Was The "Feminist" Furor Over Mad Max: Fury Road Fabricated?

"Don't worry, we'll save humanity using our feminine wiles!"

Sure looks like one to me!

Sounds about right!

Yep!

"I am woman! Hear me explode!"

"How dare you call MY movie feminist, you chauvinistic bastard!"

Salon.com: one of the "feminized" sites that praised MM.

You can also take my balls since I'm NOT using them anymore!

Yes, we ALL win! Especially the feminists!

This is the Mad Max I prefer! "Feminism" NOT included!

Return Of Kings writer Aaron Clarey stepped into a hornet's nest when he dared wrote how the film Mad Max: Fury Road might—and I say might—just be a (gasp!) feminist film and encouraged men to not go see this cinematic piece of outright feminist propaganda. Media outlets like The Huffington Posts and The Daily Beast furiously (pardon the pun!) condemned Mr. Clarey, accusing him of being a (double gasp!) misogynist and such. This in spite of the fact that both the top stars of Mad Max Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron (or, more appropriately, Charlie Theron and Tom Hardy!) both called MM a feminist movie. Plus the film's director George Miller—who, of course, directed the original Mad Max—hired none other than the author of The Vagina Monologues Eve Ensler as a consultant on the film. Not only that, but Miller herself came out and admitted—sort of—that he had in fact directed a feminist type film.

What I found most intriguing about the controversy is that the controversy went from “How dare they call Mad Max a feminist movie!” to “How dare they criticize Mad Max for being a feminist movie!” In other words, these sites claimed Mad Max wasn't a “feminist” movie while at the same time extolling its “feminist” virtues. Also, in all the articles I read addressing the controversy, the only source of the boycott was Mr. Clarey's article. There was no other mention of any other so-called Men's Rights Activist or any specific MRA group attached to said boycott. I mean, one would think that if this boycott by those damnable MRAs were as widespread as the media led everyone to believe, there would be at least a couple of other names and/or organizations attached to said boycott. But that wasn't the case. So either all the writers of these articles bashing the boycott were either misinformed or the whole entire controversy was little more than a fabrication to help sell movie tickets and/or pushing a feminist agenda.

I choose the latter.

Honestly, would this really surprise anyone, including all the feminized commentators, both female and male, who lost their minds over ROK's boycott of Mad Max? I mean, I can just imagine someone in the movie studio's marketing department finding Aaron Clarey's ROK article about Mad Max and they sent out a few strategically-placed links in the comments section in feminized sites such as HuffPo and The Daily Beast and presto! Instant controversy! Let's face it, moviegoers by & large weren't clamouring for another Mad Max movie the way they were for, say, another Star Wars movie, thanks in no small part to star Mel Gibson's by-now-infamous drunken anti-Semitic tirades and/or his over-the-top crazy phone calls to his baby mama. This was actually one of the reasons, along with 9/11 and Heath Ledger's death (who was initially slated to play Max), why it reportedly took so long for director George Miller to make his latest Mad Max film. So, when Mad Max: Fury Road was finally completed & released, he needed publicity as all films need. And, in today's politically-charged feminized climate, what better way to help publicize a film like this than to insinuate its feminized message and bash anyone who dares question said feminized message (even though it didn't have a feminized message!).

For the record, I myself have not yet seen the latest Mad Max flick nor am I really clamouring to see it, controversy or no. So I can't really say for sure whether or not I personally feel it's a feminist movie. However, judging from what I read about the film (including from those that actually praised the movie who, while they condemned the boycott, conceded that indeed it was a feminist movie), there is indeed a case to be made for Mad Max's feminist credentials. Of course, George Miller or any movie director is perfectly free to make any type of film they wish. But, what I'd like to know is, if Miller wanted to make a female-driven action film, why didn't he just go ahead and make one? Just drop the Mad Max character entirely, especially since Max was apparently more of a secondary character in this film, and make Charlize Theron's character the main star? Of course, the answer to that may be because female-driven action films have a rather spotty track record at the box office. For every Thelma & Louise (which was an apparent ripoff of an earlier B-movie called Assault Of The Killer Bimbos) there are at least a half-dozen Tank Girl's (which bombed so bad that it virtually killed actress Lori Petty's movie career). Even Charlize Theron's attempt at headlining an action flick—i.e. the live-action version of the cult cartoon Aeon Flux—bombed at the all-important box office. And the reason for that is, for all the talk of feminism and such, moviegoers, both men and women, don't want to see women in the dominant role in action films. They want to see the men swoop in and rescue everyone, including—and especially—the girl, similar to the way they want things to work out in real life. Again, in spite of all the cinematic feminist talk, men want to imagine themselves as the rescuer and women want to imagine themselves the ones being rescued. Period.

At the end of the day, it's all about money, feminism or no. And, while the movie will undoubtedly make a profit (at the time of this writing, it has reached the $100 million mark), it still didn't make the big splash at the all-important box office George Miller and the movie studio were obviously hoping for, which, like I implied earlier, is what I believe really drove the controversy. I mean, it didn't even reach number one on the box office charts the weekend it was released as it made about half the money that the flick Pitch Perfect 2 which did debut at number one.

Of course, the thing I found most hypocritical of all about the whole insipid controversy surrounding Aaron Clarey's Mad Max article—which even Clarey himself said was ridiculous—was that the same feminists/feminist sympathizers who scoffed at the idea of a boycott of Mad Max: Fury Road by the apparently imaginary MRAs were the same ones who all but advocated a—that's right—boycott of the Clint Eastwood film American Sniper about military sniper Chris Kyle months earlier—many of whom hadn't even seen the film—because not only they claimed it “promoted” the Iraqi war but that it also promoted—again, that's right—masculinity. And we all know just how much the feminists and their sympathizers really hate that!

Besides that, one thing the feminized reviewers of Mad Max: Feminist, uh, I mean Fury Road failed to address is that, if Charlize Theron's character Imperator Furiosa was so strong and whatnot as said feminized reviewers insisted she was, why then did she need the “help” of Max to begin with? Just saying!

A sidenote: Here's the link to the Aaron Clarey article from "anti-feminist" site Return Of Kings for anyone who is interested in reading the piece that started all the Mad Maxine, uh, I mean Mad Max feminist furor to begin with: http://www.returnofkings.com/63036/why-you-should-not-go-see-mad-max-feminist-road

Here's a video review (from YouTube) from someone (yes, a man!) who actually watched Mad Max: Fury Road and said yes, it WAS a "feminist" movie!

And, while we're at it, here's Aaron Clarey's video response to all the critics of his article: