Join us as we delve into the psychological underpinnings of the Mad Max series, exploring the fragile nature of masculinity and the pivotal role of the feminine. From the controversial beginnings in 1979 to the feminist icon Furiosa, portrayed by Charlize Theron in Fury Road, we examine the series’ depiction of violence and its deeper societal implications.
In light of recent protests against violence towards women, this analysis is more relevant than ever. Discover how Max’s journey reflects a struggle against patriarchal violence and a quest for a new sensibility, influenced by the women’s movement. We also revisit insights from UK therapist Adam Jukes and philosopher Herbert Marcuse, highlighting the transformative potential of integrating masculine and feminine qualities.
Produced by Mark McAuliffe, who brings decades of experience in film and television, this video essay is based on his extensive research and PhD thesis on Mad Max. Dive deeper into the evolving mind of Max Rockatansky at Mad Maxculinity.
Watch the premiere of the public video here: Mad Maxculinity: Violence Against Women.
Transcript
Mad Max: Violence Against Women
George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, the latest film in the series, has received mixed reviews. But it gives audiences the origins of the fearless young warrior woman, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, who would go on to become something of a feminist icon as portrayed by Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road, the director’s much acclaimed film from 2015. However, a psychological reading of the very first film in the franchise, and those that followed, may be seen as illustrations of the fragile nature of masculinity generally and, perhaps more surprisingly for many, the central role of the feminine across all the films.
When thousands of protestors across Australia have recently marched demanding an end to the “epidemic” of violence against women, perhaps its time to seriously examine Mad Max and the entire series.
Mad Max provoked a storm of protest when it first roared onto the screens in 1979. Labelled “extremely violent” by many critics it was even said to be “lacking in any social value”. There were calls for it to be banned.
Following hard on the heels of the women’s movement in Australia of the 1960s and 70’s, the film depicted numerous scenes of male to male violence. A singular focus though was directed towards the scene where a woman and her baby were mown down by a gang of bikies. Few critics at the time asked what were the underlying reasons behind this behaviour or later, for the violence depicted towards women throughout the series.
Early in that film from 1979, the central character Max Rockatansky resigns from the police force after a violent incident with a half-crazed criminal in a car chase. The young cop tells his boss, “Any longer out there on the road and I’m going to become one of them, a terminal crazy with just a badge to show that I’m one of the good guys.” Max rejects the partriarchal code of violence that surrounds him. Next shown resting with his wife in an arcadian countryside, stripped of his armour-like police leathers, a vulnerable-looking Max is seen trying to get in touch with his inner emotional self as he tells his wife, “I don’t want to wait ten years to tell you how much I love you.” But when his wife and child are killed, Max reverts to his baser instincts and descends into the madness of revenge and retribution. Its a journey that will finally leave him devoid of his humanity, as nothing but a burnt-out shell of a man.
Thirty years ago Adam Jukes, a UK therapist with London’s Men’s Centre, wrote Why Men Hate Women and identified fear as an underlying raionale for some men’s desire to have power and control over women. Unconsciously these men fear the dependency of their own co-existent wish to return to the comfort and security of the mother figure on the one hand, alongside a fear of rejection and even worse, engulfment by her on the other. This is compounded by the cultural imperative that little boys and young men must reject aspects of the feminine in their own identity and their progression towards manhood. This can put men at war with themselves. The enemy within is then projected outwards onto women and the world around them.
Where the first film is deeply pessimistic, the second one Mad Max; The Road Warror, 1983, gives cause for some hope and provides the hero with some positive role models of what it means to be a man. There, Max is shown entering a small community in the desert led by a father figure Pappagello, invoking an expression used by 1970s Prime Minister Gough Whitlam who gave Australians cause to believe that change for the better was possible. Pappagello implores his tribe to “crash or crash through” as they plan to fight their way past the barbarians who surround them and head north to found a new society.
Herbert Marcuse in a 1977 BBC interview with philosopher Brian Macgee, and in another with Helen Hawkins in 1979 (both available on Youtube) spoke of the potential for a revolution that rejected the violence of a cruel and brutal patriarchal society. He proposed that a new sensibility might be brought about by the women’s movement with the “so-called feminine qualities of non-violence, receptivity and tenderness.”
In Fury Road Max Rockatansky finally comes to terms with the fierce warrior woman Furiosa. In a change of heart, Max enters into a partnership of equals, a personal integration of the masculine and the feminine as he and Furiosa fight together to defeat the brutal dictator Immorten Joe. In the final scene, as Max disappears into the crowd to continue his
journey of self-discovery in the desert, we see Furiosa and her band of warrior women being elevated on a platform to the heights of The Citadel where we are left to imagine them creating a new world. Its time.
Mark McAuliffe studied and taught film and television, worked in the Australian film industry, established and ran a community television channel with Optus cable tv and was executive producer with an online video company. Based on his 1995 PhD thesis about Mad Max he continues to explore the developing mind of Max Rockatansky with an ongoing series of video essays that investigates all the films to date in his website www.madmaxculinity.com
