Mad Max Fury Road

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Beck Doll Cast, the questions asked if movies
have women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends
and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef
invest start changing it with the bec Del Cast. Jamie caivin,
Oh what a day, What a lovely day? Witness me.

(00:22):
It's my birthday. I'm oh, my god, I get it.
I get it. I understand. What a lovely day for
it to be my birthday. It's always a lovely day
for it to be your birthday. Happy birthday, Thank you,
I love you. What a day this is going to be.
I mean, this is We're not recording this on your birthday,

(00:43):
but I feel like it's good. We your birthday is
tends to be kind of an event. Yeah. I really
think that I'm a special person and really think that
my birthday is a special day for everyone and not
just me. Well, you're not a huge holiday person, so
this is your holiday. Like it all makes sense. Um,
I think I maybe I gave you or I didn't

(01:06):
give it to you because I haven't, but a part
of your birthday present the spirit channeled survivor of Titanic book,
I have to give to you amongst other things that
will be revealed at a later time. Happy birthday, thank you,
and we're doing a special I'm I'm excited. I'm excited

(01:27):
for this episode. I've been kind of nervous for it
because anytime we go into an episode where there's like
a lot of your like, there's just so much. But
but I'm glad. I'm glad that we're doing this. Here,
we are same, back in heaven where we live. And
what a lovely day it is. Uh. This is the

(01:50):
Bechtel Cast. My name is Caitlin Darante. My name is
Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where we examine
movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechtel Tests
simply as a jumping off point for our discussion. Jamie,
I need you to tell me on this lovely day, huh,
what the Bechdel test is. It's your birthday. I'm happy

(02:13):
to oblige. So. The Bechdel Test, sometimes called the Buckdel
Wallace test, is a media metric created by queer cartoonist
Alison Bechdel. There's many per mutations of this test, however,
the one we use requires the following that therapy two
characters of a marginalized gender. Sometimes sometimes my one of

(02:37):
my signapps is collapses mid sentence. Uh, this is like
our audition monologue that we do every week, right, because
it's like it feels so like, it feels very rehearsed
sometimes when I'm saying it, because I just like have
it so committed to memory that I'm like, wait, did
I like accidentally forget one of the That's It's just
it's a whole thing. Every time I trip myself up

(02:57):
because I I worry because it's so grained in my
brain that I'm going to switch a word and neither
of us will notice because we're just like, yep, that's
the monologue. This is our tomorrow and Tomorrow and tomorrow
creeps in this petty pace. Wait, what is that a
reference to? I don't think that this doesn't pass the
back because this is it's a Shakespeare passage. Everyone in
my high school had to memorize this one Shakespeare passage

(03:19):
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow creeps in this petty pace
to the last syllable of recorded time. I already sucked
it up, and all the shakespeare heads are going to
be like, you fucking do fist as as I was saying,
on your birthday, no less of all days, of all days.

(03:40):
So this also isn't coming out on my birthday, I
don't think, because my birthday is a Tuesday and we
always release episodes on But who knows, maybe we'll mix
it up this week. I don't know. Look, you'll find
out when you're listening. You'll know. And then if you're
listening to it, not the day it comes out, which
is probably a lot of people, you'll be like, shut up,
tell us what the Bechdel cantest is. Well, it's this,

(04:05):
here's the one we use. Now I'm really going to
suck it up. We were calling. We require that we
our version, you've got to have two characters of a
marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something
other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue.

(04:27):
And these lines of dialogue should be narratively significant in
some way, shape or form, not throw away dialogue for
crying out loud and uh, you know, because of the
movie we're covering, it's smooth sailing baby, not a problem.
It's not a problem from the director that brought you

(04:47):
Babe Pig in the City and Happy Feet one and two.
Oh my gosh, I found someone took it upon themselves
to write a passage on scholarly journal Wikipedia of about
the thematic similarities between happy Feet and mad Max Fury
Road and it actually completely scans. Yeah. Well, I talked

(05:07):
about happy Feet on blank check and I pointed out
speaking of being scholarly in a very scholarly way, I
pointed out some of those same similarities. So an environmental
family story. Also, like Hugo Weaving plays this penguin that
has this like extremist religious dogma that he's like trying

(05:33):
to foist on to the other penguins in the penguin community,
much like a Morton Joe is like foisting this extremist
religious dogma. Look, there's a lot of there's a lot
of similarities between Mad Max Fury Road and happy Feet,
is all we're saying. I love our canonical pronunciation of
happy feet, happy feet, happy feet. Uh, there's it reminds

(05:59):
me of There's is one acting choice that Tom from
Succession makes, and I believe that that's his Christian name
um where every time he says he's talking about how
Chiv cheated on him on on their wedding night, he says,
on our wedding night. And I'm like, why is he
saying it like that? But he says it like it has.
He keeps saying wedding night, and it drives me. It

(06:22):
drives me horny. I love it. Wedding night, happy feet,
wedding to night, happy feet. I'm like, is that Shakespeare? No,
that's maybe I am bic pentameter. No, it's not. You know,
it's something though, it's something though, it's you know, I trust,
I trust, I believe that it's got to be something.
And today we're talking about mad Max fury Road. Yeah,

(06:48):
we are Magic Mike and Mad Max in the same
couple of I mean, we're really describing these these monosyllabic men,
aren't we. Yeah, so I guess the Magical Michael version
of Mad Max would be like mat madgening Maxwell. That
doesn't quite work, but yeah, I guess. I guess. So. Also,

(07:09):
Steven Soderberg loves this movie. I found so many quotes
from him being like WHOA. I was like, Wow, Magic Mike,
Mad Max, It's all coming together. Do you think that
he loved the original Mad Max so much that he
subconsciously channeled it into magic. Mike, maybe I think we

(07:30):
should go with this theory. Okay, no one correct us.
It's Caitlin's birthday. We can't be wrong today, exactly. I
can be wrong. You can yell at me except that. Yeah,
but I am infallible today. You're untouchable. You should say
anything really fucked up? Alright, Caitlin. Okay. So, and and

(07:52):
last last thing. If if you're if you've been with
us since the beginning, almost six years at this point,
and you're like, hey, didn't these ladies cover Mad Max
at some point? Yes, we did. It was extremely early
in the podcast, one of our first episodes. Yeah, and
there was a couple early episodes that of about a

(08:13):
year and a half ago, We're like, we want to
redo these. We've learned so much through doing this show
and just through the general evolution of society and time,
and this was one of the movies we've always been
wanting to redo. So it's not in your imagination, but
this is the all new and improved Matt Max Fury

(08:33):
Road episode Exactly. We are now better equipped to tackle
the discussion that we want to have around this movie,
especially because it has since recording that original episode. It
has become one of my favorite movies of all time.
Hence also why we're doing it for my birthday, and

(08:54):
since it came out, because we covered it like about
a year after it came out, I think roughly something
like that, maybe yeah, because it came out in yeah,
this summer of and then we recorded the episode early.
It was not that long after. And now it's you know,
considered for many the greatest action movie ever made. So

(09:16):
we can talk about how the perception of the movie
has some evolved as well. Certainly there's there's just there's
you know, the passage of time and can I just
say from s to now no notes societally, so, um,
I don't think anything has really happened now we're living

(09:37):
in the greatest timeline. Um so. So Caitlin the birthday gal,
please do tell me what is your history with Mad
Max Fury Road. I did see it in theaters when
it came out, I think probably opening weekend. I was
pretty jazzed to see it based on the trailers in

(09:59):
the marketing and it thing, and I was blown away
and have only developed a greater appreciation for it more
and more as time goes on. I would say, I've
seen this movie somewhere between like sixty and seventy times. Yeah,
I didn't know it was that serious. It is. It's

(10:22):
pretty serious because it's one of those movies that I
am never not in the mood to watch. So like
I am just I will throw it on. It's my
plane movie. So anytime I on a flight, I will
watch this movie both times. So on my journey to
the place and then on my journey back home. I

(10:45):
watch it on dates all the time. Uh an emphasis
on all the time, because I'm always going on dates.
Having a Greg, you do go on many successful dates,
and I would not call them successful, but sorry, go ahead,
it's your birthday. I'm I'm I'm fluffing. I'm fluffing it's

(11:06):
your birthday. Yes, No, I'm so good at dating. I'm
so good at finding people I'm compatible with. It's an
incredible phenomenon. It's you can't stop falling in love. That
it is good to have go to date movies. I
my no, the jinks I was gonna says, I've got

(11:29):
to change it. I've got to grow as a person.
But that's one way where I very firmly I have
not that's okay, that's okay. You know, sometimes it's fine
to be absolutely static. Here's in some ways it is comforting.
But in that one, I would say, maybe it could
it could go. Um, Caitlin, were you Did you ever

(11:50):
watch the original Mad Max movies? Yes, so I have
seen all of those, but I have no real attachment
to them, especially compared to the Hatchman I feel to
this movie. That was what I was curious about, because
it seems like there's a few camps of fans of
this franchise, some of whom are like this movie, and

(12:12):
then some of whom are like all Max Cannon. Yeah,
um no, I am not thrilled with any of the others,
mainly that Mel Gibson cannot stomach watching anything he's in
except for Chicken Run, which you only hear his voice.
So I give it a path and it still feels bad.

(12:34):
And it still feels bad. Um yeah, I do. I mean,
there will will be talking about in plenty today, but
I do think that George Miller is a very interesting
case of a filmmaker who has demonstrated a lot of
growth throughout his career. Although there's a lot that I
learned about the protection of this movie. That sounded, uh,

(12:56):
not great. We'll get there, yeah, for sure. Um, but
it's really only this installment Fury Road that I have
any attachment to, so much that I got a tattoo
of the war rig that Furioso drives on my arm,
and that I think concludes my relationship with this movie. Jamie,

(13:16):
what is your history and relationship with Mad Max Fury Road? Um?
I had only seen it to prepare for the first time.
We did this episode about five years ago. That was
the first time I saw it. Didn't like it the
first time. This was in a phase of life where
I was deeply against any aesthetic I perceived to be
remotely steampunk. Look, I was in my early twenties. I

(13:42):
was just I. I had a hot take. I clung
to it. I don't stand by it, I will say,
speaking of growth, Speaking of growth, I really I've seen
this movie a couple of times in the interim, Um,
I think at least once with you, but I like
it more or each time I see it, I feel
like it. It has. It has a lot to do

(14:03):
with just like me understanding more about movies than I
did six years ago, understanding more about feminism, than I
did six years ago, understanding more about environmentalism than I
did sing here, and also like having a growing appreciation
for action movies. It's still not my genre. I don't

(14:26):
think it will ever be my genre. However, I feel
like I can now appreciate a well crafted, paste looking
ass action movie. So I've really grown to Uh. I
really love this movie. And I and I had a
really daunting, slash fun time preparing for this episode. There's

(14:48):
so much to go through, there's so much to talk about.
It's very dense, but it doesn't feel dense. It's such
I mean, it's I guess it's like it's so dystopian.
It's a dystopian romp. It is a romp, but it
is it's a serious upsetting. I think you you nailed it.
It's it's not totally light yet. It is still a romp,

(15:12):
but it is literally never not moving. That's the beauty
of romps. It's a spectrum and it's very inclusive. In
this essay, we will no but for real, probably for
a couple of hours. So that's my history. Uh. Used
to be a hater, and then I got educated and
I grew up literally as how I would describe what

(15:33):
happened that warms my heart? Is it my favorite George
Miller movie? It is not. That is still Babe, but
this is a close second because Happy Feet is one
we I think we've maybe talked about this in our
Babe episode which is on the Matreon, and I think
it's quite a good episode. You did an incredible segment

(15:54):
on how movie animals are treated in that episode. But
in any case, Happy Feet is one of those movies
that I know I have seen at least three times,
and I could not tell you a single thing that
happens in the movie. I have the same issue with
a lot of Wes Anderson movies where I'm like, I
remember how it looks, I remember how I was feeling,

(16:16):
couldn't tell you what happened. I could try to tell you,
and this isn't the time or place, because I've seen
it a couple of times to prepare for the blank
Check episode I did. And I think I'm in the
minority because I think that movie absolutely sucks shit. No,
I think that people didn't. I don't think that there

(16:36):
it was like nominated for Academy Awards like I think
it was like, but people responded to it well like audiences.
Was it well reviewed? It was well reviewed? Bizarre? I mean,
I understand why kids, my my. Anyways, you know what, ultimately,
if Happy Feet hadn't performed while the box office in critically,
we wouldn't have Mad Max Fury Road, now, would we?

(16:59):
Or so I read is true? Yeah? So you know,
no matter where you fall on the Happy Feet criticism enjoyment,
o'met or um, you gotta hand it, you gotta foot
it to the Happy Feet because if that boring ass
movie I can't remember with Elijah Wood Penguin, am I correct? Correct? Correct?

(17:19):
You know, then we wouldn't have this awesome movie we're
talking about today. True? Should we start talking about it? Yeah?
Let me do the recap, shall I? Let's do it.
So we hear some sound bites at the very beginning
about water and fossil fuel shortages. We hear about wars
that have happened as a result. We hear about like

(17:40):
nuclear skirmish. We see a barren wasteland, and then we
meet Max Rockatanski played by Tom Hardy. We get some
voice over from him in which he says that the
only thing he cares about is survival. Max is then
pursued by war boys who capture him and take him

(18:00):
to this place called the Citadel, which is ruled by
and Morton Joe played by Hugh keys Burn. He is
this tyrannical leader who controls access to people's food and
water in the Citadel. Right. He has a bunch of
people working for him, many of whom are his offspring Others.
On the Wikipedia page someone it might not be true

(18:23):
by the time you listen to this episode, but someone
keeps referring to one of the sons as his large
adult son um. Would that be Rectus erectus. Yes, yes,
Rectus erectus is repeatedly referred to as a large adult
son and uh an accurate description of the character. It
is hard to tell because of how they're at this.
They're stylized. You're like, which which son is which? It's confusing, sure,

(18:47):
but that's the point that. Yeah. Others are people that
he has either enslaved or manipulated via this religious ideology
where a Morton Joe has convinced them that he is
their redeemer and they will ride with him eternal on
the highways of Valhalla. It is all I mean, and
I do I do appreciate the use of Like any

(19:08):
time there's like Norse mythology popping up, you're like, mmmm,
this is probably not a character I'm going to end
up rooting for, which is an interesting story convention that
pops up all the time. Yeah. Then we meet Furiosa,
played by Charlie's Thearren. She seems to be pretty high

(19:29):
up in a Morton Joe's ranks. She drives a war
rig which she boards to head to Gastown and the
Bullet Farm, to neighboring communities that barter and trade with
the Citadel. We will soon find out that they have
similar tyrannical warmongering leadership. As Furiosa is driving, she veers

(19:52):
off course. We are not sure why at first, but
then we realized that in her war rig, furio Set
has Morton Joe's wives a k a. Women who he
has enslaved and who he assaults in order to bear
him healthy offspring, and Furiosa is attempting to rescue these
women and escape once and for all, and they are

(20:15):
headed to somewhere called the Green Place. When Morton Joe
discovers this, he sends out a bunch of his war
boys in their vehicles to chase after and catch Furiosa
and bring the wives back again. I just love the
simple turn of phrase that is war boys, because that's
how I would describe them if I didn't know what

(20:37):
they were called. And that is just what they're called.
That it's just what they're called. Yes, this movie is
perhaps not subtle, no, but but you know that. But
that's how we why we go to action movies. We
don't go to action movies for the subtlety. I go
to Babe for subtlety. And I kind of mean that. Yeah.

(21:00):
So one such war boy is Nuts, played by Nicholas Holt,
who Max has been rigged up to as Nux is
blood bag because a lot of the war boys are
dying from radiation poisoning and they need regular blood transfusions. Right,
So you immediately see how characters of all genders are

(21:20):
reduced to the basic functions of their body by and
Morton Joe at all, Right, exactly, So Nucks wanting to
participate in this chase to catch Furiosa, he takes Max
along with him in this pursuit. Uh. Then we get

(21:42):
the first big chase of the movie, where Furiosa manages
to lose a Morton Joe and his war party in
a sandstorm, but afterward Max finds her and the other women,
the wives who are splendid and her played by Rosie
Huntington's Whiteley. Okay, transformers. Oh that's the only other thing

(22:06):
I know. She wasn't got it yep capable played by
Riley Kyo, who I've seen this movie a bazillion times
and when I was watching Zola to prep for that episode,
did not realize it was the same actor. I mean,
the power of a red Die job cannot be understated.
I think she's great in this movie, too. Agree, Yeah,

(22:28):
I mean I think all the all the wives are
are very talented for sure. We've also got Toast the
Knowing played by Zoe Kravitz. We've got name Cheeto, the
fragile played by Courtney Eaton, and we've got name and
we've got the Dag played by Abby Lee. So when

(22:50):
Max comes upon them, he and Furious to fight, and
Max attempts to hijack Furious as war rig and leave
all of the women to be captured by a Morton Joe,
but Furiosa has kill switches enabled on the rig, so
Max cannot drive away, and she bargains with him, and
then they all set off together, with Furiosa driving but

(23:13):
Max holding them all hostage. Then Furiosa drives to this
canyon where she has bartered for safe passage through, but
a Morton Joe has caught back up to them, along
with the people eater of gas Town and the bullet
farmer from You'll never guess this the Bullet Farm. I

(23:35):
do appreciate. Yeah, again, just with the simplicity of the names.
It's helpful. There's a lot of characters, and I just
like how he names them by what they do or
sort of how you would kind of describe what you
think they might do. Right, It's helpful. It is so
wait quick question, Yeah, is it Nicholas Holt that you

(23:55):
have a huge crush on? I do have an enormous
crush on Nicholas Holt, is true, Okay, I was just
checking in about that. Thank you for confirming and taking
away love a little aside where we simply cannot pass

(24:17):
the Bectel test. Look, we're no one's asking life to
pass the Actel test, although it, you know, could be
it would probably be a generally better experience life, but um,
you know, it's a quick detour to be horny about
Nicholas Holt, no further questions. I also didn't realize that

(24:41):
Nux is Nicholas Holt, because I mean, it's a it's
a really good performance, but it could be any person
in there. A lot of his recognizable features are they're
all kind of like buff looking slenderman bob a Duke types.
The war Yeah, yeah, yeah, the war Boys are Yeah,

(25:02):
just to pack a slenderman Zimbaba Dukes. Yes. Okay. So
with these three war parties in hot pursuit, everything goes
wrong in this like situation where Furious is trying to
barter for safe passage. There's another big chase. This one
is my favorite one of the movie, by the way,

(25:24):
during and after which Max and Furiosa go from being
enemies where he is holding her hostage. Two allies who
are working together who are slowly realizing that they have
not too dissimilar backstory. Sure. Also during this chase, Angered
is killed or maybe at this point just fatally wounded,

(25:48):
which slows down and morton Joe for a while because
she was his favorite and she also had a nearly
full term pregnancy and he is concerned about the baby surviving.
So this allows Furioso, Max and the rest of the
wives to get away and they drive onward toward the
green Place. Meanwhile, Capable discovers nuts on the rig. He's

(26:13):
having a crisis. The two of them become friends, and
he switches sides and becomes an ally too. Furiosa and friends.
I would watch that. I would watch that children's show
that's spin off. Yes. Meanwhile and Morton, Joe and the
war parties are not far behind again, and they're all

(26:36):
driving through this like marshy swampy area. Everyone is getting stuck.
Our friends get unstuck with Nux's help, and they continue
onward and eventually they come upon the Volvelini, this band
of women who live in the middle of the desert.
It's the clan not a very subtle nation. I was like,

(27:00):
are they saying Volvolini and it's it's volvoly It does
sound like it's vagina pasta that is being described for me.
For me, it sounded like a plate full of vagina. Yeah,
I don't disagree. They are also known as the Many Mothers.

(27:22):
They are the clan that Furiosa used to be a
part of until she was kidnapped, stolen, and taken to
the citadel. They tell Furiosa that the green place no
longer exists. Earth had become to sour, the water became poison,
nothing would grow, so they had to get out of there.
Not a relatable thing at all there are, I mean yeah,

(27:48):
and each time you watch this movie, you're just like, wof,
had you told me that in six years? Perhaps not
the aesthetic, but the water wars. They're a common baby
people and maybe I need to stop doing this, or
maybe I need to do it more. But anytime someone where,

(28:09):
anytime someone refers to how things might be in like
twenty or thirty years from now, I'm like, yeah, that's plausible,
assuming we're not all killing each other during the water Wars.
And then they're like oh um uh yep, a little

(28:30):
bit nervous. But now people are like, oh no, do
you have information? So that is I think a feasible reality.
I think now more than ever, keep plugging the water wars.
People are gonna love to hear you say I told
you so all the time water Wars are on, and

(28:50):
then they'll shoot me in my face and then and
then steal my water. Yeah. I mean if if this
Australian documentary is do we believe Yes, it's very possible. Okay,
Furious to learning about the Green Place no longer existing
is absolutely devastating to her, especially because there's now no
place that she can kind of find this redemption she

(29:14):
was looking for in terms of like bringing these women
to safety and just having a place where they can
stay and survive. And then Max is like, well, wait
a minute, what if we go back to the citadel
and take control while it's undefended. Sorry, I'm gonna let
that loud motorcycle pass Martin Joe. So they turn around

(29:37):
and charge back towards the citadel and Morton Joe realizes
what they're doing, so he goes after them again. There's
one last, you know, big act three climactic chase. There's
a lot of ups and downs. We've got Joe trying
to abduct the wives. Furious so gets stabbed, but then

(29:59):
she crawls onto with Morton Joe's vehicle and rips his
face off. Oh is that a And and speaking of
face off, if you head of urture Matreon this one,
there's gonna be some faces coming off. Look big month
for no face. This is the right and no face

(30:21):
because no face in spirited way. This is no face
may wild, Oh God, the best of luck to future
us trying to observe this a second time. It's gonna
be all to be original horror movies. Although did you

(30:44):
notice there Roku originals? I think Roku Originals. I'll put
this on wax. I think Roku Originals is trying to
is trying to do something, because that that new weird
al movie starring Daniel Radcliffe is a Roku original, is it?
I did not realize that. I didn't realize they had
two nickels to rub together. Turns out they've got Harry

(31:06):
Potter money wild um okay, So Furious pulls a face
off Parentheses, starring Nicolas Cage and John Travolta. She rips
and morton Joe's face off, but she's also very badly injured.
So Max gives her a blood transfusion and he's like,

(31:28):
by the way, my name is Max. And then she's
able to get right back up on her happy feet,
and she's looking like a babe. She's looking like a babe,
and she's back in this. She's in the City Dell
on her happy feet, happy and another George Miller movie, wait,

(31:54):
the other one, and the Witches of Eastwick. I just
got the Wives of Eastwick with her Oh my word, wow,
is Lorenzo's oil at George Lorenzo's oil? Yeah? What does
that mean? I don't need to know. It's fine, let's
never talk about it again. Okay, not my business. Which
is a east Wick though? Check out that episode on

(32:16):
our Matreon. Everyone. Yeah, we have Actually we're kind of
like almost Miller completionists, wow in a way, minus Lorenzo's oil. Okay,
So Max is like, my name is Max because earlier
he refused no ship. And then they arrive at the citadel,
they gain control of it, the implication being Furiosa is

(32:43):
the new leader. They unleash water, so the unleash the crack. Yeah,
the people now have access to the water. And then
Max SLINKs away because he's a lone ranger or whatever,
and that is how the movie ends. So let's take
a quick break and will come back to discuss, and

(33:11):
we're back. Where would you like to begin? Uh? We
I know we both have truly absurd amount of notes
and things to go through. Where where would you like
to begin? My birthday friend, thank you so much. I
would like to start with I don't know if I
want to start with what I really appreciate about the

(33:32):
movie or what missteps I think the movie makes, because
there are certainly some of those. Yes, there certainly are
and I and there, I mean, I guess let's start there,
because I think that that list, uh, while there's plenty
to talk about, is generally shorter. So I found some

(33:53):
writing about this. But one thing that stood out to
me the first time I saw this movie and still
does now is um because this is such broad storytelling, uh.
And I find it frustrating because it's like George Miller
finds so many ways to subvert a lot of common

(34:14):
action tropes and stock character assumptions in this movie. But
I do think he uses um atypical bodies to indicate
evil or lack of morality quite a lot in yes movie. Yeah,
And it's it's a complicated discussion because disability is treated

(34:37):
differently or atypical bodies are treated differently based on the character. Yes,
because there is a lot of disability visibility in this movie,
but it is used in different ways. So on one hand,
you have Furiosa, the protagonist of the movie. She has
a physical disability. Her I think left arm has been

(34:59):
amputatd below the elbow. She uses a mechanical arm, and
attention is drawn to this, but not in a way
that's ever like she's disabled and she's so bitter about it,
the way that disabled characters are often treated in media.
It's just a part of her character. She's presented in

(35:21):
the movie as being extremely physically competent. She's a strong fighter,
she's a skilled marks person, and her disability is never
shown as impeding her skills in any way. Right, And
we also see her with and without the mechanical arm. Yeah, right,
And it's never like it's never commented on or drawn

(35:42):
attention to positive or negative. Like, it's just neutral. This
is just an aspect of her character. We are given
no information about it other than just seeing it visually.
We don't know any kind of backstory regarding this. But
it's just presented as one of the many aspects of

(36:02):
her character in a way that to me felt like
it had a normalizing effect, which I think is one
of the goals when it comes to representing disability in movies.
But then you have a character like and Morton Joe
who is covered in tumors, presumably having radiation poisoning. He

(36:28):
also uses breathing apparatus, and his disability is used to
make him seem like a more formidable opponent, especially like
in the way that the mask that he uses just
like aesthetically makes him seem scarier. Yeah, I mean, and
it's as with a lot of these issues in the movie.

(36:51):
It's it very much has to do with framing and
music and like how these atypical qualities are introduced to you,
because it's very I mean, it's like, there couldn't be
a more villain intro than showing a morton Joe's body
at the at the opening right to the movie. It's

(37:12):
very very clear how you're supposed to feel about him.
It's like movie shorthand for like, look how grotesque he is.
Obviously he's the villain. Look at this breathing apparatus he uses,
and I guess maybe you could make the argument that, like,
of course this type of tyrannical dictator would wear something

(37:34):
to make him seem more intimidating, because his mask is
this sort of grotesque, exaggerated thing with like huge teeth
that looks like an animal skull. But because there's such
a long history of this specific thing in media of
disability being used to make a villain seem more intimidating
or scarier or more unattractive, this choice just feels extremely

(38:00):
pointed and completely unnecessary. Yeah, and like beneath what the
movie generally tends to be as well. Right, And then
like I remember talking about this on our Casino Royal
episode where our guest Cannie Smobily brought up that villains

(38:20):
are often given asthma or some other type of like breathing,
and I was like, of course, Darth fade Arth and
I was born in it. Isn't that another Tom Hardy character? Bain? Yeah, Bain,
I never I don't know Bain's name. I just go
I was born on it. And people know what I'm

(38:42):
talking about. Tom Hardy is so uh just exhausting to
hear about any anecdote with him. You're just like I
am annoyed and asleep. But boy, you can't take that
line read from him, Kenya. You can't take uh, you
can't take the Bain line, and you can't take my
favorite Tom Hardy moment. And then I mean, I know

(39:04):
we are going to discuss him, but I just not
I mean whatever method not necessary, okay, which we'll get
to because Charlie Sarron had just a great moment for like, uh,
stop making my life difficult. Um, But I do I
do really like his line read of like suggesting we

(39:26):
go back the way we came. Like that's you know,
he was born in it, baby. There's one thing I
know about Tom Hardy. He's born in IT. And I
will say, not only do I not mind him, I
would even go so far as to say I like
Tom Hardy. I may regret saying this at a later date,
but for now I'm cool with Tom Hardy. Generally, he's fine.

(39:50):
I just have a general general dislike of method actors
and the stories you tend to hear. He's definitely not
the worst of the method actors, but it does sound
like he has made the lives of his co stars
very unpleasant at different times in his career. Um. And
of course, when we say Tom Hardy was born into IT,

(40:12):
we mean that he was born into a wealthy arts family.
He was born in it, um, and that's why he
gets to be a professional actor. He was born and
it did. I realized that his dad's name is Chips
Hardy question mark Chips plural, Yeah, like the ones in
the Bags Chips Partney. Anyways, Um, back to this discussion. Okay,

(40:39):
So there's another layer of this where Morton Joe and
one of his sons Rictus Erectus a k a. His
large adult son who also uses an oxygen tank to
help him breathe. Both of their breathing apparatuses are used
to either kill or injure those characters in some way,

(41:02):
where Furiosa rips Joe's mask off and also his face
off starring Nicolas Cage and John Travolta heard of it,
and Max uses Rictus Erectus's oxygen tank to beat him
in the face. So it's just another layer of like
not only our disabilities being used to further villainize these villains,

(41:26):
but then also the apparatus they use because of their
disability is then used against them violently, which feels especially pointed.
So there's that. Um, there are other characters like the
people Eader you know has severe inflammation in his feet.

(41:48):
I think that and his obesity are his traits that
are intended to make him seem grotesque and more villainous.
Then you see a lot of disability in the people
who live of in the citadel. Some are citizens who
I think you can assume survived nuclear war, some are

(42:08):
probably just dealing with malnutrition. It mostly feels like these
characters are just used as a part of the world building,
which because we know nothing about them and they're just
sort of scenery, it feels like pointed set dressing. Yeah.
Sort of similar is the character of Corpus Colossus played

(42:29):
by Quentin Kenahan, who is one of the Morton Joe's sons.
We do not learn anything about that character, and just
in general, none of these disabled characters or characters with
atypical bodies are given any focus in this story. All

(42:50):
of the major characters, with the exception of Furiosa and
you could argue Knucks, who is also affected by radiation poisoning,
All the rest of the main characters that we are
rooting for are able bodied. They are very attractive by
Western beauty standards, and even I would argue Furiosa and

(43:14):
Nuts are kind of able to pass as able bodied,
especially compared to the characters like Morton Joe and the
people Eater, where again their disabilities are are used to
further villainize them or its characters who we learn nothing about,
which I do also feel has to do at least

(43:35):
in part with how the characters are framed, where Furiosa,
like Furious, has a mechanical arm, but it's not brought
to your attention explicitly all the time, in the way
that when a villain has a disability, your eye is
constantly being very very intentionally drawn to it. Yea. And

(43:59):
of course, of these main characters like Furiosa, Nux and Morton,
Joe and the People Leader, they are played by actors
who are not disabled. So that's something that we come
upon again and again. Yeah, not great, not great at all,

(44:20):
simply not great. Sort of related to the discussion of bodies.
One of the things that it took me a while
for this to click for me, and I'm honestly embarrassed
about how long it took. But so the women, the
quote unquote wives that Furiosa is trying to bring to safety,

(44:46):
are all very traditionally attractive by Western beauty standards. That
didn't take. That's not the thing that took me a
while to figure out that I obviously noticed quite obvious. Yes,
it's very very obvious. Zoe crab is there, so we
like several professional models are among the people cast in

(45:07):
those roles. The thing that I was like, wait a minute,
So we see a group of women at the Citadel
who are again used for the very kind of like
basic function of like bodily function. They're they're hooked up
to breast pumps. They're basically treated like milk cows. And

(45:31):
they are all fat women who I think Western beauty
standards would consider not attractive. And again, with the way
that the camera is framing and drawing your eye, it
seems like the movie is not pushing against that in
any way. Right. Yeah, So the thing that I was like,
what the fuck FURIOUSA doesn't try to save them, Like

(45:55):
for unknown reasons, what the hell? Like, were they not
hot enough to save? Were they not considered? What's the
deal with that? Why were they not among the women
that God? I mean, because there, you know, I always
want to get furious that the benefit of the doubt.
She makes it seem she makes it seem as if
she's done stuff like this before. Perhaps that is a

(46:18):
separate trip. We're also told that the wives explicitly asked
her to help them do this. She didn't take them.
They begged her to go, says Miss Giddy. Yeah, but yeah,
I also picked up on that as well, where it's again,
most of the characters, or many of the characters who
are not you know, classically Western beauty standard slim and

(46:39):
and look a very particular way like they are treated
as said dressing, and that is very much Yeah, how
how those characters are presented. Yeah, I just I would
have liked a version of this story where even if
it was the wives, there's gotta be a better name
for them. But even if it was their idea for

(47:04):
Furious to take them away from the citadel, couldn't Furious
to be like, hey, hey, you guys in like the
milking room, I'm I'm going on a trip. I'm saving
some people want to come come on. Yeah, At very
least I guess that they, they along with the rest
of the citadel, are are liberated at the end of

(47:26):
the flim We do see another shot of them at
the end. Yes, they are, they are freed, but I think, yeah,
the larger point here is that there are no fat
characters who are heroes who we are rooting for exactly,
which is just kind of another way in which this
very broad movie does not push back on very well

(47:46):
worn movie media stereotypes in a way that would have
been so simple not to like that true, Like, there's
no reason that one of the I don't know what else,
one of the his wives, but they are being sex trafficked.
I mean, what one of the what should we let's

(48:07):
let's come up with something right now. One of the
women in beige, the women, the women in gauze, Yeah,
one of the I mean one of the there there's
no reason one of the gauzy gauzy women, Um, couldn't
couldn't have been a fat woman. There's just there's just
simply no reason. Yeah, there's It's it's interesting because, yeah,
this movie is less than ten years old, but already

(48:28):
you're like, oh, I mean, based on how we are
needing to discuss it a second time, you can already
you can still pick up on things that were dated
at that time, that probably were not commented on extensively
at the time. But it says there's been so much
written about this movie when it came out, but also

(48:49):
just over the years. It's interesting to kind of watch
how people's views on how bodies are treated in this movie.
I wanted to quickly go back to the Tom Hearty
thing because there is have you read about the confrontation
between him and Charlie's barren, not extensively, so please feel
free to fill me in. Okay, so this is not

(49:11):
I mean, I didn't know very much about the production
of this movie. It sounded like an absolutely hellacious shoot
that went on for like nine months in the desert.
Riley Keo got hypothermia. George Miller says, there was a
there's two oral history pieces I'd read about this movie.

(49:35):
One came out in one came out earlier this year
New York Times and I think Vanity Fair respectively. But
in the New York Times one. Yeah, the actors, it
is kind of interesting. I feel like you, I'm trying
to think of other I mean, I guess that you
could use a Titanic parable here too, because literally hypothermia,
or I guess in Kate Win's was a case pneumonia.

(49:55):
But you know, a movie that was extremely difficult to shoot,
that sounds like it was absolute torture for the actors
at different points that later on, because the movie was
a huge success and was a classic, they're kind of
like Yeah, that wasn't great, But I'm glad the movie
was a hit, you know, like a little but but
you know, it sounded like this was a um a

(50:19):
shoot where everyone slowly lost their grip on reality, cast
and crew. There were several cases of actors getting sick,
Like I just said, Riley Ko got hypothermia because it
was so cold shooting in the desert at night. The
actors are shooting in the middle of the desert, and
they're not because of their costumes. They're literally in gauze
for a lot of it, and so there's not a

(50:40):
lot of protection from the elements. A lot of stories
like that. And then there was also some onset tension
between Charlie's Thearren and Tom Hardy, which has expanded a
little more in the Vanity Fair article. So I guess
that Charlie Sarren had recently had a baby when she

(51:00):
was shooting this movie, and so she's I get she
has like a reputation for being very professional, shows up
on time, expects to be released at the correct time,
as is her right. That's union ship. Tom Hardy is
known to be a method guy, known to never show
up on time, known to be a little bit combative

(51:21):
at times, and he and Charlie's well, they simply did
not like each other. And there is a story in
which Charlie's Thearren was there on time, sitting in the
war Wig waiting for mad Jical Michael to show up.

(51:41):
So he's not showing up. This was day five trillion
of shooting in the war Wig. At this point, the
women in Gauze had openly talked about Tom Hardy in
front of him. Everyone was sick of him. Then he
gets there late, Charlie's Thearren yells at him in front
of everybody. She says, and I quote, find the fucking

(52:03):
cunt a hundred thousand dollars for every minute he's held
up this crew. How disrespectful you are. Love that for her,
and then Tom Hardy physically charges at her, and uh,
you know, says what did you do to me? And
like lit like physically charges at her. She felt the

(52:25):
need to request a producer for protection for the remainder
of the shoot because things got so tense between the
two of them. It sounds like they have since reconciled.
But I guess make of that story what you will,
But I don't think Tom Hardy comes off particularly well

(52:46):
in It's certainly not and I take back what I
said about him methin actors truly. I mean, I just
I don't know my crush. Will Poulter said it best
when he said something like, I don't like it. Yeah,
what it was a good quote. We should look it

(53:06):
up and let's find it. I'm because I love quoting,
as you know, I'm always happy to google Will Poulter.
It's easy for me to do. Oh he said, it's
quote an excuse for inappropriate behavior unquote. So that's that. Um.
Should we take a quick break and then come back
and talk some more. Yeah, let's take a quick break

(53:33):
and we're back. We are back. Where would you like
to go from here at Caitlin, Oh, my goodness. I
would like to talk about how the movie handles race,
which is another thing that is not particularly good, y'all.
This has been discussed before. We're not really pointing out

(53:55):
anything new, but for the sake of a complete episode exactly.
The movie largely centers white people, which has been pointed
out as being especially strange in this context of like
the world that this movie exists within. I want to

(54:19):
pull a quote from and then also shout out a
book which is a series of four different essays, all
written by scholars I heard of them. The book is
entitled Furious Feminisms Alternate Routes on mad Max Fury Road.

(54:45):
There is a quote I will pull from the essay
entitled just a Warrior at the End of the World
by Barbaraker. This brighter put it better than I think
I could. So quote Max's story, like so many in
dystopian fiction, begs the question why do only white people

(55:06):
survive the apocalypse? The absence of indigenous bodies, indeed of
people of color generally throughout all four films, meaning all
four of the Mad Max films reflect the white supremacists
arc of settler colonialism in Australia. The presumed geography of
the film and elsewhere and further is a narrative that

(55:28):
seemingly relies on gender, but is always already raised as
only certain bodies are visible, only certain bodies are active,
only certain bodies are worthy of survival after the end
of the world end quote. This is not to say
that there are no people of color in the movie
and in the main cast, because of course you have

(55:51):
Zoey Kravitz. You also have the character of Cheetoh the
Fragile who is played by Courtney Eaton, who is Maori
and Cook Islander. Also shout out to the Ali Naughty
Test because this character passes the Ali Naughty Test. This

(56:12):
test examines representation of Indigenous women in media. In order
to pass, a character must be an Indigenous or Aboriginal
woman who is a main character. She must not fall
in love with a white man. And she is not
raped or murdered at any point in the story. And

(56:32):
according to the actor Courtney Eaton, Cheeto is the only
one of the wives who was not assaulted by Morton,
Joe or anyone else. So, okay, that's good, that's good
to know. We'll we'll get to this. I was very
fascinated at how those actors got to develop their own
character's history and story and that kind of collaborative process.

(56:56):
But we'll get there. But but yes, I am I'm
happy to here that that Cheeto passes the Ali Naty Test.
I do wish that characters that passed the Alien Nati
Test were more prominent in the story. She certainly has
important moments in the story, but she's you know, I
think kind of one of the less prominent of the

(57:18):
of the women in Gauze and when you are just
sort of like isolating screen time and just kind of
like narrative significance, Definitely Max and Furiosa are the two
most prominent characters. They share a dual protagonist situation. All

(57:39):
this to say that the majority of the characters that
we are rooting for are white characters. Yeah, I mean
our to the two lead characters or I know that.
God I've read so much of like actually Max is
a deuteragamist and I'm just like, okay, with all due respect,

(58:01):
shut the funk up, Um, I don't want to hear it.
But yes, there are two are two leading characters who
were supposed to I mean, the two people on the
fucking poster are sis white movie stars. And thank you
for thank you for sharing that quote. Because but now
we've covered um several I think Australian movies where where
this issue has been brought up? Um, what shall we

(58:27):
address next? So I wanted to just this is another
production note, but since it came up via learning a
little bit about Courtney Eaton's Um character backstory, something I
thought was quite interesting was and again just like an
interesting showing of growth in a director over time. Is

(58:52):
that George Miller brought in a consultant to help. It
seems like primarily Charlie Scarron and the women in Gauze
developed their characters. I don't know if the uh the
VOLI I was gonna say, VOLVIONI So there you go,

(59:14):
so like a damn Mario character. Okay, yeah, I I
don't know about um the women in that area of
the story. But George So, George Miller brought in Eve Ensler,
who most famously wrote the Vagina Monologues, which is very
dated in many ways. Uh, you know, we're not caping
for the Vagina monologue, but she's she's been a feminist

(59:37):
activist for a very long time, and he specifically requested
that she be available to the actors who were playing
um women who were being sex trafficked. And it experienced
quite a bit of trauma because eve Ensler has a
lot of experience working with survivors of sex trafficking. And

(59:58):
I guess that that is like what she was doing
when George Miller originally reached out. And so what they
did in a way that I think it seems to
have um Again, this is like we we cannot speak
from personal experience here, but it seems to generally elevate
those characters. And I feel like those characters are generally

(01:00:19):
treated with respect. And you see, you know, even through
the five women in gaul As, you see a bunch
of different um reactions to like they're all distinct characters
in a way that I think if the movie was
made twenty years before probably wouldn't have been true. Um.

(01:00:40):
Not only do they have different skills and strengths where
and I'm not going to get the names right. So
Zoe Kravitz, for example, can handle a gun like she
knows her ship in that department, Riley Kio really strongly
wants to go back for Rosie Huntington Whitely. They have
different opinions on what they should do with knocks like

(01:01:01):
there there's constantly disagreement, and even though many of them
have experienced similar kinds of abuse, they are all interpreting
it very very differently, which I thought was effective and
um done kind of seamlessly with the story. But I
wanted to share a quote from Eve and Sler in

(01:01:27):
that New York Times Oral History just to give some
insight into how they did it, so, she says, quote,
it was really surprising for me. George would send me
pieces of the script for feedback, and we began to
get into a dialogue about the women who were going
to play these sex slaves and how they would know
what that lived experience was. Eventually he invited me to Namibia,

(01:01:49):
which is where the movie was shot, to spend time
with them in workshops, and my contribution was really to
help those actresses become confident in that world. I think
it was a really radical thing that he asked me
to do that unquote. Um, I'm generally inclined to agree.
And it seems like the actors got a lot out
of it. Uh. They were asked to write their own backstories,

(01:02:11):
essentially write letters in character to their abusers. I mean,
it just seemed like a very immersive way of of
building characters. And I do appreciate when a male OH
tour such as George Miller knows when he's out of
his depth and brings someone in who is not out

(01:02:31):
of their depth. And I'm sure that those actors are
more comfortable talking to Eve Ensler than they would be
talking to George Miller about this topic. Um, So I
just thought that was a good creative choice, whereas um,
really Kio being left vulnerable enough to get hypothermia was
perhaps not as good. Yeah, the shoot of this movie

(01:02:55):
just sounded absolutely fucking wild, and you can tell by
watching it because so many of the so many I mean,
they're on location. It's practical effects in a desert in winter,
sand blowing and everyone's faces and being exposed to the elements.

(01:03:16):
And I mean, I don't even mean to be too
hard on George Miller specifically with that. I mean the
buckstocks with him because he's a director. But but like,
nine months in the fucking desert with a gigantic crew
and you're all doing practical effects of some of the
wildest shit I've ever seen in my life. It's a
miracle that everyone lived, um, which is also what one

(01:03:37):
of the things that Steven Soderberg said. He's like, how
did a hundred people not die? Right? So, so not
to you know, getting hypothermia on at work is horrible,
but given the scale of the movie, shocking that everyone survived. Yeah.
I read that a stuntman suffered a broken leg on

(01:03:57):
this movie. Hopefully he got workman's comp I know, I
hope he got that workman's comp million. Baby. I hope
he's I hope he's doing well. That is God, stunt
work is so terrifying. Yes, okay, so I did. Yeah.
I wanted to just kind of shout out the rare
male filmmaker, knowing when he's out of his depth, it

(01:04:19):
shouldn't be impressive, but it is. But it kind of
is to the point where even even Sler was like,
I was also shocked he wanted to do to do that,
and I like, I think we talked about this in
the Babe episode. Perhaps I don't remember, but a woman
edited this movie. George Miller's partner, Margaret six Cell, edited

(01:04:42):
this movie. I think we've brought up in the show
a couple of different times that women editing a movie
of this scale is again quite a big deal, and
she wanted an oscar. I was gonna say, the editing
is absolutely incredible. Yeah, it's absolutely it's I also didn't
reading about the production of this movie was so like
I didn't get really excited like into it because you're

(01:05:04):
just like, holy shit, any epic You're just like this
is how how where they like didn't have the budget
to shoot the scenes at the Citadel, and so she
edited most of the movie with nothing at the beginning
or end like that sounds so awful, like for her, like,
that's so stressful. Yeah, I think they had to go

(01:05:25):
back and do reshoots, and yeah, the production went way
over budget and you know all the things that you
would expect when you watch the movie. The movie didn't
technically make money after like all the stuff incurred. Yeah, okay,
So when I had one last behind the scenes thing
I wanted to draw to that, I think we'll hopefully

(01:05:48):
transition into a bigger discussion question mark, let's see, and
that is the costume design of this movie. Uh, it
was You're headed by Jenny Beavan, who also spoke in
this oral history, and it sounds like what I what

(01:06:08):
I thought was really interesting about it is that it
sounds as if the character designs and the costume designs
since this movie went, you know, was first conceptualized in
seven like before Zoe Kravitz existed on this physical plane,
what Furious As character was going to look like it

(01:06:28):
changed quite a bit and again was like collaborative with
the actors. So Jenny Beavan says, quote, I am not
into fashion wild thing for a costume designer to say
I love it. I also had that thought as I
wrote that quote. I am not into fashion and I
don't particularly care what people look like. The clothes have
to come out of the stories they tell, since she

(01:06:50):
travels long distances, furious and needed very practical clothing. And
when I met with Charlie's that was one of the
things we talked about that and what on earth should
she would she do with her hair? So, because it
is Charlie's there own's idea to be the baldest woman
in charge, which is the episode where we started talking
about that, I believe it is true. Yeah, that's uh,
one of the things we we did lose our I

(01:07:12):
p by removing that episode from the feed is the
origin of the baldest woman in Charge. But hey, we're
bringing it back. We weren't completely you know, useless in
we were just mostly useless. Um. But but yeah, I
thought that the talking about the costume design is an

(01:07:33):
interesting discussion because I feel like I'm interested in your
opinion because I think, furiosa, that's a pretty straightforward discussion.
Like she is, I think dressed pretty appropriately for the
work that she's doing, and she's you know, she's protected.
It seems like generally like that makes sense. And then

(01:07:54):
with the with the women in gauze, they're definitely like
their bodies are there's more attention drawn to their bodies
and it so it was tricky because I remember the
first time we had this discussion, I think that maybe
we kind of oversimplified it where it was like, oh,
these hot models and they're wearing hot outfits. Yes. However,

(01:08:20):
me is more inclined to say, like, well, in story,
that does technically make sense given who was dressing them
and where they were coming from. Meaning like a Morton
Joe would have selected like the most trophyist wives to
be his trophy wives, and yes, would have put them

(01:08:42):
in these outfits. And then we also see them in
chastity belts that we see them the first thing they
do when they get any amount of liberation is used
bolt cutters to take them off, take off the chastity belts. Yeah,
so I didn't really have And then when you meet

(01:09:02):
the you say it again, the Volgolini, Volgali okay, Volvolini, Okay,
I think I've got it now. They I think, for
the most part, I mean they're basically a biker gang
and they're like weather Gang and they're doing biker gang
ship ganges, so that generally makes sense. I think the
only character you see, the character who is known as
the Valkyrie, she is nude when you first see her

(01:09:27):
question mark or she's like mostly unclad and she put
I don't know, it didn't particularly bother me. I don't know.
The only thing that really bothers me about any of
the costume design or like just kind of general character
design is how do the women in Gauze never get

(01:09:50):
dirtier than they are at the very beginning, considering they're like,
you know, tumbling through sand and marsha is and yes,
but they stay like perfectly quoft and without like smudges
on their face, and that is Yeah, I think we
talked about that in the first time, and yeah, I

(01:10:13):
agree with you. You would think that it would I mean,
continuity wise, that sounds like someone's worst nightmare. But I
think in story that would have been more appropriate, which
I guess kind of does bring me around too. There
has been some criticism of this movie on gender essentialism.

(01:10:35):
So we've discussed this on the show many many times,
but it's it is a tricky discussion as it pertains
to this movie because in a Morton Joe's hyper patriarchal
capitalist society, the way he views women are as baby
making machines when the reality is that not all women

(01:11:00):
have uteruses, have wombs, can have babies. Like the definition
of womanhood that Morton Joe's society cast them as is
extremely it's just false. And we know that everything that
Morton Joe does is deeply wrong. Where it gets confusing
for me as I it's at times hard for me

(01:11:22):
to understand what the movie believes, which I think is
like evidenced in the fact that the again, like the
characters who we are focusing on and who were rooting
for and who are brought along for the journey are
these Western beauty standard attractive people, and then everyone else

(01:11:46):
is either a villain or just gets left out of
the narrative and is only there as like world building,
set dressing. But then, but then there's a lot of
cool stuff that the movie is doing that subverts a
lot of existing archetypes and tropes. So I've i've I've

(01:12:07):
read arguments on both sides of this that. So i've
i've I've read some stuff that argues that the script
overly essentializes and defines, um, you know, is like baby
making equals only way to be woman, which we know
very well is false. But then I've also read counter

(01:12:27):
arguments to that argument that are a little more recent. Interestingly, Uh,
and this is yeah, I guess for our listeners, I'm
like kind of synthesizing this in real time. But that
argue that the movie actually does push against that essentialism
in text through the women of the Volvolini. And I

(01:12:52):
will say that Volvolini does not help that argument at all,
especially because they're like other name is the many mothers,
but also you don't see any of them as mothers,
like there they don't or it's not clear. They're kind
of like this utopian like it just seems like they

(01:13:12):
just yeah, they they function as a family, but there doesn't.
I don't know. But then the Keeper of the Seed
that like it's I don't know where I land in
this argument. However, Uh, the counter argument, just to present
it is that the women of the Wolglini, many of
whom I think most of whom are older, are not

(01:13:34):
of childbearing age. If they ever were able to bear
child we don't know right, who gives a ship U
people alone? But but I think you know, because they
are older in the eyes of Morton Joe, that makes
them not useful productive members of his society. In the
world of the movie. And to the women in Gauze,

(01:13:57):
to mad Maximilian to fear Riosa, they are very valuable
because they are valued for wisdom. They are just as capable,
if not more capable warriors, and it is very clear
in text that they are extremely important to the mission
being a success. So it's it's certainly complicated. There are

(01:14:24):
certainly ways to interpret what is presented to us differently.
I see both sides, although I tend to be of
the mind, not us being centrists. Um I And maybe
it's just because I love this movie so much that

(01:14:45):
I'm going to go to bat for it pretty hard.
But sure do I love this movie so much because
I think it's doing a lot of good things. That
is part of it. So I want to just sort
of talk about sort of just like generally speaking, here,

(01:15:05):
this movie presents a world in which you know, this
extremely toxic, tyrannical leader of a Morton Joe. He's obsessed
with war, he's obsessed with controlling people. He owns all
of the wealth. He is patriarchy, the guy, the man.
He manipulates people. He sees women as property and you know,

(01:15:28):
like you said, baby making machines, he sees his son.
I mean, I think it's also interesting how he everyone
is a means to an end. The gender nature of
how he views women is pointed and particularly brutal. But
I but I never, like, really, I don't know. I
hadn't watched this movie with Bechtel Castle in like goggles

(01:15:48):
on in a long time, but you see really early
on that like you know, mad Max is a fucking bloodbag,
like he's used for what Morton Joe thinks is valuable
about District viewing him as an object as well. Right, yes,
and all of these things are shown by the movie
as being wrong and toxic and worth fighting against. And

(01:16:13):
of course sometimes it gets a little on the nose.
It's not very subtle, but you know, the intentions are
clear what the film is trying to say and do.
And just to have an action movie that is a
critique of toxic masculinity and like hegemonic masculinity is pretty
remarkable since most action movies celebrate toxic masculinity. Yeah, so

(01:16:39):
that's kind of step one of what we're dealing with here,
because I even though so many action movies celebrate toxic masculinity,
I love the genre, but I especially love action movies
with substance and interesting world building and that have something
to say. So that's why I've really latched on to

(01:17:01):
this one. Now, Furiosa, there are different interpretations of the
kind of like Max and furious A dynamic. From a
character function point of view, I consider them to be
dual protagonists, and they share protagonists. Actually actually, um, I
would actually call maximist, and in this essay I'll talk

(01:17:27):
about why that's screwed up because it's his name in
the movie. UM. Sorry, I continue, I I agree with you. So,
just to come at this from a screenwriting point of view, um,
not that I would ever, you know, mention a master's
degree that I have in screenwriting from Boston University. Certainly
not on your birthday, no less, certainly not on my birthday.

(01:17:49):
But they share protagonist functions in the sense that Furiosa
has the stronger motivation, the more distinct goal, which is
the thing that dry it is the narrative, and the
higher stakes whereas Max has the more significant character arc.
You know, he goes from being this like borderline animal

(01:18:11):
survival boy to someone with like human empathy. Both characters
are equally active and the story is told from their
point of view in pretty equal distribution. So that's why
I contend that they are dual protagonists. Um, which means
we have one of the protagonists in the movie being

(01:18:34):
a woman, which is pretty rare for an action movie
Furious especially of course, because she is one of two
leading characters, is participating in the action and fighting. And
again that makes sense because this is an action movie
just as much as Max, more so even in the

(01:18:54):
first act, because Max is restrained and chained to a
car so he can't do anything for a while. There
are moments where she gets to take the lead because
she has more skills than him. There's that scene where
she shoots the guys on the motorcycle that are coming
after them because she has like better marksmanship, and also

(01:19:19):
she's done this before and he hasn't. Like that's established
really early on, where like she this is like not
quite a day at the office for her, but like
you know, I don't, she's more experienced and like he's
like a cop, so he in theory has like experience
shooting a gun. But like, oh no, I didn't mean

(01:19:42):
like she, but I meant like in terms of knowing
the war raging like that, Like she, yeah, like has
more not like I feel like it's presented very early
on that she has more relevant information and skills than
he does for the situation they're in. But they're both
very skilled, right right, right, okay, yes, yes, um right,

(01:20:04):
and she just like has power over him in knowing
the like code, the Da Vinci code, the unlocks, the
killed switches or whatever. Do you remember that famous scene
or furious Selene's over to Mad Max and she says apple,
and then he goes, oh, my name's Max, so I
have it in She's like he has to tell She's like,

(01:20:30):
here's how to disable to kill switches. It's a p
p L E. And then he goes, wow, I can't
believe I read six hundre pages to get to this. So,
uh yeah, And it's just I mean, just the fact
that she is driving the war rig for a large

(01:20:51):
chunk of the movie. I hate that that is such
a big deal. But it's a big deal. That's a
big deal. One of the best hand to hand combat
fight scenes in an action movie that I've ever seen
is that early one between Furios and Max. We have
a man and a woman fighting, which, as we've discussed
on the show, does not happen often. We've discussed how

(01:21:13):
in a lot of action movies where like the rarer
cases where a woman is allowed to participate in the action,
she is often fighting other women. So to see this
like very equally balanced fight between a man and a
woman where they are both extremely capable, is again shouldn't

(01:21:35):
be groundbreaking, but I'm like, oh my gosh, this is
so cool to see. It's wild. And uh. Something else
that I liked about this fight that felt a little
unusual watching it this time around was I feel like
you rarely see a male action protagonist fight because they're
very obviously scared. Like Max is really scared in that scene,

(01:22:00):
and like, I like, he's behaving brutally, but it's I
I feel like, you know, a slight tip of that
whatever to Tom Hardy, Like you can tell that it's
like he's not doing the like hyper masculine action starting
He's afraid and that is why he's fighting, And i'e

(01:22:21):
like you don't. That's just not something you get from
a male action hero very often. True. I'm about to
go into a bunch of ways in which the female
characters in this movie subvert a lot of action movie tropes.
But there's a lot of stuff also that's subverted about
Max's character. Like, I mean, he's, like what you said,

(01:22:42):
he's got PTSD that really strongly affects him, And I mean,
I guess that that's not unheard of in this genre,
but to have it presented as something as scary and
debilitating as it is to him, I feel like, is unusual.
I think, I think so. I think also that again,

(01:23:05):
him being kind of like incapacitated for the first act
of the movie and not being allowed or able to
participate in the fighting and action is a subversion. I
think that his arc being that he learns empathy is
a very interesting arc for a male action hero. I

(01:23:28):
don't know, just like a lot of fascinating things to me,
But not as interesting as furious a baby, not as
interesting as Furiosa. So back to that hand to hand
combat fight between Max and Furiosa. Also during that fight,
the women in Gauze, though not trained warriors, at all,
they are still participating in the action. For example, one

(01:23:51):
of them tosses a weapon to Furiosa for her to
use against Max. At different points they kind of rally
together to either pull acts or nuts away from Furiosa. Um.
There are other moments throughout the rest of the story
where they the Kravitz does know how to shoot again.
For yes, you know, like someone that she knows. Yeah,

(01:24:14):
she knows how to like load reload a weapon. She
knows how to Like she knows. And this doesn't like
seem that impressive. But also like if someone's like, here's
a pile of a bunch of different bullets, here's a
pile of a bunch of different guns. Match the guns
to the bullets. I can't. I wouldn't know where to begin. Yeah,
no fucking clue there. It's it's like it's cool like there,

(01:24:38):
and I forget how we view this. View this the
first time around, but watching it back, you're like, oh,
this is like having the women in Gauze. I feel like,
in a less capable team's hands could either have gone
super merry Sue or completely sidelined those characters in the action.

(01:24:59):
But I feel like the action you get from them
is significant. It's narratively impactful, and it's not like ridiculous,
like they're a fucking swat team, because like that wouldn't
make sense with their lived experience, right, it tracks with
their background. They are able to do things like use
bolt cutters, they create diversions to help them escape dangerous situations.

(01:25:25):
You know, it's just like they are given opportunities to
be able to do things that impact the story in
ways that other action movies don't afford those opportunities to
women usually. And then, like we've mentioned the team up
with the Wovelini, the Many Mothers, and you know what

(01:25:47):
it's reminding me of. It's reminding me of the VOLTUREI
from fucking Twilight. Oh my gosh, the Italian vampire team.
I was like, I was like, it sounds like Vagina pasta,
but it also sounds like something else. It sounds like
the Vulture led by I believed the code of Fanning.
That sounds right, memory serves anyways, Sorry, that was that

(01:26:09):
was bugging me. Now now I remember. I'm glad we
I'm glad we worked through that. So they meet up
with the Wovelini and like the number of female characters
doubles or maybe even more than doubles, and then it's
like they're all trained warriors in a way that makes
total sense. Right, there's a lot of cool stuff happening there.

(01:26:30):
And then more specifically, so I would recommend a video
essay series from Innuendo Studios that was written and narrated
by Ian Danskin, who is a cisman but he does
make a lot of points that I agree with and
and and brings a lot of insights. He does say

(01:26:51):
due to ragamus quite though he does, and I will
forgive him for that. Yeah, it's a good series. The
videos series is called Bringing Back What's Stolen, Fury Road
and the Avenging Feminine. So this video series has a
lot of insight about how female characters in Fury Road
compare to female characters in other action movies. Or he

(01:27:16):
keeps calling them violent movies because he also introduces some
examples from like horror slasher movies. UM, So if you're
just kind of like using the umbrella of violent movies. Um,
A lot of tropes and archetypes have emerged over the
years that Fury Road tends to avoid. So I'll just

(01:27:37):
kind of quickly go through this. I recommend watching the
whole series, but it pointed out a lot of things
that I wasn't really able to articulate very clearly. So yeah,
it's very very streamlined. It's it's really good. So. One
of the archetypes of female characters in action slash violent
movies is the innocent um based sally when a woman

(01:28:01):
is captured, damseled, brutalized to provide steaks for the male hero.
We talk about this all the time. It often takes
the form of a woman being captured and damseled and
needing to be saved by a man. Obviously, Furiosa doesn't
fall into this archetype, and neither do the wives because

(01:28:23):
even though Furiosa is taking them away from a Morton
Joe to safety, as we've discussed, they're not helpless. They
are participating in the action. Yeah, and it was also
like I thought it was a smart, subtle choice that
it was their idea for it to happen in the
first place, Like they weren't just like doi I want,
Like they were highly motivated to get out of their situation,

(01:28:46):
and they sought out someone who could help them, like huge,
like literally graffiting on their walls the reasons saying like
our babies will not be war lords. We are not
things that whole I mean, And that's there's some I
think that some of the issues we've discussed as it

(01:29:07):
pertains to like gender, I feel like part of it
is because there is that really strong like seizing the
means of production energy to this movie, Like where for
the majority of like the characters in this movie, the
means of production is like reclaiming your own body, which
is like you know, by liberating themselves from a morton

(01:29:29):
Joe and refusing to have his children like that is
their means of production. Same thing goes for like Max,
Like the difference between Max being used as a blood
bag for Nicholas Holt and Max giving his blood to
Furious at the end is like he sees the means
of his own production. It's the same thing, but the
context is uh. Anyways, The next archetype that this video

(01:29:56):
series identifies is they call it the Vasquez named after
the character Vasquez in Aliens. Listened to that episode for
our discussion on that character specifically. There's a lot going on,
but it's the female action movie archetype where the woman
is one of the guys and ends up embodying traits

(01:30:20):
of toxic masculinity, which is again subverted in this movie
because Fury Road explores a more nuanced and less binary
spectrum of gender, of masculinity and femininity. That one, I mean,
that was wild in that particular video section, with that

(01:30:41):
super cut of all the different women protagonists that have
said suck my dick. Different You're like, oh, yeah, I
guess that that is a that is a thing that
happens quite a bit, uh, in a certain era of
but also like still kind of now anyway sometimes Yeah.
One of these archetypes has been dubbed the dominatrix. Uh.

(01:31:04):
This is the highly violent and also highly sexualized female character.
She is often the villain or anti hero. Old school
Catwoman's stuff exactly like leans into the hyper sexualization of
women's bodies. I maintain that even though we see, especially
the women in Gauze, they are arguably kind of scantily clad,

(01:31:31):
they're not sexualized in an exploitative way. I would agree
with that. You could you could make an argument against that,
and I and I would listen and probably agree with
some of it. But I think that there is an art.
There's definitely an argument for it, but it just it's
hard to describe. It doesn't feel like the movie is
trying to titilate with shots of their body. I always

(01:31:55):
think of the shot of like pregnant Rosie Huntington Whiteley
and the Hose where you're like a still of that.
I could see the argument, but presented in context, I
didn't feel like it was supposed to be a titilating
shot right right. The video essay points out that most
other action movie directors would frame that scene in question,

(01:32:18):
which is the one where Max comes upon the war
rig for the first time when it's like cartoon wolf.
And then it would because they're like posing each other
down there, like cleaning off after this first big chase.
They are drinking water, you know, all this stuff. That's
when they say so fresh face. Throughout the movie, they

(01:32:39):
occasionally rents off they're taking baths. That's true. Um. The
video essay points out that like most other directors, and
I'm especially thinking of like how Michael Bay would shoot this,
but they would like shoot that scene like a wet
T shirt contest. But this scene is mostly like the
women at a far distance or like tight shots of

(01:33:02):
their face in a way that we're not seeing like disembodied,
you know, like breasts and asses and stuff like that. Yeah,
so uh that's another subversion um. The next action movie
archetype is the Mama Bear, which is typically a pretty

(01:33:23):
feminine woman who will become violent in order to protect
her children. Think like Ripley and Aliens. Thanks Gina Davis's
character in The Long Kiss Goodnight, Um, I can't, I
haven't seen it. Okay, then don't think about it. The
video essay goes into detail about how Fury Road subverts

(01:33:44):
this and that even though there is the idea of
like motherhood presented in that, like the way, we're more
rooted in our refusal to uh like right, yeah, it's
it's it's more rooted in I mean and full disclosure,
we are we're recording as in a big week for
bodily autonomy talk. But it is like the most one

(01:34:08):
of the most dystopian examples of trying to regain your
bodily autonomy by refusing to have a child that you
don't want that was a product of assault. Like period. Yeah, yes,
bad week, bad week, that's a really bad week. The
next archetype um being the final girl. This is already

(01:34:30):
a familiar thing, most common in horror slash slasher movies.
This video essay examines how kind of the idea of
specialness and being quote not like the other girls is
the thing that enables the final girl to survive, where
in this movie, Fury Road subverts this by not presenting

(01:34:55):
anyone as like more deserving or more special than anyone else.
Although see my point again about the trophy wives being
rescued but not the women who are being milked. Yeah,
I don't think that that's universally true, but of the

(01:35:16):
characters we know we are, that's generally true. And I
also thought it was like, uh, just a choice that
made sense in the genre. That I mean, none of
the none of the we don't lose the women in gods,
but there are a few of the vulture the vampires, yes,
the Italian vampires that do die in in battle, and uh,

(01:35:41):
and there's also plenty of war boys who die in battle. Certainly,
I don't think that, I mean, we haven't really brought
up nuts too much. There's not too much to talk
about there. But I do think that it's interesting that
he ties into this theme of redemption that the movie
has that it would be it would have been very,

(01:36:02):
very easy for them to just kill him, and they
consider it, like the Furiosa has a knife to his
throat at one point. Yeah, but but after the women
in Gauze sort of talk it out a little bit
and Furiosa weighs in that they I think it's Rosie
Huntington Whitely who who ultimately says like, basically, this is

(01:36:24):
a kid who's been indoctrinated into this fucking horrible place
and sort of suggests that killing him is not the
way to go, which ends up serving the story. And
I like that this movie is, you know, there's like
the whatever restorative justice is at play for a lot

(01:36:46):
of it because even though Nuxt still dies, he like
is redeemed by and and in a way that isn't
like an annoying movie redemption. It's not like Adam Drivers
Star Wars Redemption. You know, it's it's like it's efficient.
You know that he has been indoctrinated. He makes an
emotional connection with one of the women in Gas, the

(01:37:07):
Riley Kio character, who I mean, it just sounds like
he's basically shown mercy and like empathy as opposed to
gas lighting and a fucking spray cand of the face
for the first time in his life. You could argue
that having only women display those qualities is pointed, but
I thought it worked in the movie. But that's also

(01:37:31):
an interesting arc for him to have to where like
he starts out as being, you know, this product of
his environment of being like extremely radicalized in this very toxic,
warmongering way, and then as soon as one person shows

(01:37:52):
him any amount of empathy and patience, riley Ko literally
says like, oh that sucks, and he's like it blows
his mind. He's like, wait, someone is it yelling at
me and calling me mediocre? Don't call Nicholas whole mediocre,

(01:38:13):
but yeah, Like his arc revolving around, similar to Max
is like being responsive to empathy, yeah, or like having
a healthier relationship with empathy. Is both of what the
main male characters arcs revolve around, which is I think

(01:38:35):
really interesting and cool. Um I agree. The final archetype,
as discussed in this video essay, is the rape revenger,
which again deals more commonly with like rape revenge horror movies,
but based on the context of and like backstory of

(01:38:58):
the women in Gauze it's applicable here where the general
trope slash archetype presents women in a usually very exploitative
way that kind of revels in the physical and or
sexual violence that happens towards the women in these stories

(01:39:19):
and revels in their suffering, whereas Fury Road opts not
to show any of this exploitative violence and suffering. We
understood that it has happened to them, but any of
the violence toward women in the movie is just the
women actively engaging in battle as warriors and not that

(01:39:40):
kind of like exploitative violence towards women. And the video
ends with a proposal of like a new and like
a new future archetype that Furiosa falls into, which is
called the avenging feminine, in which, uh, you know, a
woman takes what is hers, she fights because it's her

(01:40:02):
right to fight against men who tell her it's not
her right, among other traits. Um I found the whole
thing really insightful. I don't necessarily drive with every single moment,
but um I found it generally it really cool. Yeah,
we'll link it um if anyone wants to check it out.
But it helped me because like it identified action movie

(01:40:26):
tropes that are ascribed to female characters that I just
like didn't have like the vocabulary for and stuff. So yeah,
I just I found it really helpful, and I agree
with most of the analysis of how Fury Road subverts
those archetypes. So it's true. That's my little piece about that,
and I think all of it is very cool and

(01:40:51):
again largely why I love this movie so much. It's perfect.
I'm I'm rictus erectus just here in it, uh, And
that's my little contribution. Thank you. What a wonderful birthday
gift the birthday. Yeah, I mean, Furious it is just

(01:41:13):
like a fucking awesome character for for all the reasons
you describe. And also I mean just a very I
feel like it's fun to see a character of any
gender kind of arrive fully formed, like when you meet
Furious that she's highly motivated. She's one of the only
characters that we meet who already has a vested interest

(01:41:33):
in people who are not just herself. It's kind of
her and the women and gods who care about each other. Um,
and that that isn't because I feel like sometimes empathy
and this isn't like the worst trope in the entire world.
But it is a trope where empathy and emotional intelligence
is more often attributed to women characters. It's not a
trope that comes from nowhere, I would say, uh, but

(01:41:57):
but it is a common trope, and I think sometimes
in movies it's applied rather sloppily, where it's like women's
intuition and ship like that. Sure, but with Furiosa, I mean,
you get explicit context as to why she has a
collective mindset and because that's how she was raised. She
was raised in a feminist utopia that prioritized the collectives,

(01:42:19):
so the fact that she retains those values as an
adult makes total sense. But also there are moments where
she does not display empathy, like the part where she's
about to kill nuts. Uh. There's there's the part where
she's like Rosie rolled off the war rig. We gotta

(01:42:40):
keep going baby, we gotta keep going right, which is like,
that's just pragmatic ship. Unfortunately for Rosie. Glad she made
it exactly. But it's something so I've talked about this
on the show before, but something that drives me absolutely
wild about horror movies especially, and it's usually like the
Final Girl, but you see this in some action movies too,

(01:43:03):
and other genres. But like whoever, the most important female
character of the movie is she has so much empathy
that she has put in a position where she has
the opportunity to badly maim and or kill the person
who is trying to kill her. But because she has
so much empathy, she's like, I can't do it. I can't.

(01:43:24):
I mean, which, which I think in certain you know
that I feel like that's super case to case, but
can be super sloppy and trophy if it just seems
like it's because it's because girl, girl is nice, girl
has feeling right and that and that's some women are
fucking heartless and you should remember that. But um, often

(01:43:45):
when I see it, it's it's very infuriating in Furious
curiousting because of the way it's presented. Um And in
this case, we see Furiosa killing people all the time
because they are actively trying to kill her. So but

(01:44:05):
she kind of but but I also appreciate that she doesn't.
I don't know, no, when I guess this is like
part of why they're the hear like, no one is
killing for fun, they're killing for survival. Um, where like
I mortem Joe is killing for say his name again,
Jamie Morton, bro Elan mc volvolorins, I just passed out.

(01:44:36):
I just got a nose leed on the zoom call.
I think you're called Knucks Knocks at one point as
well Knocks l a the place I write for. Um. Look, look,
they're difficult names. There's too many characters. There are a
lot of characters, and they all have pretty unfamiliar names.
They have very name. Okay, I've called that was on

(01:45:00):
your birthday. Can't believe it. Um, I truly forget what
I was talking about, but I'm sure I was in
the middle of I'm sure. I mean, good job, Jamie,
He's made a good point. Oh something you wanted to
bring up really quick? I mean, I guess it's just
like Hits Home again. It's just a scene that I
had forgotten about. I hadn't seen this movie and maybe

(01:45:20):
two years, and I was like, oh boy, uh when
the dead baby the dead baby, there is a dead
I don't really I don't have a bettel Cast Galaxy
brain point to make about it, but I do. I mean,
I guess that that just that like Hits Home super hard,

(01:45:41):
not subtly at all. How little life is valued when
it doesn't have when it doesn't specifically benefit the upper class,
because no one gives a ship. If Rosie Huntington Whiteley
is okay, it's like is the rawduct because they view

(01:46:02):
children as products and a future war boy, you know.
And so I just forgot about that scene and I
find it disturbing every single time. Again another reminder of
what is happening in this country right now. Yeah, there's
a lot about this movie that the more time that passes,

(01:46:25):
you're just like, whoa with? I mean even just like, yeah,
a radicalized force of young men. You're like, I know, yeah, uh,
anyways away, you know it's it's it's still fiction for now.
So that's good. Yeah, did you have anything else you

(01:46:47):
wanted to talk about? Not really. I just want to
give a shout out to miss Giddy. I wish we
just knew more about her character. Amazing line reads great.
I love her tattoos. There was a scene that was
shot but deleted from the movie in which Angherd's body
and Miss Giddy were left to die and be eaten

(01:47:10):
by crows, which I think would have been just like
a very unnecessarily violent scene towards Miss Gutty specifically, that
was removed. Honestly weird that it was even considered to
be included in the movie. But I did not know that.
That's very Yes, um so that was no good. But uh,

(01:47:31):
Miss Gitty is just seems like a prime candidate for
a limited series. That's a character. I would watch a
whole series about the marvelous Miss Kitty. I like that.
That's where you took it here, like as she does
do stand out. She's a stand up comic at the Citadel,
she did the Comedy Citadel. She headlines the Comedy Citadel,

(01:47:56):
and I'm running my Type five at the Citadel tonight.
I want to come, um just like a goofy, Like
it's real hard bringing a woman in comedy, right, And
she just said the fucking Citadel. Uh God, Anyway, wish
I knew more about wish we knew more about her character.
I think we just built out some pretty let's let's uh,
let's run that past Eve Ensler. But I think that

(01:48:18):
she's gonna love it. I agree, Yeah, I think that
is all I had. Did you have anything else? No,
that's that's that's about all I had as well. Um,
I really enjoyed this movie, and I really enjoyed talking
about it. I'm so glad to hear that. But here's

(01:48:38):
my question, Caitlin. Does it pass a back? It does
a lot. Furiously talks to the various women in Gauze.
They talked to each other. They all talked to different
members talked to each other. Yes, Um, I don't have
a handle on what most of their names are, but

(01:49:00):
I think they are given names like in the script
and in the credits. They're all and stuff pretty like.
I mean, I would say that they count his names
because male character eors are also given like weird titles
as names, like the Bullet Farmer. I would consider it
to be a character's name. Sure, yeah, in the same
way that yeah, the people Eater the Duf Warrior, which

(01:49:24):
you gotta love the Duf Warrior. Um. I didn't love
the Duf Warrior the first time around, but this time
I loved the Dufei. The dufe is cool. Speaking of
media tests, I wanted to call attention really quick to
the furiosa test. Oh yeah, I forgot about this. This
is a funny one, so obviously, so this movie provides

(01:49:46):
the origin for this test. The test was proposed by
Twitter user Sean M. Puckett in June a sentence who
said proposed the furious a test your movie, slash game,
slash book, slash play passes if it incites men's rights
dipshits to boycott because what happened when this movie was released,

(01:50:12):
A bunch of m r a s were like, what
what is this? What's that? Well that then Alfred Bilina,
who famously denounces men's rights activism, king King of the World,
and you heard it here first on our show. People

(01:50:33):
don't talk about that enough. I think they don't talk
about it nearly enough. They don't really talk about it
maybe at all. It doesn't really come up. It's sort
of only just us who brings it up. But the
m r a s they just threw a little fit,
as they often do, when they realized what this movie

(01:50:56):
was about. They deemed it feminist propaganda. They you know,
demanded people boycott the movie. They still do this, But
I feel like the mis was when this like this
particular brand of like like masculine anchor was like they
were really in their bag because like Ghostbusters came out,

(01:51:18):
this came out like you're just like, oh my God.
I feel like everyone had like one man in their
life that was like, Oh, I didn't realize that you're
the pettiest kind of person that exists. Uh yes, fascinating Anyways,
what about our nipple scale though, you're the five nipples?

(01:51:40):
Based on how the movie fares when examining it through
an intersectional feminist lens, oh me, oh my, um okay,
I think I've got I've got a number in mine,
go go go off, Birthday, thank you, birthday, birthdays, first birthday,
first always. I am leaning somewhere between a three and

(01:52:04):
a half and a four. I might split the diff
and go three point seven five. I think the way
the movie treats disability and atypical bodies is unforgivable. I
think that the way the movie centers whiteness and centers

(01:52:29):
people who adhere to western beauty standards as being those
most worthy of being rescued and escaping to safety and
survival is dated and unfortunate, and there was so much
more room for more meaningful inclusion. Things like that, which

(01:52:51):
we've discussed that bring the rating down. But there is
also so much that the movie subverts, tropes that avoids
and things that it actually does actively do to push
the needle forward in terms of how women especially are

(01:53:14):
treated and the role that they play in an action movie.
Because of that, I'm going to go with the I
think at three point seven five. I'll give one to
furious A, one two the women who are left behind,
one to the women in Gauze, and I'll give my

(01:53:37):
three quarters nipple to the voltry Ak, the Wolvelini, okay,
the Ravioli. You know, we could keep going, we could
keep going. Oh my god. My favorite moment in all
of um history as do you ever? No, I guess no.

(01:54:01):
Every time you didn't watch SpongeBob. There's a great moment
where I forget what the context of it is, but
someone spells Chris Squidward's name wrong and he goes squid
word totally me and it's so funny because his name
Squidward Tentacles, sort of like the character Tentacles in the

(01:54:24):
Legend of Titanic. My favorite animated film of all time,
The Blueprint. Yeah good, oh god, I love squid word. Okay, um,
I'm going to give the movie. I'm gonna I'll be
generous because I feel residual guilt for how irrationally hard.
I was on this movie the in our first run

(01:54:46):
at this episode six years ago. We're all works in
progress six years ago. To be fair, Yes I was.
I was twelve years old. I'm eighteen now, so I
think I know a thing or two. Okay, good, I am,
I'm gen Z. What can I say? Um? Well, since
it's my birthday today, so I have actually aged into
being a boomer. Wow, that's how that works. There there

(01:55:10):
comes a day where we all become boomers selfordunately. I'm
Benjamin Botton ng I'm gen Z. Uh Um, but I'll
go for I totally agree with the way that this
movie treats disabled bodies and atypical bodies in general. This
movie's views on fatness in particular are um all extremely

(01:55:34):
dated for a movie that came out less than ten
years ago, which speaks to how underdeveloped those discussions are.
And and also, um, you know a positive spin, how
far conversations around that have come. And I would be
interested because there is supposed to be a prequel with
Anna Taylor Joy as young Furiosa coming out in I

(01:55:57):
would be curious because George Mill has a somewhat good
record on course correcting past mistakes. I wonder if that
will be something that is course corrected in another installment
of this franchise. We will see it curious to see um, curiosa, curiosa, honey. Uh.

(01:56:20):
But yes, the the treatment of disability and race in
particular are we're not good at the time and did
not age well um and should always be criticized. And
to this movie's credit, I do think that this movie's
good reception, this movie being embraced by action fans is

(01:56:44):
like a huge I would imagine. I mean, it's still
kind of early to tell. Obviously, the movie came out
seven years ago, but even in that time, I feel
like you can trace that it's made a difference in
the genre, and it's made a friends to fans of
action movies of like what an action hero looks and

(01:57:05):
behaves and like what they're capable of. I feel like
Furiosa is like a huge kind of game changer for
this genre, and it is a difficult genre to game
change because of all the loaded masculinity that it's known for.
There's a lot of baggage. Yeah, So for its fault
of which there are many, and we've discussed them, I

(01:57:27):
do think that it was a huge step forward for
the genre in many ways. UM. I generally like how
the women in the movie who we get to know? Um,
which is the women we get to know versus a
woman we don't, as we discussed, is very intentional and
pointed the when we do get to know, I feel
like are all given effective story arcs. I thought it

(01:57:49):
was really cool that George Miller empowered his actors to
develop their own characters, was open to feedback, brought in
a consultant like ship. You just don't hear about male
unters of this kind of magnitude doing, not giving him
a fucking crown or anything. But I think it's just
just another good example setting thing to have done. I

(01:58:14):
think this movie is awesome. I really enjoy watching it,
and UM, thank you Caitlin for first of all choosing
it for your birthday episode and for bearing with me
as I grew as a person and grew to appreciate it.
So look more, nippies. I knew it would happen. I
knew that you would undergo a significant character arc much

(01:58:36):
like Max does. So not Max. I don't like Max. Um,
he's my least favorite character, and you know, that there's
a lot of worse characters. But anyways, I'm going to
give my nepples, I mean, one to Curious, I'm gonna
give one does Zoe Kravitz in the bullet Bag, I'm
gonna give one to the Keeper of the Sea Needs,

(01:59:00):
And I'm gonna give one to Mrs. Oh what's their name?
Mrs Miss Giddy, Miss Gid Love it And that's the episode, folks.
It certainly is uh you can you know, do all
the stuff? Hey, you know what, since it's my birthday. Yeah,
I'm gonna not only suggest, but maybe even demand that

(01:59:22):
you oh ship this is this is me being absolutely
funked up as promised. I'm so scared right now. Would
you give me a little follow on Twitter and Instagram
at Caitlin Durante Because the more followers I have on
social media platforms, the more validated I feel as a

(01:59:44):
human being. And that is the sad state of the world.
I think that that's super healthy and I feel the
same way. Um, everyone follow Caitlin on every platform available.
You have TikTok to, I do have TikTok and I
um I have not really posted much except for a

(02:00:04):
couple of Titanic related TikTok's. Although I started doing this
new thing on my Instagram stories in which I recap
a movie speaking as quickly as I can and including
as much detail as I can in fifteen seconds or less.
So I might add those to my TikTok to really,

(02:00:25):
you know, because it's all about generating new content, you know. Um.
She says she's a boomer, but she's sounding like a
danger what M so definitely, you know whatever. I don't
care about TikTok right now, but I mean ask me
again in a year and I'll be like, follow me
on trink talk, um, but certainly follow me on Instagram

(02:00:48):
and Twitter. Also followed Jamie on those on those platforms, Hey,
why don't you do that for once in your life? Um? Yeah?
And then also listen to Ghost Church. That's my new
show that's coming out right now. It's about it's about
my my week in Cassadega, Florida and the history of

(02:01:08):
American spiritualism a k. Ghost Church, as I like to
call it. I'm having a lot of fun making it.
It's also produced by producer at the Bendel Cast. So
if you Lichterrman and why don't you, why don't you
head on over and give that a lesson. We just
love creating content so much, which says Instagram and Twitter

(02:01:33):
elon Musk's Twitter as I like to call it now,
Jamie Loftus help on Twitter, Jay christ Superstar on Instagram,
and then follow the Bechtel Cast while you're on those
two cursed websites. Okay, yeah, at Bechtel Cast and uh.
A nice little birthday gift for me would be if
you give the podcast a little rate and review, preferably

(02:01:57):
a favorable one, like a you know, five nipple if
you dare, if you if you hated this episode, actually
please thank I'm still I'm still traumatized from the Zootopia
blowback of Oh my god. They're like, oh, it's just,
oh well, rabbits can't even be cops anymore, according to

(02:02:19):
these broads. I'm like, oh my goodness, gracious, take a
c folks. No one's listening to the episode at this point.
They're like, the episode ended ten minutes ago, it's been
over two hours, and we simply can't stop talking. Typical women, right,
always blabbing, blabbing, blabbing. Pe pe poo pooh. Two things

(02:02:44):
women love did you, and then follow our patreonic Adrian.
If you want more of that hilarious star banter, that's
patreon dot com, slash becktel cast. You want an episode
on Babe truly, that's where you'll find it. That's where
you're gonna fucking find it. Um, and we are we're

(02:03:05):
doing some of Caitlin's picks on the matre and this
months we're doing face slash Off and we are doing it.
What's the other one? Or doing Top Gun? Not because
I vouch for the movie for either of these movies.
It was honestly just like, Okay, the new Top Gun
movies coming out, what better time, I guess than to
cover the original Top Gun. And then also I was like,

(02:03:26):
what's another like big loud action, goofy action movie that
we can fold into the mix? And I was like,
Face Off. I think would be a lot of fun
for us to be like, what the funk is this movie?
Love it? So that's the plan, folks, And that's the plan.
And if you don't like it, go to hell to

(02:03:48):
quote um. Okay, one's let in Titanic, Well, let's get
out horror or follow me internal on the highways of
the see you in Valhalla everyone and go to Valhalla.
Deal with Valhallaco saw the Northman. I've had enough of Valhalla.
Goodbye Episode I

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