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Mad Max Fury Road (2015) and its Relation to Real World Societal Issues
- Katie Anne
- Sep 3, 2021
- 8 min read
Updated: Mar 17, 2023
Mad Max Fury Road (2015) is a quintessentially dystopian film which dwells on fantastical issues which take place in the confines of the films unique world yet it also mirrors real world societal issues.
Mad Max Fury Road is set in a dystopian Australia, twenty-five to thirty years after ‘The End’ which was the catastrophic event seen in the previous instalments of the series. The landscape is barren, dry and empty, devoid of human and plant life. The world had been degraded by man made disasters such as nuclear war and climate change, both are real world fears and issues that we have today. In our society there is an underlying fear of war for many years now, especially as if there were to be another world war it would no doubt be a nuclear one. Mad Max clearly shows a world that was once similar to our own and the subsequent effects that would happen after thermonuclear bombs were dropped. Unlike many other films which deal with this topic, the audience does not see the nuclear apocalypse, just the world many years afterwards and how society had to change in order to live in this new landscape.
There are many times in popular Hollywood films where the world wide societal fear of nuclear warfare is preyed upon, such as Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), Terminator (1984) and The Sum of all fears (2002)- this shows that this has been an ongoing societal fear for many decades. Shapiro states “...the public is so arrogant, it is obsessed with with the fear of nuclear annihilation; therefore, all relevant popular imagery is a psychological projection or displaced symbol of this fear” ( Shapiro, 2011 p181). Mad Max is no different, the film showcases the fear of what would happen to our world and society after nuclear war.
However, it can be argued that nuclear war is not an overt theme of the movie, as it is in the previous movies in the series it was a very prevalent theme but less so in Fury Road. The other installments in the series were made in the heat of the political and global climate of The Cold War, where nuclear war was a real possibility and was at the forefront of everyone's minds. Fury Road was made and takes place many years after this event and as such nuclear war is not an overt theme. It is also not as much a fear for the people of today as it would have been for the people who watched the previous Mad Max films during the seventies and eighties. The movie more accurately reflects modern insecurities and fears like feminism, power imbalance and resource depletion.
Nuclear war is not the only war that is alluded to in Mad Max, there was mention of ‘Water Wars’, implying that there were many wars over natural resources which have become rare. It is unclear whether the lack of these resources is due to the nuclear war or just from the degradation of the planet. This is yet another fear that Miller preys upon, the fear of natural and vital resources running out or if they were to become rare and sought after. The water and fuel can be viewed as a loose metaphor for precious resources in the real world such as oil, those who control it amass great wealth and power through trading and exchanges, examples of this would be the trading with The United Arab Emirates for oil. This works much in the same way as The Citadel and Fuel Town trading with other groups of people for other resources and materials.
Society seemingly has melted down and reforged as something completely different from our own, one where humans live in colonies and clusters, leaving blank verandas as far as the eye can see. The colonies are based around resources that are hard to come by such as The Citadel where water is and Gas Town where fuel is kept and The Bullet Farm.
There are few people in power, those who have power are the ones which control the resources that are scarce. This leads to a complete imbalance of power, Immortan Joe is worshipped by his cult-like followers the war boys, who treat him in a god like way. Fuist agrees and further comments on the religious aspects, saying ‘Fury Road ultimately paints a picture of religion used as a tool of oppression, with cultic rituals and beliefs legitimizing class and gender domination’ (Todd Fuist, 2015, p97-99), this implies that the films messages and themes are used to legitimise our real world social issues.
A parallel can be made between the films world and our societal issues, specifically when concerning religion and worship. The half life war boys, as previously mentioned, worship Immortan Joe, he represents a god like figure to them and they would never do anything to go against him. They also worship the cars and vehicles that they drive, Miller fetishises the vehicles by making them large and other worldly, he makes it easy to see why they worship these vehicles, he almost plays into the audiences weakness- once again highlighting a societal issue.Given the fact that the half life boys are doomed to die soon they gorge themselves on vehicles, this clearly parallels today's society. In today's society there is a lot of importance placed on material wealth, Mad Max shows us what would happen if these material objects were to completely rule over our lives. Welch comments ‘The V8 cult practice can be easily related to some of the current religious practice around the world and how they cage the human mind into believing things that cannot be verified like Valhalla’ (Derek Welch, 2016), he explicitly links the culture displayed in the film to the religious cultures that we have in real world society and the issues that can arise from this.
Mad Max can be considered to be both a feminist movie and an anti-feminist movie, it displays many of the conflicts that our own society has regarding the way sexism is portrayed and discussed. There is a subversion of expectations by having women in distress but instead of being saved by a man, they are saved by a woman. This both shows our societies views of women as being weak and damsels in distress yet at the same time, there are women who are strong and loyal who can do as much as the men can. Although, this could just be considered to be a more modern and inclusive view of women as they can fit into any role of society- this fits with today's modern feminist agenda.
The film also shows the message that women should stay together, have mutual respect and work in harmony, feminist writer Julianne Ross highlights this, in reference to a particular scene, by saying ‘“Toast” (Zoe Kravitz) can’t reload a gun fast enough to be of use. Furiosa barks at her to hurry up... Furiosa always views these women as worthy of respect and protection. And as the film unfolds, it chastises us for not believing in them too” (Ross’, 2015). A sisterhood is formed between all of the women on screen, this once again is driving home the pro feminism message.
Much like our own society the few people that have large amounts of power are men, characters like Immortan Joe display the stereotypical masculine man that has wealth, power and control over women. He has ownership of his five wives, known as his breeders, this perpetuates the stereotypical message of our real world society. This is showing a very real and ongoing societal message that a woman's place is at home and to be locked away and produce offspring for the males, however characters like Furiosa challenges this mentality completely.
The film was made in 2015, though it was originally set to be created and released in 2001, during this time period there was a rise in movement for female empowerment and Furiosa proves to be a figurehead for these movements.Furiosa was the one who ultimately killed Immortan Joe, with the help of a group of more women, subsequently she and the remaining wives were able to take The Citadel and help the people, releasing the water to the citizens. It is implied that they would be the ones to rule over The Citadel, showing how they ultimately overcame the patriarchy in the film.
Furiosa represents today's feminist movement, women who fight against the oppression of the men in society. Physically she is strong, tall, muscular and with a shaved head which would commonly be associated with masculinity. When she is starkly juxtaposed with The Five Wives, her masculinity and therefore lack of femininity is more exposed. It is also interesting to note that she is juxtaposed with Max Rockatansky, a character who is also stereotypically masculine yet he is stripped of this when forced to travel with many women. In ‘Feminism is For Everybody: Passionate Politics’ by Hooks ‘A male who has divested of male privilege, who has embraced feminist politics, is a worthy comrade in struggle, in no way a threat to feminism’ (p12, 2000) but in fact represents gender equality, another real world message that is being driven home to the audiences through the themes of the film. However, Furiosas depiction can be seen as somewhat problematic as in todays society for a woman to be a strong character there has to be a sacrifice of femininity. Other examples of this happening in films would be Ripley in the Alien franchise and Sarah Connor in the Terminator franchise. This is highlighting an issue with our society where for a female to be strong then you have to be masculine to do so.
Throughout the entirety of the movie, there is mention of an almost mythical location known as The Green Place, somewhere where Furiosa is from. This is a safe haven where the wives are trying to get to as a form of escape from their hellish existence with Immortan Joe. This can be seen as a metaphor for the American dream which has been prevalent for many decades in our own society. James Truslow first stated about The American Dream ‘that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone...It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order... and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." (James Truslow Adams, p.214-215). However people are met with the harsh reality that this dream does not exist or rather is impossible to attain. This is incarnated into the film world by having The Green Place no longer exist, Furiosa passed straight through it without noticing. This relates to our society and the harsh wake up call that many people face, that everything is not what it seems and you must make do with the circumstances which you were given.
In closing, Mad Max: Fury Road is a film which is centred around a canted view of our own world. It is embellished in both fictional and metaphorical elements which can relate to real world societal issues. The relationship between the two can be seen as more subliminal, with more hidden messages about religion and others may be more obvious like messages about feminism and nuclear warfare. Some would argue that the film is a work of pure fiction, with no real relationship to real world issues yet it is hard to deny the fact that the film takes place in the not too distant future of our world, so therefore some links must be likely.
Bibliography
Adams, J T. The Epic of American, 1931, New York, Little Brown and Company
Fuist T. N, 2015, ‘Religion, Gender, and Power in Mad Max: Fury Road’, Humanity & Science, Volume 40, p97-99
Hooks, B. Feminism is For Everybody: Passionate Politics, 2000, London, Pluto Press
Ross J, Beyond Furiosa: The Unsung Heroines of ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, 2015 [Internet]
https://medium.com/@julianneross/beyond-furiosa-the-unsung-heroines-of-mad-max-fury-road-396d5e1171f9 [02/11/2018]
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