{"id":6766,"date":"2025-05-15T13:04:49","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T13:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/15\/the-10th-anniversary-of-fury-road-and-the-road-were-on\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T13:04:50","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T13:04:50","slug":"the-10th-anniversary-of-fury-road-and-the-road-were-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/05\/15\/the-10th-anniversary-of-fury-road-and-the-road-were-on\/","title":{"rendered":"The 10th Anniversary of \u2018Fury Road\u2019 And The Road We\u2019re On"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tom Hardy as Max in Mad Max: Fury Road.<\/em> Warner Bros.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2015, George Miller<\/a>\u2019s <\/span>Mad Max: Fury Road<\/span><\/i> imagined a future apocalypse of fascism, patriarchy, environmental collapse and bad ass gothic road wars to the tune of classic rock riffs. Ten years on, and that far future\u2014minus the cool vehicles and substituting the Village People for the classic rock\u2014looks like it\u2019s reached back through time and grabbed us by the blood bag.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The unholy speed with which we\u2019ve caught up with Miller\u2019s war rig of dystopia is disheartening, to say the least. But driving so close alongside him also means that the road he sees forward feels even more relevant, and even more like hope, than when the film was first released. <\/span>Fury Road<\/span><\/i> offers very specific ideas about how, with whom, and where to fight\u2014ideas that (like the war boys say) we\u2019d do well to witness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like the other Mad Max films (though without too much in the way of reference to them), <\/span>Fury Road<\/span><\/i> is set in an indefinite future of ecological collapse. Semi-delusional loner Max (Tom Hardy<\/a>) is captured early on by the war boys of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne<\/a>). Soon after Max\u2019s kidnapping, Joe\u2019s war rig driver, Furiosa (Charlize Theron<\/a>), takes off on a supply run. Unknown to Joe, though, Furiosa has stolen his enslaved \u201cwives\u201d or \u201cbreeders\u201d in hopes of escaping with them to a Green Place she knew in her youth. Joe sends his troops out in pursuit, including a sick war boy who takes Max along as a forced blood donor. The crazed chase\u2014complete with explosions, violent woundings and an incredibly loud soundtrack\u2014roars across the screen for the next two hours.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Furiosa\"Furiosa
Charlize Theron as Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road.<\/em> Warner Bros.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Part of the reason that <\/span>Fury Road<\/span><\/i> feels so ominously relevant is of course because the seeds of our current metastasizing crises were all already sprouting twisted limbs when the film was made. A drier, hotter, poisoned world has been visible on the horizon for decades.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The villainous Immortan Joe reads now like a Trump analog, even if he is more physically fit, more competent, and is decked out in a Vader-esque headpiece that puts Trump\u2019s hair plugs to shame. But these echoes of the orange one aren\u2019t magical prescience. They\u2019re just an indication that the religious fascism of the right had congealed long before our current nightmare showed up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s bellowing insistence that his \u201cwives\u201d are his\u2014and crucially, that their unborn children are his\u2014is a pointed illustration of how patriarchal control of women\u2019s bodies includes both sexual and reproductive coercion. The fanatical war boys, desperate for even a glance from Joe as they race towards glorious death in war, are an equally blunt depiction of how men are controlled and exploited by the same patriarchy that controls and exploits women. One gender serves as breeding factories, the other as cannon fodder.<\/span><\/p>\n