Why mad women will inherit the earth
Some of us always knew it, especially those of us who devoured The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - Mad Max: Fury Road's creative godmother as it were - but now that it has been validated by a 70-year-old Greek-Australian director, George Miller, we can say it out loud: Women will inherit the earth.
Why? Well, all you have to do is to see how things turn out for Imperator Furiosa in the newest feminist anthem, Mad Max: Fury Road.
1. Women grow, men destroy: There's the baby, the perfect baby, in Splendid Angharad's womb, prized by Immortan Joe. There's the baby growing in the womb of The Dag, another of the five impossibly beautiful wives. And there's the ancient woman from the Clan of Many Mothers who carries seeds of all kinds in her doctor's bag, trying to grow green wherever she can. The implication is that men have laid waste to the landscape, not sparing even The Green Place which Furiosa is driving towards, which is now feasted upon by crows. Who killed the world, asks Ms Giddy. Umm, yes, the men did.
2. Women are team players: Furiosa, whose original job it is to conduct raids for oil, water and bullets, won't go anywhere without the five breeders (handmaids in Atwood's dystopia), even when it seems there's room for only one. And they know a world without men is not possible, even if they are broken like Max or crazy like the War Boy, Nux.
3. Women know when to delegate: They know there is no other choice. No one is self sufficient. Furiosa is initially suspicious of Max, but learns to trust him enough to let him drive. Initially, when Max suggests they go back to The Citadel because hope is a mistake, she scorns the idea but soon realises that it is indeed the smartest thing to do. You have to confront that which you fear the most.
4. Women share, men compete: Do not become addicted to water; it will take hold of you and you will resent its absence, Immortan Joe (The Commander in The Handmaid's Tale) warns the unwashed masses of The Citadel. But the first thing Furiosa does once she returns victorious to The Citadel is to let the water flow. And there is no throwing overboard of the masses who clamber on the drawbridge. They are given a helping hand, made space for.
5. Don't complain, don't explain: It hurts says Angharad at one point in the slam-bang movie. Everything hurts, snaps Furiosa. Women have an intimate relationship with pain, emotional and physical. If they started being hobbled by it, they wouldn't be able to get out of bed. They manage it, tame it, contain it, and rise about it.
6. Women lead by example: Furiosa doesn't do anything she hasn't asked others. So whether it is driving the War Rig, repairing it, or taking down Immortan Joe's men, she puts herself on the line. It's interesting Mad Max should begin its journey in a week Mad Men has ended. Mad Men, with its hard drinking, constantly womanising central character of Don Draper, may ostensibly seem to be about a thoroughly male culture.
It was, but it was also about how that culture was changing into a "new day, a new idea and new you". And the two people who come out looking the best from the seven year saga are Peggy Olson and Joan Harris. The former is well on the way to becoming the first woman creative director of an ad agency (it is 1971) and the other has just started a successful production company from her tiny apartment which she shares with her mother and little boy.
We are not things, we are not things, says Ms Giddy, whether anyone listens to her or not. Or sons will not be warlords says one of the slogans on the wall of the breeders' hideout. Indeed Furiosa proves that. She is a living, breathing, human being, so at ease with her femininity like her forerunner Ellen Ripley from Alien that she can be bald and when it is revealed that she is one-armed, it seems quite irrelevant. She is perfect, whole, and ready to lead a people out of slavery, out of the Wasteland.