I always thought a big reason people say that about Fury Road is just because Max has so little dialogue. People more and more equate lines of dialogue with main character status
Here's an opinion I haven't seen anyone else offer yet:
"Furiosa" gave me some respect for Immortan Joe. Sure, he's still a dictator, but compared with Dementus, he's a dictator who runs a stable civilization in a wasteland. Yes, he's cruel, but (at least in "Furiosa") he isn't cruel arbitrarily. He has some sense that there's a world outside his own head that needs tending to.
It's a low bar to clear, to be sure, but if I had to live at the Citadel vs. at Dementus 's camp, I'm picking the Citadel.
I felt the same way. I remember so many people in 2016 or so were like "Trump = Immortan Joe." But really, 'ol Orange Man is more like Dementus. He's a charismatic speaker and draws lots of followers, but when it comes time to actually govern, he sucks at it.
“I think ideas become memes because a lot of people are afraid to have their own ideas.”
I think this is 100% true. Looking at film again, I honestly think a lot of people who are Into Films will convince themselves that they like a movie because they’ve already seen that it’s critically acclaimed. (I definitely have done this.)
None of the Mad Max films are "about" their titular hero/heroine including "Furiosa". Stripping the narrative and dialogue down to the minimum viable product to deliver the epic, kinetic, operatic visual spectacle of road war in the wasteland is the whole point of the series.
To the extent "Furiosa" is a weaker entry in the series it's because of *too much* drawing of character, and of Immortan Joe and Dementus more so than Furiosa who fulfills the wordless mythic hero Max role perfectly well.
This is another popular take amongst the "Fury Road" fanatics and I don't agree with it at all. You can't watch The Road Warrior or Thunderdome and not see that Max is the central character of those films and that both are told from his POV.
The only other one besides "Fury Road" that's not about Max is the original, which is oddly most about Goose and I think that's more the result of first-time screenwriters not having any idea how to structure a screenplay than any real intent.
See, I would say the first one is his story, going from the murder (severe injury?) of his friend, his family, then vengeance/drift into mild insanity. Starting with the Road Warrior I think he becomes a spaghetti western kind of hero. Sort of a post apocalyptic Australian gunslinger that wanders into town, against his own judgment ends up involved in some dispute between the people there, defeats the bad guy, then rides off into the sunset never to be heard from again.
I've always liked the interpretation that Max is now more of a creature of myth, passed down through stories. That each movie isn't really the same guy (ok, I understand the knee brace presents a problem here), but a story told about the legendary "Mad Max" who appears at a critical juncture in your civilization's history to help it along. This is more clear in Road Warrior with the narration of the grown Feral Kid at the bookends of the movie.
Mad Max is the main character, but his role is to show up, help you right some systemic wrong, and then disappear into the desert. I like the Man With No Name comp.
Of course! He's like the audience, he doesn't know anything about the civilization we're about to encounter, so he's a great entry point and POV character. We form our opinions about what is the right course of action through him. (Which is also why Mad Max movies are about storytelling as much as cool car fights)
Right! So my point is, when people say "It doesn't matter that Fury Road isn't about Max, the other ones aren't either!" --- that's just some Twitter-meme logic that doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
It's fine that GM wanted to put someone else at the center of the film, but all the Monday-morning justifications are pretty weak. It also didn't help that Tom Hardy's performance was just....okay. He didn't really hold the camera the way Mel does in his trilogy of films. And I like Tom Hardy!
This is also how I have taken it. It's been a long time since I've seen it but IIRC the same kind of thing happens at the end of Thunder Dome, where Savannah is telling his story to a bunch of people and saying that's why they have a tradition of lighting the beacons every night.
All I would suggest is -- watch Mad Max again. All that stuff you describe happens in like -- the last 20 minutes of the movie. The first 2/3rds of it deals almost exclusively with Goose.
Next time I see it I will try to watch it with that perspective but still not sure I'd agree.
The film opens with Max coming in to dispatch the Night Rider. To me that is an unambiguous announcement that he is the hero and main character of the story. Not to go totally off the rails on movies that at their heart are a pretext for putting insane stunts on film but calling Goose the main character seems to me sort of like calling Mercutio the main character of Romeo and Juliet. I can agree with you that the middle of the movie has an odd loss of focus (which I also agree with you is probably attributable to it being an early effort of Miller and team) but Goose's role is to show how bad the bad guys are then set off in motion the events leading to the climactic spree of violence at the end.
Totally fair! And I agree about Max having a strong presence in the opening -- and then he pretty much disappears until the third act. Which again, I think is a result of poor screenplay structure rather than some sort of actual storytelling device to underlie some big themes.
The dramatic tension of those movies is the fate of the people Max is trying to save rather than Max himself, as with Furiosa and the wives in Fury Road.
However you slice and dice it, Max is an unconventional protagonist and the films resist the kind of personalization and characterization that are usually the core rhythm of those kinds of movies. Rather than obscure the archetypal mythic simplicity of the stories they revel in it.
Max is a mythological character moving through stories populated by more conventional types of characters. Different characters will appear to be the protagonist depending on what lens you use.
Max's screen time for the first half is indeed scant, and it can easily be seen as a story about the police vs the biker gang (with Goose as the prominent cop). But once Goose gets nearly burned alive the movie takes a decidedly 'Max' turn. It becomes about his disillusionment with his calling, and single-minded desire to protect his family. Once the latter fails him horribly, the film makes its final turn and he essentially becomes the 'mad' Max we all know and love.
I mean, the original was almost entirely about a snapshot of civilization's slow decline into anarchy from some unnamed catastrophe (oil wars?). And while it wasn't really about 'Mad' Max until the final half hour or so, that really IS the point of the movie: how one man went from a sane and competent cop and loving family man, to the vengeful V8 desert wraith that the following 2 films are largely about. The run-down Outback setting and other characters are simply supportive plot material for that premise.
Yeah I get it, and I know that film has a huge fanbase and was very influential. Maybe it didn't help that I saw MM2 first, but I was about halfway through the first MM when I made a very Jeff Goldblum-like observation: "Ah, now eventually you do plan to have Mad Max in your, in your Mad Max movie, right? Hello?"
Of course, screenwriting is my discipline and MM very much reminded of a lot of first-time scripts where there is 80 pages of setup and 20 minutes of Acts 2 and 3. I think GM just learned how to write in between 1 and 2.
I actually liked the way it was written. George may not have known exactly where he was going with it at first, and maybe that's why it seems to meander. But I thought the long set-up worked well for this origin story.
For one thing, without the immolation of Goose, Max probably wouldn't have went into hiding with his family - that was the trigger for him, and made him realize he could be next and wanted to make sure they were safe.
For another, the long preamble and lengthy scenes of them in hiding (the stay at the grandmother's house and beach was a good chunk!) was, in my opinion, for the audience to understand what it is that's at stake: his wife and child and a 'normal' life without violence. Those peaceful and idyllic scenes on the coast were not superfluous, they were essential to understand why Max went mad in the first place.
Had it been just Goose's death that caused him to go mad, it wouldn't have carried nearly as much weight.
"I think people say this sort of thing because the internet has taught them that the only thing that matters in life is appearing clever and so they say stuff other people have already preapproved of as clever ideas."
Not just the Internet. See also the Daily Show in it's heyday.
This was a good piece that describes the issue:
"Why Jon Stewart Was Bad for the Liberals Who Loved Him
He was hilarious, but I am glad to see him go.
By Jamelle Bouie
Feb 11, 20151:53 PM
...
The emblematic Stewart posture isn’t a joke or a witticism, it’s a sneer—or if we’re feeling kind, a gentle barb—coupled with a protest: I’m just a comedian."
Thank you! I've been trying to recall that Jamelle Bouie piece for the last few years, the only good thing he's ever written, and it lives up to my recollection.
Yes! I think you can make a non-ironic argument that Jon Stewart is one of the most destructive forces to the country in our lifetime, even though he personally is quite thoughtful and talented.
As a general comment about this essay, Freddie, I get the sense that you’re struggling a bit with how to define your project a couple years into the Substack period. I thought this was one of your best essays in a while – an effective use of the hook of commenting on a pop culture flashpoint that may or may not be especially compelling to the reader and an effective bridge to how that illustrates a broader societal issue. And I almost entirely agree with your comments about anxieties among the near-elite.
But I wish we could find a way beyond the negative of identifying societal problems to the positive of how to address them. I have my ideas that I think resonate with you and much of your readership – a focus on universalist policies, understanding how identity politics is used to divide people who oppose the establishment, and an awareness of the need for shared meaning in a post-religion society. But these ideas are far more complicated than “haha the other side is stupid/evil” and I don’t have a clue how to build it into a movement more powerful than the inclination to irony and snark.
I would love to see a skilled communicator like you try to use your platform to connect with other contrarians to try and build a positive platform for something better.
I’m not going to name names, because there can be valid objections to just about anyone, but the whole point of this is that building a better alternative is infinitely more valuable than criticisms of people’s flaws. We should have a open approach to anyone committed to rejecting the status quo. This isn’t a kumbaya, we should all come together, argument – nobody actually wants that. The movement would have specific goals in taking down an establishment that is running the country off a cliff – facilitating the path the towards an honorable middle-class life, defanging the military industrial complex, a comprehensive rethink of our healthcare and higher education systems, etc, but pursue these goals using a big-tent strategy.
I love that movie, and your analysis is spot on. He’s a freak’n hero. Obviously.
Also in complete agreement on argument and ideas. The people I search out for are the ones who can change my mind. Like you.
My quibble with the movie was the female strength that I’m most familiar with, emotional intelligence, isn’t represented. Or, at least, I felt they had a great opportunity to showcase it with the “wives” who were made a bit too weak. IOW, must every female hero have to also be able to fight and drive trucks? Maybe I missed it if that was there, I need to watch it again.
My recollection is that the strength of the wives was in the way they helped each other. They were their own little band, united by their position relative to Immortan Joe, and they were there for each other and for Angharad. Granted I haven’t seen it in a few years.
Also, I think that another cause of the ideas-as-memes phenomenon is that social networks like twitter and facebook become completely saturated in repetitions of the same ideas, so much so that users of those sites come to accept those ideas as axiomatic.
The claim that Max is secondary -- though not unimporant! -- is... I think the case can be made that it's an oversimplification of something real.
At the end of the day, Fury Road is Furiosa's fight. Her story. Max aids it, and he is no mere hanger-on or warm body: that aid, and his skills, are vital to her success. But Max is a drifter by nature. He finds himself in stories, and he helps those who need help (often reluctantly), but has no inclination for standing in the spotlight. Once his business is done, he's off to the next adventure, while his allies celebrate and rebuild.
Is he a hero? Yes. But being a part of others' stories is part and parcel of the kind of hero he is.
I would only add that the franchise itself has never had an iteration where Max was not being the hero (or anti-hero), albeit of the drifter variety. Even in the first one, before he goes 'mad', he's already sort of a lone wolf within the MFP itself...despite Goose's friendship. While what you say about him only being a part of other people's stories is true (apart from the original of course), fans have always approached the Mad Max franchise with...well...Mad Max in mind. He's not just the quiet lone samurai who helps out random struggling communities, he's also the lens through which we've typically viewed all of the films. He's sort of the PC, despite being an outsider in almost everything. And fans have come to expect that in perpetuity.
Furiosa seems to be the first one that is completely devoid of Mad Max...in a Mad Max movie. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't be sure. But if so, it's at least understandable why some would find that off-putting.
Logically George could have avoided all of this had he named the first movie not after Max, but something else entirely. Like simply 'Road Warrior' or something. Can't un-ring that bell now though.
Honestly, I think that a lot of what people believe is socially determined. Not in the absolute sense, of course - no many how many people say that ivermectin cures covid, it's not true - but people use social cues from people or groups they trust to determine how to interpret information or who else is trustworthy. There's just so many decisions we have to make that it's impossible to give all of them in-depth thought and individuals will, consciously or subconsciously, outsource all or part of their thinking to the larger group. This has the added social benefit of fitting in with the group, which always feels good. Right or wrong, I believe everybody does this at least a little bit.
So many stories suffer under these kinds of basic misunderstandings and unfortunate misrepresentations that get adopted by the public at large. War and Peace is wonderful book, with plenty of action and tons of great characters, but because of the public perception of 'big, long boring book' people tend to regard it that way and end up steering clear of one of the funnest reads in classical literature.
Humanities literacy is an endangered species on the internet. Gamers love to say their favorite NPC is the protagonist because they don't understand that protagonism is structural, not the result of a value judgment.
I don't think your statement, "I think ideas become memes because a lot of people are afraid to have their own ideas," is conceited at all. But I do think it's questionable. One such question; Maybe most people aren't "afraid" to have their own ideas, but just don't want or need to.
Ironically, I got this thought from you, in all of your great work about education and the inherent ability levels of students. The least charitable way of thinking about this is that there are a lot of people who don't think in terms of ideas the way you and I do. More charitably, it's possible that Mad Max isn't the sort of thing they feel a need to have any ideas about in the first place, or haven't seen or (shockingly) don't even know much about.
I fall into that last category. I've tried watching a couple of Mad Max movies because I'd heard people speaking highly of them, but they just weren't firing me up. I'm not unplugged from culture, but I've learned that some things just aren't for me. I learned at some point, for example, that some other things I don't need to have opinions about include Adam Sandler; macroeconomics; gourmet cappuccino makers; and cats. I don't know much about those things, and since I don't expect anyone to ever ask my advice about them, I feel comfortable focusing on the things i am interested in and have some basis for an informed opinion/thought/idea. I know people who know a great deal about those things, and I respect them for it. But respect is as far as it goes for me, at least.
You're one of the few writers who I'll read pretty much anything by, even if it's not in my wheelhouse. However this essay is a good example where I read it more to find out about the way you think (always interesting!) rather than about the subject matter. My takeaway is that I found your bullet list very interesting, but not quite enough to invest the time to have an idea of my own. That's not out of being afraid, it's just the way my mind works.
I was also thinking along these lines. My wife has no interest when my nephew and I go into our clash of ideas mode. Lots of back and forth. She leaves the room, which is the right thing, because our discussions don’t interest her. What she doesn’t do, and what I think the piece is describing, is if she broke into the argument with some canned cliche that she hadn’t even come up with herself.
This post made me nostalgic for the old USENET, in which the internet was a glorified debating society. It was the Wild West of opinion, but using logical fallacies and the like were definitely looked down upon.
Which gets to one of my personal rules for internet arguments: you are not trying to convince the person you are arguing with. Because that is impossible. You are trying to convince the larger audience. To this day, most people read but do not post all that much. You are trying to convince them, and this argument is for their amusement. And that means fighting fair, avoiding logical fallacies, and most importantly, keeping your cool. The occasional meme doesn't hurt.
I did feel like Mad Max wasn't much involved. Maybe it's the lack of dialogue, maybe it's the fact that he's sharing top billings for the first time, maybe it's that it's not Mel Gibson...
... but most of all, I thought it was a boring movie.
To find it an allegory of either the patriarchy or the feminist revolution... I dunno... I couldn't get into the "ideas" of the movie when everything was constantly exploding and everyone ought to be dead within seconds due to said constant explosions.
Well...if the statement “Furiosa replaces Max in Fury Road” is pertaining to the main character of the franchise, and not the franchise itself, then that WOULD be true.
Of course there are plenty of other characters involved in each film, it wouldn't be much fun to just show him driving across the Outback alone for 2 hours. And yes, Max does play a vital role in Fury Road - like Freddie mentioned they couldn't have 'won' without him. But I don't think that's the point of the statement up there. All they are saying is that Furiosa seems to be taking on the main protagonist role for the Mad Max franchise. It was sort of a dual role between her and Max in Fury Road, and with this one is seems to be all about her backstory. So...why isn't that statement true? Or at least more true than not? And if so, why is that a bad thing to say?
Not arguing if the change is good or bad, that's another topic entirely. Frankly I rather like the change as it allows the story and franchise itself a lot more breathing room to expand on the narrative. Besides, that's the way George wants to go with it, and it's his baby after all.
Also, are there really a ton of people saying they don't want to watch Furiosa because it's not about Max? I mean, I'm sure there are people that have said this, but this might be the pernicious thing about social media in my view - people don't even need to create straw men anymore because there is definitely going to be SOMEONE out there sharing the dumbest argument/opinion for you to be able to take down.
This is obviously isn't the best or most important example, but man, it's easy to just tee off self-righteously when Twitter is just filled with the straw men that only used to exist in your mind.
I always thought a big reason people say that about Fury Road is just because Max has so little dialogue. People more and more equate lines of dialogue with main character status
Fair, but it's not like Furiosa was sitting next to him jabbering away like Harley Quinn.
Fair. I just think it's that she has more lines of dialogue, it's her car, and she's the "leader."
I don't agree with the take I just think this is why people gravitate toward it.
He does get sidelined - at the beginning. Then at the end, he slips away; no triumphal end.
Here's an opinion I haven't seen anyone else offer yet:
"Furiosa" gave me some respect for Immortan Joe. Sure, he's still a dictator, but compared with Dementus, he's a dictator who runs a stable civilization in a wasteland. Yes, he's cruel, but (at least in "Furiosa") he isn't cruel arbitrarily. He has some sense that there's a world outside his own head that needs tending to.
It's a low bar to clear, to be sure, but if I had to live at the Citadel vs. at Dementus 's camp, I'm picking the Citadel.
I felt the same way. I remember so many people in 2016 or so were like "Trump = Immortan Joe." But really, 'ol Orange Man is more like Dementus. He's a charismatic speaker and draws lots of followers, but when it comes time to actually govern, he sucks at it.
Yep, Dementus is the populist. I guess that makes Immortan Joe Hillary Clinton?
“I think ideas become memes because a lot of people are afraid to have their own ideas.”
I think this is 100% true. Looking at film again, I honestly think a lot of people who are Into Films will convince themselves that they like a movie because they’ve already seen that it’s critically acclaimed. (I definitely have done this.)
*cough*ETERNALSUNSHINE*cough*
I actually really do like that movie haha
Memes are literally self-replicating ideas. We are just their substrate.
There's a theory that the fundamental building block of the universe is not atoms or quarks or strings, its information
None of the Mad Max films are "about" their titular hero/heroine including "Furiosa". Stripping the narrative and dialogue down to the minimum viable product to deliver the epic, kinetic, operatic visual spectacle of road war in the wasteland is the whole point of the series.
To the extent "Furiosa" is a weaker entry in the series it's because of *too much* drawing of character, and of Immortan Joe and Dementus more so than Furiosa who fulfills the wordless mythic hero Max role perfectly well.
This is another popular take amongst the "Fury Road" fanatics and I don't agree with it at all. You can't watch The Road Warrior or Thunderdome and not see that Max is the central character of those films and that both are told from his POV.
The only other one besides "Fury Road" that's not about Max is the original, which is oddly most about Goose and I think that's more the result of first-time screenwriters not having any idea how to structure a screenplay than any real intent.
See, I would say the first one is his story, going from the murder (severe injury?) of his friend, his family, then vengeance/drift into mild insanity. Starting with the Road Warrior I think he becomes a spaghetti western kind of hero. Sort of a post apocalyptic Australian gunslinger that wanders into town, against his own judgment ends up involved in some dispute between the people there, defeats the bad guy, then rides off into the sunset never to be heard from again.
I've always liked the interpretation that Max is now more of a creature of myth, passed down through stories. That each movie isn't really the same guy (ok, I understand the knee brace presents a problem here), but a story told about the legendary "Mad Max" who appears at a critical juncture in your civilization's history to help it along. This is more clear in Road Warrior with the narration of the grown Feral Kid at the bookends of the movie.
Mad Max is the main character, but his role is to show up, help you right some systemic wrong, and then disappear into the desert. I like the Man With No Name comp.
Yeah totally get all that and I agree with it -- doesn't change the fact that the POV is on him for MM2 and MM3.
Of course! He's like the audience, he doesn't know anything about the civilization we're about to encounter, so he's a great entry point and POV character. We form our opinions about what is the right course of action through him. (Which is also why Mad Max movies are about storytelling as much as cool car fights)
Right! So my point is, when people say "It doesn't matter that Fury Road isn't about Max, the other ones aren't either!" --- that's just some Twitter-meme logic that doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
It's fine that GM wanted to put someone else at the center of the film, but all the Monday-morning justifications are pretty weak. It also didn't help that Tom Hardy's performance was just....okay. He didn't really hold the camera the way Mel does in his trilogy of films. And I like Tom Hardy!
This is also how I have taken it. It's been a long time since I've seen it but IIRC the same kind of thing happens at the end of Thunder Dome, where Savannah is telling his story to a bunch of people and saying that's why they have a tradition of lighting the beacons every night.
All I would suggest is -- watch Mad Max again. All that stuff you describe happens in like -- the last 20 minutes of the movie. The first 2/3rds of it deals almost exclusively with Goose.
Next time I see it I will try to watch it with that perspective but still not sure I'd agree.
The film opens with Max coming in to dispatch the Night Rider. To me that is an unambiguous announcement that he is the hero and main character of the story. Not to go totally off the rails on movies that at their heart are a pretext for putting insane stunts on film but calling Goose the main character seems to me sort of like calling Mercutio the main character of Romeo and Juliet. I can agree with you that the middle of the movie has an odd loss of focus (which I also agree with you is probably attributable to it being an early effort of Miller and team) but Goose's role is to show how bad the bad guys are then set off in motion the events leading to the climactic spree of violence at the end.
Totally fair! And I agree about Max having a strong presence in the opening -- and then he pretty much disappears until the third act. Which again, I think is a result of poor screenplay structure rather than some sort of actual storytelling device to underlie some big themes.
The dramatic tension of those movies is the fate of the people Max is trying to save rather than Max himself, as with Furiosa and the wives in Fury Road.
However you slice and dice it, Max is an unconventional protagonist and the films resist the kind of personalization and characterization that are usually the core rhythm of those kinds of movies. Rather than obscure the archetypal mythic simplicity of the stories they revel in it.
Max is a mythological character moving through stories populated by more conventional types of characters. Different characters will appear to be the protagonist depending on what lens you use.
Max's screen time for the first half is indeed scant, and it can easily be seen as a story about the police vs the biker gang (with Goose as the prominent cop). But once Goose gets nearly burned alive the movie takes a decidedly 'Max' turn. It becomes about his disillusionment with his calling, and single-minded desire to protect his family. Once the latter fails him horribly, the film makes its final turn and he essentially becomes the 'mad' Max we all know and love.
I mean, the original was almost entirely about a snapshot of civilization's slow decline into anarchy from some unnamed catastrophe (oil wars?). And while it wasn't really about 'Mad' Max until the final half hour or so, that really IS the point of the movie: how one man went from a sane and competent cop and loving family man, to the vengeful V8 desert wraith that the following 2 films are largely about. The run-down Outback setting and other characters are simply supportive plot material for that premise.
Yeah I get it, and I know that film has a huge fanbase and was very influential. Maybe it didn't help that I saw MM2 first, but I was about halfway through the first MM when I made a very Jeff Goldblum-like observation: "Ah, now eventually you do plan to have Mad Max in your, in your Mad Max movie, right? Hello?"
Of course, screenwriting is my discipline and MM very much reminded of a lot of first-time scripts where there is 80 pages of setup and 20 minutes of Acts 2 and 3. I think GM just learned how to write in between 1 and 2.
I actually liked the way it was written. George may not have known exactly where he was going with it at first, and maybe that's why it seems to meander. But I thought the long set-up worked well for this origin story.
For one thing, without the immolation of Goose, Max probably wouldn't have went into hiding with his family - that was the trigger for him, and made him realize he could be next and wanted to make sure they were safe.
For another, the long preamble and lengthy scenes of them in hiding (the stay at the grandmother's house and beach was a good chunk!) was, in my opinion, for the audience to understand what it is that's at stake: his wife and child and a 'normal' life without violence. Those peaceful and idyllic scenes on the coast were not superfluous, they were essential to understand why Max went mad in the first place.
Had it been just Goose's death that caused him to go mad, it wouldn't have carried nearly as much weight.
"I think people say this sort of thing because the internet has taught them that the only thing that matters in life is appearing clever and so they say stuff other people have already preapproved of as clever ideas."
Not just the Internet. See also the Daily Show in it's heyday.
This was a good piece that describes the issue:
"Why Jon Stewart Was Bad for the Liberals Who Loved Him
He was hilarious, but I am glad to see him go.
By Jamelle Bouie
Feb 11, 20151:53 PM
...
The emblematic Stewart posture isn’t a joke or a witticism, it’s a sneer—or if we’re feeling kind, a gentle barb—coupled with a protest: I’m just a comedian."
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/02/jon-stewart-stepping-down-from-the-daily-show-he-was-bad-for-liberals.html
Thank you! I've been trying to recall that Jamelle Bouie piece for the last few years, the only good thing he's ever written, and it lives up to my recollection.
Yes! I think you can make a non-ironic argument that Jon Stewart is one of the most destructive forces to the country in our lifetime, even though he personally is quite thoughtful and talented.
As a general comment about this essay, Freddie, I get the sense that you’re struggling a bit with how to define your project a couple years into the Substack period. I thought this was one of your best essays in a while – an effective use of the hook of commenting on a pop culture flashpoint that may or may not be especially compelling to the reader and an effective bridge to how that illustrates a broader societal issue. And I almost entirely agree with your comments about anxieties among the near-elite.
But I wish we could find a way beyond the negative of identifying societal problems to the positive of how to address them. I have my ideas that I think resonate with you and much of your readership – a focus on universalist policies, understanding how identity politics is used to divide people who oppose the establishment, and an awareness of the need for shared meaning in a post-religion society. But these ideas are far more complicated than “haha the other side is stupid/evil” and I don’t have a clue how to build it into a movement more powerful than the inclination to irony and snark.
I would love to see a skilled communicator like you try to use your platform to connect with other contrarians to try and build a positive platform for something better.
I’m not going to name names, because there can be valid objections to just about anyone, but the whole point of this is that building a better alternative is infinitely more valuable than criticisms of people’s flaws. We should have a open approach to anyone committed to rejecting the status quo. This isn’t a kumbaya, we should all come together, argument – nobody actually wants that. The movement would have specific goals in taking down an establishment that is running the country off a cliff – facilitating the path the towards an honorable middle-class life, defanging the military industrial complex, a comprehensive rethink of our healthcare and higher education systems, etc, but pursue these goals using a big-tent strategy.
I love that movie, and your analysis is spot on. He’s a freak’n hero. Obviously.
Also in complete agreement on argument and ideas. The people I search out for are the ones who can change my mind. Like you.
My quibble with the movie was the female strength that I’m most familiar with, emotional intelligence, isn’t represented. Or, at least, I felt they had a great opportunity to showcase it with the “wives” who were made a bit too weak. IOW, must every female hero have to also be able to fight and drive trucks? Maybe I missed it if that was there, I need to watch it again.
My recollection is that the strength of the wives was in the way they helped each other. They were their own little band, united by their position relative to Immortan Joe, and they were there for each other and for Angharad. Granted I haven’t seen it in a few years.
Also, I think that another cause of the ideas-as-memes phenomenon is that social networks like twitter and facebook become completely saturated in repetitions of the same ideas, so much so that users of those sites come to accept those ideas as axiomatic.
The claim that Max is secondary -- though not unimporant! -- is... I think the case can be made that it's an oversimplification of something real.
At the end of the day, Fury Road is Furiosa's fight. Her story. Max aids it, and he is no mere hanger-on or warm body: that aid, and his skills, are vital to her success. But Max is a drifter by nature. He finds himself in stories, and he helps those who need help (often reluctantly), but has no inclination for standing in the spotlight. Once his business is done, he's off to the next adventure, while his allies celebrate and rebuild.
Is he a hero? Yes. But being a part of others' stories is part and parcel of the kind of hero he is.
Well done.
Very true.
I would only add that the franchise itself has never had an iteration where Max was not being the hero (or anti-hero), albeit of the drifter variety. Even in the first one, before he goes 'mad', he's already sort of a lone wolf within the MFP itself...despite Goose's friendship. While what you say about him only being a part of other people's stories is true (apart from the original of course), fans have always approached the Mad Max franchise with...well...Mad Max in mind. He's not just the quiet lone samurai who helps out random struggling communities, he's also the lens through which we've typically viewed all of the films. He's sort of the PC, despite being an outsider in almost everything. And fans have come to expect that in perpetuity.
Furiosa seems to be the first one that is completely devoid of Mad Max...in a Mad Max movie. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't be sure. But if so, it's at least understandable why some would find that off-putting.
Logically George could have avoided all of this had he named the first movie not after Max, but something else entirely. Like simply 'Road Warrior' or something. Can't un-ring that bell now though.
Honestly, I think that a lot of what people believe is socially determined. Not in the absolute sense, of course - no many how many people say that ivermectin cures covid, it's not true - but people use social cues from people or groups they trust to determine how to interpret information or who else is trustworthy. There's just so many decisions we have to make that it's impossible to give all of them in-depth thought and individuals will, consciously or subconsciously, outsource all or part of their thinking to the larger group. This has the added social benefit of fitting in with the group, which always feels good. Right or wrong, I believe everybody does this at least a little bit.
So many stories suffer under these kinds of basic misunderstandings and unfortunate misrepresentations that get adopted by the public at large. War and Peace is wonderful book, with plenty of action and tons of great characters, but because of the public perception of 'big, long boring book' people tend to regard it that way and end up steering clear of one of the funnest reads in classical literature.
Humanities literacy is an endangered species on the internet. Gamers love to say their favorite NPC is the protagonist because they don't understand that protagonism is structural, not the result of a value judgment.
I don't think your statement, "I think ideas become memes because a lot of people are afraid to have their own ideas," is conceited at all. But I do think it's questionable. One such question; Maybe most people aren't "afraid" to have their own ideas, but just don't want or need to.
Ironically, I got this thought from you, in all of your great work about education and the inherent ability levels of students. The least charitable way of thinking about this is that there are a lot of people who don't think in terms of ideas the way you and I do. More charitably, it's possible that Mad Max isn't the sort of thing they feel a need to have any ideas about in the first place, or haven't seen or (shockingly) don't even know much about.
I fall into that last category. I've tried watching a couple of Mad Max movies because I'd heard people speaking highly of them, but they just weren't firing me up. I'm not unplugged from culture, but I've learned that some things just aren't for me. I learned at some point, for example, that some other things I don't need to have opinions about include Adam Sandler; macroeconomics; gourmet cappuccino makers; and cats. I don't know much about those things, and since I don't expect anyone to ever ask my advice about them, I feel comfortable focusing on the things i am interested in and have some basis for an informed opinion/thought/idea. I know people who know a great deal about those things, and I respect them for it. But respect is as far as it goes for me, at least.
You're one of the few writers who I'll read pretty much anything by, even if it's not in my wheelhouse. However this essay is a good example where I read it more to find out about the way you think (always interesting!) rather than about the subject matter. My takeaway is that I found your bullet list very interesting, but not quite enough to invest the time to have an idea of my own. That's not out of being afraid, it's just the way my mind works.
I was also thinking along these lines. My wife has no interest when my nephew and I go into our clash of ideas mode. Lots of back and forth. She leaves the room, which is the right thing, because our discussions don’t interest her. What she doesn’t do, and what I think the piece is describing, is if she broke into the argument with some canned cliche that she hadn’t even come up with herself.
This post made me nostalgic for the old USENET, in which the internet was a glorified debating society. It was the Wild West of opinion, but using logical fallacies and the like were definitely looked down upon.
Which gets to one of my personal rules for internet arguments: you are not trying to convince the person you are arguing with. Because that is impossible. You are trying to convince the larger audience. To this day, most people read but do not post all that much. You are trying to convince them, and this argument is for their amusement. And that means fighting fair, avoiding logical fallacies, and most importantly, keeping your cool. The occasional meme doesn't hurt.
The name for the field of study is "rhetoric", and it's no accident that name comes down to us from ancient times.
I dunno...
I did feel like Mad Max wasn't much involved. Maybe it's the lack of dialogue, maybe it's the fact that he's sharing top billings for the first time, maybe it's that it's not Mel Gibson...
... but most of all, I thought it was a boring movie.
To find it an allegory of either the patriarchy or the feminist revolution... I dunno... I couldn't get into the "ideas" of the movie when everything was constantly exploding and everyone ought to be dead within seconds due to said constant explosions.
I'm amazed that anyone can find that movie boring. I was on the edge of oy seat from the very beginning.
_The Road Warrior_ just felt like it had a hard edge that _Fury Road_ lacked. By comparison the later film just felt plasticky and artificial.
Well...if the statement “Furiosa replaces Max in Fury Road” is pertaining to the main character of the franchise, and not the franchise itself, then that WOULD be true.
Of course there are plenty of other characters involved in each film, it wouldn't be much fun to just show him driving across the Outback alone for 2 hours. And yes, Max does play a vital role in Fury Road - like Freddie mentioned they couldn't have 'won' without him. But I don't think that's the point of the statement up there. All they are saying is that Furiosa seems to be taking on the main protagonist role for the Mad Max franchise. It was sort of a dual role between her and Max in Fury Road, and with this one is seems to be all about her backstory. So...why isn't that statement true? Or at least more true than not? And if so, why is that a bad thing to say?
Not arguing if the change is good or bad, that's another topic entirely. Frankly I rather like the change as it allows the story and franchise itself a lot more breathing room to expand on the narrative. Besides, that's the way George wants to go with it, and it's his baby after all.
Also, are there really a ton of people saying they don't want to watch Furiosa because it's not about Max? I mean, I'm sure there are people that have said this, but this might be the pernicious thing about social media in my view - people don't even need to create straw men anymore because there is definitely going to be SOMEONE out there sharing the dumbest argument/opinion for you to be able to take down.
This is obviously isn't the best or most important example, but man, it's easy to just tee off self-righteously when Twitter is just filled with the straw men that only used to exist in your mind.