Gender Spaces in Action Films: The Mad Max Franchise

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Gender Spaces in Action Films: The Mad Max FranchiseAuthor(s)
Date
2023Citation
Barros-Grela, Eduardo. "Gender Spaces in Action Films: The Mad Max Franchise", in Gender and Action Films 1980-2000. Beauty in Motion, ed. Steven Gerrard and Renée Midllemost. Bingley: Emerald, 2023, pp. 23-36. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80117-506-720221002
Abstract
[Abstract] Action films have traditionally been included in a category of popular
cinema that enhanced and celebrated male heroes as the epitome of masculinity.
Classical representations of men in this genre included notorious
characters such as Indiana Jones, John Rambo or John McClane, to name
just a few, who were conceived as characteristic of heteronormative and
male-based aesthetics. The films in which these characters appeared reaffirmed
a model of masculinity that perceived women as just an accessory that
complemented men’s attributes, but there were other examples within the
genre that offered more complex views in the treatment of gender roles.
Therefore, this chapter will focus on the evolution of the roles played by men
and women in the Mad Max action film series, and will discuss how the
representation of gender is determined in the franchise by the mediation of
space in the generation of male and female roles.
The different representations of The Wasteland in Mad Max have
contributed to locate characters in positions that have traditionally been
associated with either men or women, such as cars, roads, wilderness or
domestic environments. However, the evolution experienced by director
George Miller’s gender awareness, from the representation of the original
Max Rockatansky in the first Mad Max film to his relegation to a supporting
role in the latest production, in favour of iconic Imperator Furiosa, has
provided a description of how the resignification of these spaces has been
fundamental in presenting female characters as autonomous, independent
and performative subjects, and male characters as active yet not intrusive
participants in the empowerment of women and in dismantling male
privilege
Keywords
Action
Gender
Mad Max
Masculinity
Empowerment
(Post) feminism
Gender
Mad Max
Masculinity
Empowerment
(Post) feminism
Editor version
ISBN
978-1-80117-507-4,