Mad Max: Fury Road roared onto screen May 15, 2015. Denizens of the internet erupted with accusations of “feminist propaganda posing as a guy flick” and it raises interesting questions about the theorizing of feminism and the inherent sexual dualism implied by the term “guy flick.” Fury Road was absolutely, thrillingly, invigoratingly feminist, but not because it presented a particular feminist didactic message or because it represented an obvious feminist ideology. Rather, the dominance on screen of physically different, characteristically nuanced, named female characters who were defined through neither heteronormativity nor compulsory heterosexuality meant it simply could not be anything else. In an absence of obvious misogyny apparently feminism reigns.
Fury Road, therefore, presents an interesting and theoretically complex moment. If “feminism” has come to mean only “not misogynistic” than an interesting Saussurian notion of “difference” becomes a defining boundary of feminist theory in the discursive field of gender studies. Why is action/adventure a definitively masculine genre? Why is violence still characterized as essentially masculine? Why does representing women consistently seem to be perceived always already at the expense of representing men? Mad Max: Fury Road both challenges and upholds the gender binary and this paper will consider how a two hour car chase reaffirms and reshapes imaginative possibilities of gender performance.
About the presenterJessica McCall
Dr. Jessica McCall is a Professor of English at Delaware Valley University. She received her Ph.D. in Early Modern Literature from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas under the guidance of Dr. Evelyn Gajowski. Dr. McCall’s research interests involve the functions of myth and its intersections with gender, power, and who gets to be fully human. Her first monograph, “Myths of Warrior Women from the 16th Century to the Present” is forthcoming from De Gruyter.