[ SECRET POST #3076 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3076 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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17. [WARNING for rape/sexual abuse]








Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 103 secrets from Secret Submission Post #440.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

While I think either gender flipping characters or doing gender-blind casting is a great strategy and nets pretty interesting results and is a good wsy to go about being more feminist when making movies, I disagree that nothing would have changed if Furiosa were a man. You could have had a male character very much like her, but so much about the story and the implications would have changed.

Miller specifically said he made the character a woman to avoid telling the story that would have resulted if the warrior taking the Wives away were a man. Based on comments by Theron and people noticing details of Furiosa's costume, the implication appears to be that after Furiosa was stolen from her home, she was made one if Joe's wives. That obviously came to an end (she couldn't bear him healthy male babies?) and somehow she was able to survive and transition to her role as Imperator in a society where no other women are seen to occupy a role of any power and autonomy. (The only other women we see up anywhere near the level where Joe lives are his wives, the women being milked, and Miss Giddy, who is elderly.) Since then, Furiosa may have been personally better off in many ways, but she was a woman in a role that made her complicit in a society that opressed women to a disgusting degree. That's a backstory that a male version of Furiosa simply would not have, and such a character would relate differently to the Wives, Joe, other characters, and the whole world as a result.

I do love the Wives so much, though, and love how they all have subtly different motivations. I also love how while they are not hardened fighters and experience plenty of believeable panic and fear, they aren't helpless or useless, even though some of them are clearly out of their element. I partucularly love that as much as Furiosa wants to protect them, she also expects them to be useful and pitch in.

I also really, really love - and this is one place where things wouldn't be different if Furiosa were a man - that Furiosa's power and competence is not treated as a threat to Max's own or to his masculinity. It's not a punchline or a competition. The scene where he hands her the rifle was so perfect because she doesn't demand it or reach for it or insist she'd have a better chance making the shot - when she kneels behind him, saying nothing, she looked like she would be willing to either take over for him or support him taking the shot himself in equal measure - and Max really shows no reluctance to give her the gun (but possibly a little trepedation at being used as a rifle stand), and the movie makes no comment on this. Any other movie would turn it into a joke. "LOL look at how that guy was just emasculated. He's so dumb not to have accepted that a woman can do things. ...Have we earnened our Strong Female Character points yet?"

I gotta stop because I'm descending into Mad Max gushing and I just meant to make a quick comment!

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with the last paragraph. I agree hard. I want to frame it and hang it on the wall. I can't stand it when movies call attention to a woman's sex when demonstrating her competence - even when well-intentioned, it suggests that women who can hold their own are anomalies you can disregard when judging women as a whole.