- so that *they* don't provide a vehicle for social commentary either, except at the most simplistic, individual level: outliers by design.
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You have Angharad using her pregnant belly to shield Furiosa from Immortan Joe, while he bellows at her that her child is his property.
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You have Angharad and Capable arguing for Nux's life - "No unnecessary killing!" - because they *know* he's brainwashed into wanting death.
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You have Cheedo, heartsick, trying to flee, letting the Dag and Toast pull her back, then later pretending to flee to manipulate Rictus.
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You have the Dag baring her teeth, hiss-spitting at war boys after her chastity belt comes off, unafraid and absolute. "We are not things."
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You have Miss Giddy staring down Immortan Joe in the heart of his Citadel - "You can't own people! Sooner or later, someone pushes back!"
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Later, as Joe has Angharad's baby cut out, it's Miss Giddy alone who covers her dead eyes, who holds her hand - who sees HER, not a body.
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But there are still people who'll watch that film & recognise Furiosa as the only *really* strong female character, because she hits stuff.
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These people will miss the power of her opening shot, that shows us the brand on the back of her neck; the same brand that Max just dodged.
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They will not understand in full why Furiosa is looking for redemption, because they'll miss what the context tells us about her status.
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The kind of guy who sees no worldbuilding flaw in Sexism Without Sexists won't blink at a lone, exceptional woman working for Immortan Joe -
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- because her internality on the sexism around her, the dissonance between her status and that of the wives, won't register to him.
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He'll just think, "Oh, she must be So Good At Fighting that Joe let her be an Imperator," even though Joe literally thinks women are things.
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Because ultimately in that logic, women who fight - who are even the most reductive form of Strong - are as fantastic as the setting itself.
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After Google fired their sexist memo-writer, the guy went on Twitter comparing STEM diversity initiatives to an attempt to hire Santa Claus.
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That's how implausible female strength is to these people: they literally think it's an element of fantasy worldbuilding, like dragons.
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(Except, you know, that they actually LIKE dragons and care a great deal about the consistency of their portrayal in the setting.)
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As a rule of thumb, the kind of guy who thinks female strength & competence are rare is oblivious to how much of both his ignorance fuels.
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Women who work with sexists have to do twice as much to avoid the roadblocks those asshats throw down, both intentionally & by default.
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Watching MMFR, I was reminded of all the gun-toting survivalists who keep "prepared" for the End Times. THAT'S how you get war boys, folks.
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Just today I saw an image of armed white supremacists wading through floodwaters in Houston to "stop looters". Like I just. For fuck's SAKE.
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There's a dark irony in how, for a scary number of people, "survivalism" means "being the most lethal". (Angharad called bullets anti-seed.)
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You have this whole movement where survival doesn't mean helping others, it doesn't mean saving things or rebuilding better; just more guns.
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I'm wandering away from the topic of characterisation here, I know. But how many guys who protested MMFR have since picked up tikki torches?
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What really fucks me off about so much anti-antifa ranting is the idea that all this anger and willingness to punch came from nowhere.
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Which. Of COURSE you think that, if you're in the habit of confusing strength with violence. You didn't see that strength was always there.
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And now that fascist calls for violence are being met with vocal plans for retaliation, that's being conflated as two equal platforms, FFS.
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As though the act of opposing something inherently equalises you to it, either in terms of power or moral equivalence!
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Following that logic, anyone who fights ISIS is as bad as ISIS, and a gang of adults who torture a puppy are justified if it bites back.
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But yeah, sure. Let's keep pretending that "enduring, subverting and getting around sexist fuckery" isn't a form of strength w/o violence.
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Let's keep pretending that it's possible to write stories that aren't in any way informed by politics, whether the world's or the writer's.
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