Mad Max, Feminism, and Being A Man

This post was contributed by Ronald Short, a connoisseur of the cinema living and working in Austin, TX. He eats, sleeps, and breathes film and filmmaking. He also happens to be my partner. When I read his post on Tumblr about Mad Max, and his words for his fellow men, I was excited to share it here. I loved the film myself and  was really excited to talk about it a ton with him. 

You can follow Ronald on Twitter or check out his production company, Short Pictures Independent on Facebook.

Mad Max: Fury Road is an action masterpiece. The practical stunts, effects, and story (the whole movie is a chase, an army of bad guys…er, War Boys relentlessly pursuing a small group of women, including their leader Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and our titular hero Max (Tom Hardy). Our protagonists are trying to escape the grasp of the nefarious Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) who will stop at nothing to get his “property” back) will often leave you gazing at the screen with your mouth agape in disbelief. Like I said on my social media after seeing it a second time, this movie is a masterclass in editing and structure. It’s one I will be watching a lot over the next however many years I have left on this rock to not only relive that enjoyment, but to study George Miller’s brushstrokes as a filmmaker and artist. It’s that damn good.

If this movie was purely its special effects and action sequences, it would still be pretty great, one that would stand shoulder to shoulder with some of the best action films out there. However, as I’m sure many of you probably know by now even if you haven’t seen the flick, it isn’t your run of the mill action film. This is a FEMINIST action film. And it’s time for the world to fuckin’ accept it and ENJOY it.

***IT’S A FREE FOR ALL IN TERMS OF SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON***

Cancer is Not Sexy

This is a guest post by friend of the blog, Maria, who you might remember from long discussions about Magic Mike. She excels at looking skeptical, if not mildly irritated at all times.  She loves history, feminism, and judging people. She can see Sarah Palin from her house.

It’s Breast Cancer Awareness month. With all the sweet shopping options out there, you probably already knew.

More than any other cancer, Breast Cancer comes with a built in feel-good campaign; with “save the ta-tas” bracelets and Thinking Pink and survivor walks, ways of coping that make us feel better in the face of an illness we still can’t control.

But let’s consider whether those ways of coping are doing us more harm in the long run, and distracting us from more effective ways of dealing with cancer. Is the way that we understand and treat cancer when it impacts females the best way we can do so?

Hook(ed) Up

This is a guest post by Mackenzie Busch, who blogs regularly at Fetus Frolic, where this piece originally appeared and was published with permission

I am old enough to remember a time when you had to call or meet someone in person to talk to them, even though technically I wasn’t dating until the “messenger” technology was the preferred mode of communication. While most of our communication is done via social media now, my favorite observations are those interactions that still occur in the wild. The first question I am asked at a bar, 9 times out of 10 is, “What do you do?”, I always want to twist this question because it has so many possibilities, but instead I err on the side of sarcasm, I live in Hollywood what the fuck do you think I do? I don’t want to answer that mundane question that’s killing my buzz. Instead I usually lie about my name and what I do, because I have never met a guy at a bar that went past that one night and it’s fun to be Lindsay the kindergarten teacher or Ashley the marine biologist that went to Yale (yes, some jackass believed you could study marine biology at Yale). It’s the poor man’s art of hooking up, and I have found that dudes really want to sleep with school teachers, they’re like the Big Foot of LA and smarmy little douches love to prey on the seemingly innocent. It gives me so much delight to watch these men try to work their way into a woman’s drawers, including my own, and why not fuck with them, it’s the only place women are given any power, for now.

Gender, Race, and Star Trek

This is a guest post by Sarah, who blogs at Radical Madre. It was reposted with permission. I wanted to feature her thoughts as a compliment to my own recent post on the new Star Trek film. Welcome, Sarah! --A. Lynn

Recently I’ve started watching Star Trek the original series on Netflix. One of the first things I noticed when I was watching it was the fact that there is an impressing representation of men and women (i.e. at least 1 woman to every 3 or 4 men) with the women playing supporting roles on the show. The cast is also pretty racially diverse with characters like Uhura and Sulu playing a predominant role.

Why Feminism Is Important

This is a guest post by Mackenzie Busch, who blogs regularly at Fetus Frolic. 

I’ve identified as a feminist for quite a while now and in that time I have never been called angry (to my face), but since I’ve started writing with feminist-laced posts on my personal blog I’ve heard it a lot lately.  Of course it is discouraging and I want to defend myself, but I don’t have to, my words are defense enough.  I am angry, and why shouldn’t I be?  We are fighting to be heard in a world that often undermines a female voice. 

That's Soooo LA

This is a guest post by Mackenzie Busch, who blogs regularly at Fetus Frolic. 

Awhile back this video was released:

...entitled, “Women of LA” and it is chock-full of every -ism and phobia you can fit into five minutes. A little fat-shaming, gold digging references, racism, homophobia, and gross generalizations of women based solely on their geographic location. They even have a clever line about being unable to get a woman drunk enough to sleep with them, but in the their defense you can’t have misogyny without a little rape culture thrown in, right?  Toss in a few B-List celebrities and you’ve garnered 1 million + views of your unsubstantiated male opinions.