Also the other trending topics are gross yet inevitable horrendous moral failings of the the most vociferous "family-first" shut-ins or costumed gang violence in a modernist homoerotic version of West Side Story and the attendant media and social hypocrisy. But remember I spent last week dipping in to presidential politics, so consider this a light, spring-warm word-shower to cleanse me of the sticky film of sweat and spat bile that is all too often the result of such a foray.
For movie people like myself, there are really only two seasons, Early Summer and Pre-Christmas. Pre-Christmas is great because you get a plenitude of high-quality, very serious period pieces exploring the melancholy truths of mortality and loss, starring British people (portrayed by Australians and Irish people) and Americans (played by British people). Early Summer, the borders of which keep expanding and now consist of late April to mid-July, on the other hand is about exploring all of the ways human beings can FUCK SHIT UP!!!! You know, with explosions and the like. OK, not "the like" at all, just explosions.
Before I get into the specifics of Mad Max: Fury Road, the movie I saw this week, just a little expansion of what was kind of a throwaway aside just a second ago: there are zero Australian characters in this movie. Nobody is asked to speak in an accent other than their native one, so everyone is basically American or British, including Charlize Theron, who is... South African, but who has earned, through sheer force of will, the most American accent in the world. And further, when was the last time you saw an Australian actor play an Australian character in anything? I'm talking about people with real pull in the industry, who could fight for and win the right to speak in their native brogue, like Russell Crowe or Nicole Kidman or Hugh Jackman? I didn't even know Rose Byrne was Australian until I heard her on Marc Maron's podcast like two weeks ago. Same thing goes for Irish people. Did you even know Michael Fassbender was Irish? Cillian Murphy, Ciaran Hinds, Liam Neeson... OK, Liam Neeson is not a great example. His American-from-Ballymena almost-accent is one of my favorite things in all of cinema. He's from everywhere, man. Including my heart.
This accent thing is, weirdly, getting less press attention than the fact that the plot of Fury Road is driven (ha) by women, both as protagonist (sorry, Max) and MacGuffin.* The men are monsters, thoughtless stormtrooper-esque hyperviolent cannon-fodder doofuses or Max himself, played by Tom Hardy channeling Tom Mix, but less chatty. Theron's Furiosa gives the orders, she hatches the plan, she risks everything, she [spoilers here!] kills the boss bad guy at the cost of her own life only to rise miraculously at the end, completing the hero's journey [spoilers end!].
Luckily there is a brigade of determined Penis-Americans who are on to this gynofascist plot and who are not willing to take it lying down, on their backs, feet in stirrups awaiting the cold speculum of furtively inserted diversity, let alone equality. My favorite part:
"The truth is I’m angry about the extents Hollywood and the director of Fury Road went to trick me and other men into seeing this movie," Aaron Clarey wrote on the notorious [ed.- shitty website name redacted]. "Everything VISUALLY looks amazing. It looks like that action guy flick we’ve desperately been waiting for where it is one man with principles, standing against many with none.The bolded emphasis is mine. I don't claim any other part of this.
"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."
The premise I guess is that feminists will trick us into looking at non-victimized women surviving without or in spite of male protection by using explosions, but even if I enjoy the explosions, they aren't explosions caused by men, so therefore even though they have the same kinetic energy spent and register against my eyeballs exactly the same way the explosions in, say, Commando did, these are are tricky explosions I can't enjoy because somehow I know this will end with me attending a baby shower on a day when a NASCAR race is also on.
I for one am willing to take that chance. Not only do I get to see one of the simplest and best action films committed to film in a very long time, but I'm also going to take any chance I can to disassociate myself from NASCAR. Win-win.
Feminism in media is all the rage now, from both directions. On the one hand, the men's rights assfaces hate things like Fury Road because the whiff they get off of it is not sufficiently scrotal. On the other hand, the mostly excellent (in my opinion) Supergirl fall TV series trailer gets smacked around a bit for being shot through with some dopey rom-com character beats in between all the other action parts where this woman defeats all comers and saves the day(s).
In the latter case though, I lean toward the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, the female-Clark-Kent act plays cliched and is a bit more inherently fraught by association with stock-character tropes (hot girl made "plain" by big glasses, messy hair and over-insisted-upon physical and social awkwardness), but even in the six-minute trailer, there are the beginnings of direct discussions about those exact issues plus a few others.** I'm going to give it a chance based on that alone. And on the fact that it comes from the same production house that gave us The Flash this season, the most earnest, goofiest, colorful-est, least sensible and most unapologetic fun on TV in a long time, gender not withstanding.
It seems like a lot of sturm und drang in the air about whatever current wave of feminist thought we're in at the moment. There are plenty who find it threatening, upsetting or even banal, but the volume of the discussion itself is already a win for feminism as fewer and fewer voices are willing to be shouted down and the vitriol in the backlash seems, to me, to be evidence that the frontline mens-only self-appointed warrior-types are feeling genuinely threatened, maybe for the first time ever. And I welcome that.
Which I would like for you to remember, ladies, when your revolution finally succeeds. Sure, I accept that I'll have to accept some level of man-slavery, I'm just saying when you're sorting out the man-slave labor pool, I'm asking you to remember that I have delicate hands and I sunburn easily. More houseboy than gardener, that's all I'm saying.
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*With the understanding that anyone actually named MacGuffin in this film would have been required to play an American
**Addressing the ridiculousness of what female characters wear in comic books head-on was a great touch
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