Victim-Warriors and Restorers—Heroines in the Post-Apocalyptic World of Mad Max: Fury Road

Anna Reglińska-Jemioł

doi:10.18778/2083-2931.11.08

Authors

Anna Reglińska-Jemioł University of Gdańsk https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5471-8032

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/2083-2931.11.08

Keywords:

post-apocalyptic utopia, Mad Max saga, feminism

Abstract

The article discusses the evolving image of female characters in the Mad Max saga directed by George Miller, focusing on Furiosa’s rebellion in the last film—Mad Max: Fury Road. Interestingly, studying Miller’s post-apocalyptic action films, we can observe the evolution of this post-apocalyptic vision from the male-dominated world with civilization collapsing into chaotic violence visualized in the previous series to a more hopeful future created by women in the last part of the saga: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). We observe female heroes: the vengeful Furiosa, the protector of oppressed girls and sex slaves, the women of the separatist clan, and the wives of the warlord, who bring down the tyranny and create a new “green place.” It is worth emphasizing that the plot casts female solidarity in the central heroic role. In fact, the Mad Max saga emerges as a piece of socially engaged cinema preoccupied with the cultural context of gender discourse. Noticeably, media commentators, scholars and activists have suggested that Fury Road is a feminist film.

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Author Biography

Anna Reglińska-Jemioł, University of Gdańsk

Anna Reglińska-Jemioł is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Polish Language at the University of Gdańsk where she teaches history of Polish literature (from the late Middle Ages through the Enlightenment period). Her research interests include the theoretical and aesthetic implications of dance culture in drama and theatre (her doctoral thesis was published as a monograph Dance Forms in Polish Jesuit Drama in the 18th Century). She focuses on the relationships between literature and different media in the context of cultural studies. Her recent works pictured the intercultural reflection of American life: “The Pleasures of the Table and Greediness as a Cultural Phenomenon of American Everyday Life” and “‘Keep Portland Weird’—Around the Topic of Migration and the Phenomenon of Gentrification on the Example of the State of Oregon (USA): Cultural Tropes, Literary Margins, Adaptation Strategies in the Context of Everyday Experiences.”

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