By George Miller Fury Road prequel anger There’s a lot riding on it — not just the title character’s battle raging, but her entire feminist legacy.
Miller’s main appeal mad max The universe has always been its intense dieselpunk worldbuilding, but with 2015 Fury Road, the series gained new energy and an infusion of new iconic characters. Thanks to a solid ensemble cast, incredible action scenes and production values, and a high-stakes, high-concept chase that lasts most of the runtime, the film lends depth and beauty to its brutal post-apocalyptic wasteland.
It also provided an empowered, female-centric reimagining of a story known for intense violence and intrigue. This framing comes in large part thanks to Charlize Theron’s Furiosa, a tough but sympathetic heroine drawn in the tradition of Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor. With her metal arms and ghostly butcher skills, she instantly became a geek feminist icon. Anya Taylor-Joy, cast to play a younger version of the character in the new film, had her work cut out trying to fill Theron’s shoes.
He also had to overcome a lot of embedded brutality in it mad max The universe with what originally was A surprisingly sexist backstory, a 2015 follow-up comic featuring his character. Then there was the cruelty of Miller’s production environment. The mad max The Wasteland is exactly what it sounds like, a ravaged desert no-man’s land, but by all accounts, anger The set didn’t fare too well in the sweltering Australian outback.
inside A recent interview Speaking to The New York Times, Taylor-Joy said she was “never more alone” during production and explained that she needed the full two years between set and the film’s release to “deal with” the trauma of filming. made, citing how “alive and purposeful” he felt during the filming process.
Of course, Taylor-Joy seems to have joined other actors in taking on psychologically complex roles Tiptoe the line Between “method” acting and apparent trauma; She mentioned to interviewer Kyle Buchanan that she was unable to watch the early cut of the film because she cried.
But it also feels significant that Furiosa — a character who rarely speaks and often speaks through actions rather than words — has now exacted this toll on two extremely talented actors. It goes without saying that he’s joined the ranks of larger-than-life fictional icons whose mythos looms over the actors who play them: a Joker or Blanche DuBois.
Did Furiosa herself lead us down this thorny path? or is anger The film hints at storytelling that, despite its best efforts, limits what female action heroes are allowed to be?
Furiosa – the movie and the character – is a lonely ride (and almost a sexist one).
Miller’s vision for Taylor-Joy anger Looks like sparing and hardcore. Taylor-Joy told The Times that the role required her to act intensely, often with just her eyes. The complexity of the film’s elaborate action sequences left him without reciting a line of dialogue for “months”. He also called diversity That Miller would order him to act out scenes with his jaw clenched tight.
He also described the clash between his vision for the character and Miller’s, including a fight that was horribly reflected on Theran’s set. Fury Road, with both women fighting for the right to Furiosa burst into rage. It’s interesting that Furiosa’s backstory, as first mentioned in Extremely Furious, flagrantly misogynistic comic angerHe was involved with a trafficked child that Immortal Joe chose to be one of his wives — the same refugee he later rescued from Joe’s Citadel. Fury Road.
In the comic, instead of being an ally to the women, Furiosa scolds them and even physically attacks them, at one point telling them that they should be grateful for their lives of sex slavery because things are so much worse on the outside. yes The comic strongly implies that Furiosa and all of Immortal Joe’s wives were treated by him as a benevolent bully who chose to treat them well and protect them. Not only that, but from A 2015 interview With Theron, we get brief glimpses of the toxic mirrorverse that is both Fury Road And anger Fall in approx. In the interview, Theron mentioned a backstory in which Joe rejected Furiosa and kicked her out of his wives because she was barren: “She couldn’t breed, and that was good for her.”
This dire statement implies that the character of Furiosa was originally intended to be a stereotypical “strong female character”, formed from, say, a sexual trauma – and a character without any agency over her own life. The oft-repeated story implies that women are inevitably sexual objects who can only achieve agency through their sexuality or even their dehumanization. This is a depressingly narrow view of what can inspire a woman to act and is unnecessary in a world like Mad Max.
She is affected by sexist abuse in the universe around her, but with no subtle, sick fantasy of male violence to undermine her.
Other details Theron mentions going into Furiosa’s backstory — her growing up in “the green space,” being sold to Joe as a child, her subsequent hiding and disguising herself as a boy among the Dogs of War, and her eventual escape — all play out onscreen. anger. Fury Road Fortunately any hint that Furiosa was ever a sex pawn or a victim of sexual abuse and trauma has been removed and anger Likewise jettison this plot. Instead, the child bride escapes her fate early on, and the rest of the film unfolds just as Theron had hinted. Furiosa’s character is still deeply informed by trauma, loss and abuse from childhood, never just sexual abuse or infertility. She’s still affected by the sexist abuse in the universe around her, but there’s no subtle, morbid fantasy of male violence to undermine her.
Still, the fact that this detail was a part of Furiosa’s backstory actually leaves the question of how much Miller absorbed the character’s feminism, but wanted to recreate her nihilistic dystopia without making her a bad representative of it. Taylor-Joy implies that the 79-year-old filmmaker missed the importance of allowing Furiosa to express her female rage despite all the injustice and abuse she has witnessed. (Ironically, Miller performed the iconic “Mad as Hell” monologue at his unofficial audition for the role. intranet – one of the greatest expressions of male rage ever filmed.)
For his part, in the Times profile, Miller comparison Furiosa to other giant heroes like John Wayne or Clint Eastwood – hardly a feminist vision, but certainly a potentially empowering one. It is notable that this conflicting vision of the character played out in two separate films where the filming conditions seemed to reflect the unforgiving psychology of the character. There is Miller emphasis Filming conditions for that anger The conflict between Theron and Method-starring co-star Tom Hardy was by no means as intense. Fury Road Set but Taylor-Joy called diversity That Miller’s closed-mouthed, eye-only vision for his performance “create[d] A radiation out of character, as he is constantly pressed throughout the film.
Taylor-Joy gets something fundamental about Furiosa here: this repression isn’t just the foundation of her character. This may ultimately be the key to Furiosa’s wild popularity. Of course, his grease-painted raccoon eyes, badass shaved pate and shiny silver arms are also key elements. But audiences, especially female viewers, recognize the loss and suffering echoed in Furiosa’s thousand-yard stare and slurred speech patterns, and we celebrate her for rising above it in any way she can.
In a post-Roe world, the idea that we almost had a Furiosa whose worth derived entirely from her ability to give birth became a chilling one—if thankfully we didn’t have to face it. It all serves as a reminder that the life Furiosa has been running on is still on our own heels today. Perhaps protecting him from that fate becomes an unspoken duty for whoever plays him—a combined joy and sorrow for the actor who steps in his shadow.
