Why One Man Feels Tricked By The “Feminist Message” Of Mad Max: Fury Road

If you haven’t seen Mad Max: Fury Road yet, we highly suggest you remedy that fact at the earliest possible juncture. This film is destined for the summer blockbuster hall of fame: The cinematography is incredible, as is the acting — and while we dug the 1979 original, this installment has supplanted it as our favorite. But we’d be lying if we didn’t admit that we love it, in part, because it subverts the action movie genre with a female empowerment spin. Unfortunately, there are few moviegoers out there who seem to think that’s a bad thing. Aaron Clarey, writing on Return of Kings, made the point that while he was psyched to see the film at first, slowly but surely it became clear to him that this was not, in fact, a film created with the male audience in mind. Do your best not to give him the satisfaction of clicking on the link — we've included the most incendiary bits below so you don't have to.  “Fury Road was not going to be a movie made for men. It was going to be a feminist piece of propoganda posing as a guy flick,” Clarey wrote in a ranty post on the blog. “The real issue is not whether feminism has infiltrated and co-opted Hollywood, ruining every potentially-good action flick with a forced female character or an unnecessary romance sub-plot to eek out that extra 3 million in female attendees.”   He went on to say that the movie is a vehicle for forcing feminist and leftist opinions down men’s throats by “vainly” insisting that women are equal to men in all things, specifically referring to physique, strength, and logic. “This is the subterfuge they will use to blur the lines between masculinity and femininity, further ruining women for men, and men for women,” he says of this kind of movie — one that presumes female ability, conviction, and willpower.  We won't deign to address all the idiocy packed into the post — it's not worth it, because Clarey is just one man with a handful of followers who didn't seem to make it into the twenty-first century along with the rest of us. He doesn't deserve any attention. But, it's still disappointing to see his comments galvanize even a small crowd — this is a dangerous line of regressive thought.