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.
And you’ll notice that, unlike most contemporary actioners, you can always tell exactly what’s going on.
I would pay to see his reaction to Theron’s speech, but then he might disregard it a bit since she is feeeemale. But Clarey finding out that George Miller let his wife edit the film, AND it turns out to be the most eye-popping action flick in years? *rubs hands together in glee*
I haven’t seen Fury Road yet myself — I’m not a big fan of Mad Max — but I did see the new Avengers movie this weekend and was dismayed by Black Widow lamenting she’s a “monster” like Hulk as she was forcibly sterilized by Our Lady of Assassin Training. Way to perpetuate women as breeders, Joss Whedon, despite the fact that she kicks ass just as well as the genetically/godly/armor-ily modified men in the picture. That really pissed me off — as well as Tony Stark’s “let’s being back the rite of Primae Nocti” “joke” early on in the movie. Thanks a lot, movie industry.
“I’d bet that part of their problem is Charlize Theron’s costuming. Extremely short hair, dirt, sensible clothes, a prosthetic arm? What the heck, that’s not the Roosh-approved version of hot! ”
Roosh approves if she’s under 150 lbs., so I bet if she removes her prosthetic she fits that requirement.
One of them did complain about that. He apparently thought Theron’s look in the film is an attempt to force men to find women with short hair or an androgynous presentation* attractive–“erections can’t be legislated!” Gawd, they’re unintentionally hilarious!
(AS IF any of them would turn down short-haired Charleze Theron. AS IF she’d ever have any of them.)
The no make-up, sensible clothes look is rare in action movies but it has been done before. Ripley had it. The Bride/Beatrix Kiddo had it (though with long hair.) But those movies predate the existence of the Manosphere. And manospherians don’t know their genre history.
* AS IF androgyny hasn’t been sexy in women and men since forever. Marlene Dietrich? The top models of the 1960s? David Bowie? HELLO.
RE: Moocow
apparently ‘college is where you learn to be gay’ according to a reactionary right-winged nutcase
I can’t deny, it’s where I learned to be gay! But it happened off-campus, among my friends and now-husband.
Lady Mondegreen, how could I have forgotten about Sigourney Weaver?! Mr. FM would weep if he was here. He had a boat when we first met, which he had christened The Betty as an homage to Alien.
I’ve heard the lost hair lament a few times before, and not just from David’s RoK recaps here. Kerri Russell mutilated herself when she cut her hair – cancel Felicity! What was Demi Moore thinking?! Aliens 3 may have debuted pre-world wide web, but I’m fairly sure there were a bunch of angrypants dudes complaining about how Ripley’s buzzed head ruined the entire movie. If we’d had the modern internet back them the outrage would probably look like what Charlize Theron is getting now (and I’m pretty sure Sigourney Weaver would be giving exactly as many damns as Theron is).
I’m beginning to think that there’s some kind of a reverse-Samson thing going on for some men when it comes to women’s hair. When women cut it, those dudes act like they’re losing THEIR power.
Alien 3, not AlienS 3. I’m gonna get myself divorced at this rate.
tbh I don’t like the implication that in order represent women as complex beings there must be copious amounts of violence against men (in an action context), or men presented as complete simpletons or idiots. Judgement reserved until I’ve seen Fury Road.
Wah? Where is that implied?
I mean, it’s action movie. So yeah, there’s violence.
As said, haven’t seen it, and it wouldn’t be Mad Max without a body count, but I’ve noticed in the few action flicks that turn the genre on its head with strong female protoganists, the violence seems to be taken up a few notches (and often presented in a humorous way).
Really? Because the most violent and gory films I’ve seen have men doing the violence. I’m not sure what your issue is here. Other than the usual sealioning type stuff you always do.
Off topic; I’m a bit wine drunk and there’s somebody smoking outside and the smell is wafting in my windows and it’s really making me want to smoke. I quit in 2008 but I started as a social smoker while drinking so alcohol is quite the trigger.
Bryce sez:
As usual, no examples, just vague gestures in the general direction of unspecified stuff some unspecified people have supposedly done. Maybe you perceived the violence as worse because it was committed by women against men. Maybe you’re just making shit up.
Bryce is trying so hard to dance around the phrase “male disposability.”
I’m just getting tired of this shit. Bryce has pulled this kind of thing in several threads now and I am over it. The benefit of the doubt is gone.
Maybe he’s suffering that perception thing. When he sees male violence he’s accustomed/inured to it. When he sees exactly the same things done by women, the violence is fresh and shocking because it’s not conventional — because a woman doing those things makes it clearer just how violent the things are that he might have taken for granted in a sequence with a male protagonist / victim.
Perception. Needs checking just as much as privilege does.
@Bryce
There’s no way you can back that claim up, there isn’t one set style for action films with female leads and there’s certainly no style unique to those with female leads. They just seem unique because almost all action films have a male lead.
Raid 2 is arguably the most amazing action film ever made, but the lengthy and bloody action sequences are so unrelentingly spectacular that the movie turns into an endless orgasmic celebration of violence. It had to be edited in order to get a ‘R’ rating, no action movie will ever has more copious action then Raid 2.
Kingsman: The Secret Service is pretty bad and it’s definitely Matthew Vaughn’s worst movie. It has the same humorous R-rated violence that Vaughn’s Kick Ass movies did and the male leads dominate Kingsman.
The one thing that you may be noticing is that action movies with female leads are almost always R rated, in fact, Jolie’s Salt (2010) is the only sort of recent pg-13 action movie with a female lead I can think of. That’s because they are playing to different demos.
PG-13 action movies have $100-300 mil budgets, so they want to appeal to everybody, but they tend to focus on boys in grade school who buy toys and are stereotyped as anti-girl. Their development also tends to be much more studio driven, unless it’s being made by a top elite director.
R rated action movies are more focused on 18-34 male demo, who are stereotyped as finding action chicks hot. R-rated action movies also tend to have smaller budgets under $100 mil, MM:FR is an exception to that trend. Scarlett Johansson’s Lucy is more typical with it’s $40 mil dollar budget.
In the end, no matter the rating, studios always prefer male leads, and the director or producers usually have to fight pretty hard to get movies with female leads made. If James Cameron didn’t make Aliens and Terminator 2 there would be fewer or perhaps no R-rated action movies with female leads. Yes, Weaver was awesome in Alien, but that movie is more of a SF/horror hybrid.
That’s why a Wonder Woman or Marvel film with a female lead haven’t been made yet. Warner Bros. has had a Wonder Woman film of and on in development for decades at this point, but they’ve always chickened it and almost pissed the character away on a shitty tv show.
That turned into a bit of a teal deer and was barely proofread because I’m real sleepy. Hopefully it makes sense.
I forgot to say that Raid 2 is all male, other than one female henchwoman and the hero’s wife, and has more violent action sequences then any other action movie I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot.
Charlie’s Angels (the movie version) and Buffy both made it a point to never use guns.
More examples of lower budgeted R-rated action movies with female leads are Resident Evil and Underworld.
I obviously forgot to mention the pg-13 Hunger Games, but the studio was cautious and the first film had a $80 mil budget. They upped the second one to $130 mil, which is still a little small for a worldwide blockbuster. Plus, I can assure that Twilight’s success and the YA fiction boom are the only reasons Hunger Games made.
There still has been no $200-300 mil budgeted major studio blockbuster with a female lead and the first one will likely happen because Warner Bros is going to eventually have to make Wonder Woman.
@WWTH
Oh, good catch, I forgot about the two Charlie Angels movies.
Here’s a chart of the top “action heroine” movies from Box Office Mojo.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=actionheroine.htm