kaberett | Mad Max: Fury Road (Reply)

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jesse_the_k quotes from an article on prosthetics in Fury Road:

Again, the Punch & Judy department of Warner Brothers throws a faked disability, a faux handicap, at us, in their Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) movie, and again, we consider it, just as we considered the attempts in Kingsman, or, Home of the Brave (2006), or, maybe in the ill-fated attempt for cinema titled “Hancock”.

[...snip...]

So, here they go again; what do they do there? Is it good? And, before glorifying it just because (they even write “watch Furiosa punch Max in the face, with her nubbins” which she really doesn’t; she punches him with her hand while sticking the nubbins out in the air) – why not actually *use* our eyes, to look, to ogle, to view, and (in a more strict sense) “watch” it? It is so much a visual and so not much a verbal movie so we really have to switch on our eyesies. What is there to be actually seen, what do they really show? Is this empowering or what does it really say?

... and I went and read the article and then I had OPINIONS, mostly "I am interested in the mechanical details but I am absolutely seethingly furious about how he interprets the final sequence and the story arc", and then I expanded on that a bit more in comments, which I am reproducing here for my own archives.

So my actual issue is that [Wolf Schweitzer is] also approaching this in an incredibly male-gazey way and self-absorbed way:
This visual representation is relevant as missing part of an arm is far more of a communicative disability (in that it interferes with communication) than just a practical manual handicap – and that is what is visually highlighted and emphasized here. After all (we said that already), this is not the movie of the most brilliant verbal dialogues – but it does try to be an exercise in visual story telling.

And that is the visual of a disfigured woman who realizes that a man who could have matched her in some if not many ways walks out on her. Really, that ends up as the movie’s actual essence.

... like... what???? no????? NO??????????? Furiosa has shown absolutely no interest whatsoever in Max as a romantic prospect rather than as furniture; she's shown absolutely no interest in any men [beyond threat assessment]; she is actively trying to get away from them.

And he's got PTSD. And it's not about her being disabled. It's not. He leaves because he's so fucked up that he can't people, he can't the number of people in that citadel, he can't feel safe and he needs to keep moving and he feels like he needs the isolation. He gave her blood. She's not wearing her prosthetic in that scene because she's incredibly weak from blood loss and exhaustion, and he gave her blood, and that means so much more than any kind of bullshit shoehorned romance arc that neither of them wants. And he looks at her - he witnesses her literal ascent to power - and he apologises for being unable to stay and keep being furniture for her or whatever, but this isn't where he belongs and she doesn't actually want this dude who showed up out of nowhere to be seated upon her right hand or whatever, she's got women for that. The citadel isn't a community he belongs in. I can't see how he can possibly read that scene the way he does apart from having massive insecurities of his own in ways that to me honestly read more like standard douchebro whining about how Nice Men Finish Last with a specific different focal reason, dressed up as solidarity for and standing up for a woman. And, you know, I'm entirely willing to believe that he believes that's what he's doing -- but I think the only way you can get to that interpretation is by assuming that the thing Furiosa wants most is A Man, because She's A Lady, and I just... react so strongly against that that I can't even.