viewing a piece
of American culture ruined and rewritten right in front of their very
eyes.
The truth is Im angry about the extents Hollywood and the director of
Fury Road went to trick me and other men into seeing this movie.
Everything VISUALLY looks amazing. It looks like that action guy flick
weve desperately been waiting for where it is one man with principles,
standing against many with none.
But let us be clear. 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.
This opinion was met with a collective gasp from the aforementioned media, which,
unable to fathom an opinion which differs from their own, set out to eviscerate
Clareys piece en masse. The result was tens of thousands of words consisting
mostly of tired clichs and ad hominem attacks. You can further examine the result
here.
Clareys critique is 100% correct, judging by the words of Charlize Theron, who plays
Furiosa, the star of the movie, and Eve Ensler, a feminist writer best known for The
Vagina Monologues. Ensler, in this interview with TIME, has no problem with the
characterization of the movie as sneaky feminism.
TIME: Its a sort of sneaky feminism. When you say the premisea
woman warrior escapes with female sex slavesthat doesnt
necessarily sound like a blockbuster. But because its an action film,
guys will see it. Something similar is happening with another summer
film: Amy Schumer, whos a really outspoken feminist comedian, is
coming out with the rom-com Trainwreck. LeBron James is in the movie,
which I think might lure men who might not otherwise go. Is that
subversive feminism the best way to address womens issues in film?

Ensler: One day, we wont have to sneak it. One day we will be overt.
One of the great things about this film is that when you have women
on your side, you have a better chance of surviving. Its clear that
were all served better when women are equal. We dont want to
dominate. We just want our stories to be given equal considerationto
also get a spot on the playing field.
Theron, in this interview, admits that even she doesnt buy the idea of a woman
with a supermodel physique inflicting unlimited pain and destruction on the
battlefield:
"I'm not a fan of scrawny little girls pretending to kick butt in movies; I
just dont buy it," she says with a laugh. "And I hate those moments in
movies where the tiniest little arms are hitting a guy who is four times
her size and we are supposed to believe it.
The universal push to declare Fury Road a feminist masterpiece thus rings hollow,
as it relies on subterfuge to get its point across. Trainwreck will get nowhere near
the acclaim Fury Road gets because it doesnt have a successful franchise host to
leech to. Even more damning, however, is that a deeper look into the film shows
that counter to the feminist narrative, a patriarchy is the vehicle for progress, and
its general absence results in chaos.
Of course, the movie is framed as an indictment of patriarchy as defined by
feminists. Women are commoditized, and viewed as property by the villain,
Immortan Joe, who keeps sex slaves for the purpose of producing unblemished
offspring. Furiosa is a female warrior who escapes from Immortan Joe in a bid to
help the sex slaves do the same. It makes for a neat story of Furiosa, the Feminist
Rebel, teaming up with Max and other good guys to fight back against the
patriarchy, represented by Immortan Joe.
Above all, however, this is a story about survival. The post-apocalyptic Mad Max
world is one of scarcity, lawlessness and disorder. Everyone, males and females
alike, must do whatever it takes to survive. In such a scenario, the weakest
individuals (women and children) are going to be the worst off, as their physical
deficiencies in comparison to men leave them ill-equipped to deal with the realities
of life in a wasteland. As such, they are, for the most part, subjected to the fate of
the sex slaves.
Furiosas battle is ultimately a battle against evil, which feminists incorrectly equate
with patriarchy. The reality is that evil will exist as long as there are humans,
regardless of the way they go about establishing a society. A patriarchal society is
one in which the male and female sexes embrace a division of labor with the aim to
achieve the goal of resource accumulation and child rearing in the most efficient
way possible.
This division of labor is along the lines of differences in the general abilities of each
sex. This advantageous arrangement allowed each sex to flourish in its strengths
while simultaneously supporting the weaknesses of the other. The ultimate result for
humanity was the elevation from senseless savagery and tribal warfare, to the
various comforts we all enjoy today.

That Furiosa, and indeed the aging matriarchal bikers she later meets (of whom she
is a descendent of) can survive in this setting is somewhat believable, given that
they are outliers. However it is telling that the matriarchal Green Place Furiosa is
trying to find as a safe refuge for her and the rescued slaves turns out to no longer
be viable. Thus, the relatively patriarchal Immortan Joes realm is objectively the
most sustainable place in the wasteland, as it has the water and vegetation to keep
it running, as well as an organized army to defend it. That it also represents evil in
the movie should not demerit the representation of patriarchal efficiency. As we
have seen in the real world, Western Civilization is itself an example of patriarchal
efficiency minus the evil (for the most part).
In the end, the good guys attack and defeat the patriarchal Immortan Joe, and
Furiosa is installed as the new ruler. Feminism triumphs over evil patriarchy. The
only problem is that none of the matriarchal victors had proven themselves capable
of accumulating resources in the way Immortan Joe had. Where Furiosa and
company once ran from Immortan Joe, they turned to fight him simply because he
was the only source of resources around. Having dismantled the structure that
produced that oasis of relative abundance, the logical conclusion is that these
resources will be squandered, and a return to squalor the final outcome.

Misplaced Angst
The bloviating over the positive outcome of the patriarchal defeat is ironic given
that this bloviating is perpetrated by bloggers and typists who, fortified by
Starbucks Lattes, are able to pound the keyboard of their Macbooks in the comfort
of air conditioned offices connected to the power grid, such that their voice can
reach millions via complex telecommunications networks. In other words, the
products of a patriarchal Western Civilization have bestowed upon them the
freedom to live in the comfort and safety unfathomable to those in the Mad Max
world.
Western Civilization, on the foundation of a patriarchy, has been responsible for the
relatively constant increases of wealth and sense of abundance since its inception.
This has served to relatively decrease the levels of pain and suffering women and
children have had to endure. It is laughable then, that modern feminists feel some
sort of kinship with Furiosa and the other women in Fury Road, such that their
victory in such a savage environment is a somehow analogous to a step forward for
modern female empowerment, given the savage environment has been reduced to
hypersensitive concerns about microagressions and trigger minefields.
The triumph of patriarchy in the real world has lifted women from having the
unenviable burden of either being a one in ten million outlier like Furiosa, able to
fend for herself, or being stripped of agency and free will. Instead of having to
resemble a man in appearance and temperament to survive, the depressive,
constant struggles of a Furiosa in Fury Road are transformed via patriarchy into a
feminine beauty, Charlize Theron on the red carpet. One cannot champion the
former without championing the wasteland in which she was forged, as that is the
only world in which she makes sense.