The camera may luxuriate in their exposed bodies and beautiful faces, but the five wives are also presented as strong and intelligent, showcasing the idea that women can be sexy and still independent. He also would have chosen their provocative clothing for his own pleasure. Moreover, the casting of dazzling models and actresses does more than add some glamour and sex appeal to the film it is logical because the reason that Immortan Joe, a deeply unsympathetic character, kept the five wives as his sex slaves was due to their profound beauty. The mitigating factor in this scene is that Max is not titillated in the slightest he is not phased by their obvious beauty and he does not sexualize them himself, even if the camera does. This is particularly poignant on Max's first sight of these women when they are out in the desert, half dressed in shabby pieces of material and hosing each other down with water as if their purpose in the film is purely for male titillation. Critics could argue that Fury Road embodies such warped traditions. Mulvey details how traditionally a man drives the narrative and makes things happen, whilst a woman is a passive "spectacle" (838) under his active gaze who has no power or influence over the film's narrative. Laura Mulvey states that the male gaze dominates film by presenting women as sex objects who are "simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact" (837). One could argue that the wives are sexualized due to the fact that they happen to be played by beautiful actresses and models who have perfectly maintained hair and makeup throughout a tough journey and numerous battles. Although significant attention is given to Max and his perspective, it is these women, along with their warrior savior Furiosa, that the audience empathizes with and follows as they embark on this feminist mission. Max slips into this storyline, rather than leading the storyline himself by chance, he happens to cross paths with the escapees and eventually joins them on their fight against the patriarch. Warlord Immortan Joe is furious when he finds that his wives have escaped from the locked chamber he keeps them in with the explicitly feminist words "WE ARE NOT THINGS" painted on the walls and goes on a rampage to get them back. Fury Road frequently invokes the concept of female empowerment and ridicules traditional masculinity, which is particularly impressive seeing as this film is a sequel to a successful uber-masculine franchise.įury Road is a feminist film on the basis that the central storyline is composed of sex slaves escaping from and fighting against an oppressive patriarch.
Although Miller's Fury Road does in many ways present women through the male gaze-it indeed sexualizes them at certain points in the film-it should still be classified as a feminist film.
Certain fans of the original franchise were upset by the political message the film projected in what was meant to be a "traditional" action film, whilst other fans denied that Fury Road was a feminist film altogether due to its blatant sexualization of the supermodel sex slaves and the glorification of masculinity throughout. It has been suggested by scholars, activists, members of the entertainment industry and the general media that Fury Road is a feminist film due to its emphasis on the freedom of women from a patriarchal society. The thirty-year gap between the original trilogy and the recently released film marked a surprising transition of focus from Miller which was met with admiration as well as condemnation. Spawned from the fertile mind of director George Miller, the Mad Max franchise is a collection of four action films set in dystopian Australia that consists of Mad Max (1979), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).
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