Every Wednesday on The Right Hook, Newstalk’s resident film critic Philip Molloy, presenter of The Picture Show, joins George to take a look at what’s making headlines on the big and small screen. Tune in live from 6.30pm, or listen back the show’s podcasts here.
On this evening’s show, Philip raves about the thrilling action of the new Mad Max movie, Fury Road, which has some of the most thrilling high-octane sequences seen on the silver screen this year, but which stalls a bit when it comes to the plot.
But that same plot has been singled out by a conservative men’s rights activist claiming that the story, and the central performance by Charlize Theron as Furiosa, is all a part of a cunning ruse by Hollywood ‘feminazis’ to trick men into supporting women’s struggles for equality.
In a post on the ‘Return of Kings’ blog, Aaron Clarey is calling for men to boycott the new Mad Max movie:
Not only REFUSE to see the movie, but spread the word to as many men as possible. … Because if [men] sheepishly attend and Fury Road is a blockbuster, then you, me, and all the other men (and real women) in the world will never be able to see a real action movie ever again that doesn’t contain some damn political lecture or moray about feminism, SJW-ing, and socialism.
‘SJW’ is shorthand for ‘social-justice warrior’, a pejorative term used to describe anyone who ardently takes up the cause of social issues online. The phrase is frequently used in ongoing campaigns like ‘Gamer Gate’, an online phenomenon surrounding feminism in the computer game industry.
Clarey, a self-described “economist of the mano/androsphere” goes on to warn those hoping to watch the new film that they are about to be confounded into identifying with the movie’s female lead after being exposed to director George Miller’s energetic editing and action sequences:
[...] men in America and around the world are going to be duped by explosions, fire tornadoes, and desert raiders into seeing what is guaranteed to be nothing more than feminist propaganda, while at the same time being insulted AND tricked into viewing a piece of American culture ruined and rewritten right in front of their very eyes.
Hollywood is a garbage propaganda machine which spews out this feminist drivel filth into the minds of today’s young audience. Even though science has told us and proven, that men are physically stronger than women, it is nonetheless discarded by the forces driving this feminist nonsense.
Hasta la vista, baby
The blog post also references the forthcoming Terminator Genisys addition to the Arnold Schwarzenegger franchise created by James Cameron as an example of how US culture is going “further down the toilet.” In the new film, “a sick agenda at play” sees the film’s female lead Sarah Connor take up the mantle of hero, rescuing a male supporting character from cyborg attack, in a deliberate ploy to subvert “traditional gender and biological roles.”
Whether or not Mad Max: Fury Road is actually a quiet attempt to overthrow the patriarchy in Hollywood remains to be seen. The film was largely under the radar of MRAs until the announcement that Eve Ensler, the creator of the long-running play the Vagina Monologues, acted as a consultant on the set during rehearsals.
And South African actress Charlize Theron has become a prominent figure in the escalating debate surrounding the pay gap between male and female actors in Hollywood; the Academy Award-winner made international headlines when she secured the same pay deal as Australian actor Chris Hemsworth in the sequel The Huntsman.
