So my post on Aaron Clarey’s Return of Kings call for a boycott of Mad Max: Fury Road went a bit viral last week, garnering thousands of shares and retweets on social media and inspiring dozens of articles on sites ranging from The Mary Sue to the Guardian and even the Daily Mail, all helping to expose the manly men of the manosphere as the entitled manbabies they are, so threatened by women with power that the very thought of Charlize Theron as a badass postapocalyptic road warrior causes them to lose their collective shit.
Their “boycott” is a bit of a failure as well, to say the least. The film — which so far has garnered an impressive 98% of positive reviews according to Rotten Tomatoes — took in close to $17 million at the box office on Friday (in North America), and is expected to earn more than $40 million this weekend alone.
Admittedly, one movie did do better than Fury Road on Friday, but I somehow doubt this will be much of a consolation to Clarey and the rest of the Return of Kings crowd, given that the movie is Pitch Perfect 2, a musical comedy about an all-female a capella group whose breakout star is — to use the parlance of the manosphere — a fat chick. The horror!
Or maybe I’m wrong, and all the Fury Road boycotters went to Pitch Perfect 2 instead.
Anyway, over at Return of Kings, site founder and rape legalization proponent Roosh Valizadeh is proclaiming victory:
Even though we were incorrectly identified as a men’s rights site, the idea that Hollywood is spreading feminist propaganda has for the first time reached the ossified brains of over one million new people this week, perhaps more. Most of these individuals will never allow themselves to accept how unnatural and phony it is to have female heroes who are as strong as men, but a few of them will encounter another movie in the future that portrays women as so comically masculine that they can’t help but remember the site with the word Kings in the title that described that very phenomenon.
Aw, fellas, can’t you see that the joke is on you?
Perhaps this song with help:
I swear, I should probably post this video every other day.
@Moocow:
Yes.
This, and the vid of the girl who started a petition to get Hasbro to make a gender-neutral play oven remind me of some of my early encounters with “official” (i.e., not skulking and flashing in dark alleys) toxic masculinity in the US, something that I, born and raised in a Communist country, found incomprehensible and shocking.
Our older son was born a science geek and acted it from the very beginning. His early and deep interest in science, however, was seen as a liability in the middle (in every sense of the word) America to which we moved. The father of his best friend from (about) age 4 to 6 forbade his son to associate himself with mine, afraid that his “unmanly” interests would rub off on him. I kid you not. This was a man who forced his boy to sit in front of TV to watch (American) football, and as soon as possible started training him in it, to instill “proper” masculine behaviors in the kid (who was not inclined toward sports at all).
Our younger son wanted — and got — a kitchen playset for his 5th birthday, which also caused much consternation among our neighbors, complete with “helpful” advice from friendly moms as to how it may impact his development (negatively, of course). One mom ever so concernedly stopped allowing her little boy to come over when she learned that the boys played the kitchen.
I thought that we unknowingly moved into The Twilight Zone (I was close enough in my suspicions, as it turned out 😉 ). Such ridiculously rigid gender standards, including the pink and blue color distinctions, especially when directed at children, were completely unheard of when (and where) I was growing up. Finding out about them, and in such an unpleasant fashion, was part of the culture shock we underwent — and, frankly, that shock has not lessened all that much.
BTW, the younger, kitchen-playing kiddo is a big, burly automechanic today. The older is a successful chemist, astronomist, and astro-photographer.
It’s a scheme to make parents buy different clothes and toys for children of different genders rather than allowing for parents to do hand me downs when they have a boy and a girl I think. Most toys weren’t as gendered when I was a child in the 80s. I just had regular Legos. Not pink girl Legos.
Yes, it is a scheme, WWTH, no doubt. What’s stunning, and disheartening, is that so many fairly intelligent and supposedly well-meaning parents fall for it.
The social pressure to conform is a beast, well exploited by the powers that be.
Ahem. I’m just gonna leave this here. If it’s a repeat of anyone’s previous posting, please ignore.
I saw Mad Max today.
My god, you guys, my god. I began to weep. I began to weep tears I weep only for the works of Da Vinci and Michelangelo. Tears for true art. Tears for true beauty and magic. I haven’t shed tears for a movie in that way for years.
Anyone who hasn’t seen it yet should be pitied. Pitied and disgraced and shunned and poo-pooed and never talked to again until they have seen it.
It lives up to the hype. And more.
I also think we should make a law that states that every movie must have a guy in it that shreds on a guitar that shoot flames because yes.
Ah, but did it turn you into a feminist? Can’t say you weren’t warned.
@Alan
Even if that was a serious question, the movie, while centering around a group of women was more about everyone’s autonomy.
(Spoilers for the first thirty minutes if that’s spoilery for you)
Mad Max is captured, tattooed and branded, and is used as a blood bag for a sickly guy, while many of the “warboys” are fed the whole “hero in death” spiel with promises of Valhalla. There’s also a glimpse of women being milked, which I’m guessing they used as a substitute for water and food as they had crops and shit to water.
There’s also a kind of upper class/lower class kind of thing going on where all these warrior guys get guys like Max as blood bags and such medical treatment. They’re painted or their skin is pretty pure white, not very dirty, while everyone who isn’t a warrior is dirty and tanned and not too well-off looking. Even the Wives were noted in having soft skin and all their teeth with no noticeable deformities like some people.
(End spoilers)
So it also has some socialist leanings, too.
Charlize mentions the Madonna-Whore dichotomy, but I was also impressed by they managed to keep the wives in a nuanced space in between hapless victims and improbably badasses.
I’m really looking forward to seeing it. With my schedule though that’ll no doubt be by the time the DVD is a quid in the car boot sale (my usual method).
Interesting review here…
@Orion
I was happy there was no sexualization in it, even with the Wives flimsy clothes. No lingering shots or anything.
Saw MM:FR last night. Now I want to see it again.
Combination streamlined plot and (great) visuals is brilliant. So much going on with so little exposition–it’s like violent punk poetry.
X (with minor tweaks) from Facebook:
More thoughts on Mad Max: Fury Road–
From a feminist perspective, to me, maybe the most interesting part was the MALE characters and their motivation. They were mostly disposable tools, duped into thinking they’d find glory, be noticed by the rich and powerful, be heroes, and wind up feasting in Valhalla. And one character really humanizes them.
The movie shows the appeal of that mindset, and also its consequences: “Who killed the world?”