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Men's Rights Activists Call For Boycott of Mad Max: Fury Road
ideonexus writes: Aaron Clarey, author of the blog Return of Kings and prominent figure in the Men's Rights Movement, is calling for a boycott of George Miller's new edition to the Mad Max franchise "Mad Max: Fury Road," calling the film a "Trojan Horse feminists and Hollywood leftists will use to (vainly) insist on the trope women are equal to men in all things..." and citing the fact that "Vagina Monologues" author Eve Ensler was brought in to coach the actresses on playing sex slaves who escape a warlord's possession. Critics have been applauding the film, which currently scores 98% on RottenTomatoes.
Is it the 1st of April already? My watch must be a few months off...
I can't hear you over this tiny, tiny violin.
P.S. have any of these idiots ever heard of the Streisand Effect?
Good grief, dude. Not everything has some deep underlying 'message'.
It's a Mad Max retake. Weird vehicles, Crap blowing up. Post apocalypse...
It's a gorram movie.
Had you not so thoughtfully informed me, I would never have known, or wanted to know, that some woman associated with the "Vagina Monologues" was also involved with this. And you know what? I not not give a rats ass.
I don't watch Mad Max for it's deep social message.
This happens a lot on IMDB. The first people to see a movie are usually hardcore fans who have been anticipating it for a long time, and will enjoy it no matter what. So there's a sampling bias at the start, then normal people start watching the movie and the average rating goes down.
Just skimmed the article. Summary: Max Max might be woman-friendly. Even if you were remotely interested in this thing, it still is unproven click-bait.. Let's keep the amount of comments as little as possible and save it for 'news that matters' (even for non-nerds).
Am I anti-men thinking this sounds really stupid or have I just internalized my philogyny?
They went a different road from the original(s).
In the original it was more dark and grimy, it felt more dramatic, and the atmosphere in general was sad... very sad.
In the remake, you have drum trucks and flamethrower electric guitars, it's a much more humor-ish comic take, which makes this, again, not a sequel, but a cash-in remake.
It's not a Mad Max movie. The main character isn't Max, the atmosphere isn't Mad Max's, it just happened to have spiked cars chasing plated cars in the wastland.
But hey, how many movies with spiked cars and crazy wasteland chase scenes do we get every year? Am still down for it.
Men's rights and white power groups and other groups that "fight" for the rights of an already empowered majority exist only because they choose to ignore history.
There are no such thing as "group" rights. If a man is denied custody of his children during a divorce procedure, that isn't some how okay because his grandmother was denied a job. Whining about a movie is silly, but MRAs have some valid points about discrimination against men in family law. For instance, most domestic violence laws are written as if men are the sole abusers, when most DV is actually perpetrated by women. In California, the police can only arrest the "dominant" (physically stronger) partner, regardless of who was the initiator or the aggressor. So a woman can attack her husband, and he goes to jail.
Disclaimer: I haven't seen the movie.
There's been too much violence, too much pain. But I have an honorable compromise. Just walk away from this article.
For fuck's sake.
First of all, Aaron Clarey himself says he's not an MRA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Second of all, so what if he was?
I'm tired of MRAs being the boogeyman of feminists looking for someone to blame everytime a tampon slips out of joint.
Oh, was that sexist?
Or did I get to say that because I'm a woman and not "punching down"?
Feminists are allowed to "disown" or "hide" any of their own rank that doesn't play along with the narrative (such as: #killallmen or the SCUM manifesto). Do MRAs (the quiet, non-extremist variety) not get the same benefit of the doubt? Is that really equality, women?
When was the last time you actually talked to someone claiming to be an MRA, rather than just shouting them into silence before actually listening to their points of view? Or do you just blindly listen to The Mary Sue and Jezebel, because they've never shown any biased reporting, right?
This isn't because I'm an MRA (I'm an egalitarian; there's room at the table for everyone with a gender-based axe to grind). I'm just annoyed with feminism needing any enemy to latch the hate onto every time someone dare criticize a woman for anything, instead of, you know, dealing with it like grownups do.
Especially since Eve Ensler wrote a piece that is supposed to be empowering to women that condones not only rape, but statutory rape.
So, feminism, can I broad-brush blame you for that? Is that okay?
Some people don't believe in fairies. I don't believe in The Patriarchy.
Some of the points the men's right movement are valid and worth debating, such as disparity in prison sentencing and child custody. However, this Return of Kings guy is a fucking moron.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
and they fear payback.
I think that is a relatively healthy fear.
I am not a "men's right's activist", nor am I feminist. I don't believe in men's rights, or women's rights or any kind of "group rights." Just individual rights. Equal rights to all under the law. Cover the individual and cover every smallest minority imaginable without playing favourites.
Growing up, I knew a lot of men who went through divorces. They would all complain about how biased the system was in favour of their ex's and how screwed they were getting. I always assumed they were just bitter and angry and biased themselves (I was taught that there is always two sides to every story). Until I went through a separation myself, and my lawyer (who represents both men and women and comes across as a very down-to-earth guy; e.g he urges his clients to seek mediation and not litigate whenever possible), told me flat out that in his experience the system is biased in favour of women. That's not necessarily feminism, in fact it's ANTI-feminist because it treats women like helpless, disadvantaged charity cases who need the support of men to take care of them. But I think that's what a lot of "men's rights activists" fear, and rightly so. It's unfairness in the disguise of seeking fairness.
Part of "being a man" is not being a whiny bitch.
Just sayin'.
-Styopa
Why is this on Slashdot? Has Slashdot become this clickbaity? Secondly, Charlize Theron has said herself that Mad Max is "an incredibly feminist action film" and "It's a total empowerment of women,". Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wir...
I've also heard the synopsis of the film, and it sounds like Charlize Theron's character is the main character in the film and women come to the rescue in the film. It sounds like it really sidelines Mad Max in an attempt to push a political agenda, I liked the Aliens movies, but it wasn't a bait and switch like Mad Max appears to be -- we knew that Sigourney Weaver was the star.
This isn't a call for a boycott.
Well, let's see what TFA says:
Not only REFUSE to see the movie, but spread the word to as many men as possible.
What part of the word "boycott" do you not understand?
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Men's rights and white power groups and other groups that "fight" for the rights of an already empowered majority exist only because they choose to ignore history.
I have a cousin, who for gender-related reasons, is having difficulty getting into college. Is this right? No, you do not get to know the gender of my cousin, that is irrelevant to whether or not it is right or wrong.
These people that you think are ignoring history, they really aren't. The men's rights groups that fight for discrimination that favors men, as wrong as they may be, aren't ignoring history, they are trying to preserve it, to preserve their power and influence. Again, I am not saying such groups are right, just that they are not ignoring history.
Likewise, the men's rights groups that fight for a genuine end to discrimination instead of discrimination that disfavors men, they know from history that hate just leads to more hate, discrimination just breeds more discrimination, and that the way to stop it, isn't to change the status quo from discrimination that favors men to discrimination that disfavors men, it is to fucking end discrimination.
But hey, thanks for trying to make this into an "us" vs "them" situation and just overall being part of the fucking problem.
Road Warrior was peak Mad Max, it's eminently rewatchable. Thunderdome II, not so much.
I looked briefly at the massive "MRA" "activists" behind this. One mental patient with a wonky web page.
Makes me wonder who's behind the massive publicity behind this non-story.
Meanwhile I have a friend who's paying child support in *two* states for a kid he has sole custody of his only child and putting her through college despite the fact his toxic ex beat the kid. Bue she went to school with the prosecutor, who knows the judge in a small town in Georgia. Backwoods southern justice strikes again.
Family law is still the 900 pound gorilla in the room.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Men's rights are alive and well.
Men's rights are alive and making progress. Slowly.
Not at all the same thing.
Um..
Just exactly when are you going to stop helping females and take your foot of the back of young men? The ratio is 60/40 now-- when will it be "enough" to stop having hundreds of groups helping females but few helping males?
---
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07...
Most institutions of higher learning, except engineering schools, now have a female edge, with many small liberal arts colleges and huge public universities alike hovering near the 60-40 ratio. Even Harvard, long a male bastion, has begun to tilt toward women.
"The class we just admitted will be 52 percent female," said William Fitzsimmons, Harvard's dean of admissions.
Women now outnumber men two to one at places like the State University of New York at New Paltz, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Baltimore City Community College.
---
seriously--- I'm retired and don't really give a shit- I'm not a "men's" activist-- but I see in my gaming groups and in my in-laws relationships how the males are suffering while the females are still getting assistance and help even tho things are well past 50/50 (i.e. "fair") now.
At the last place I worked before I retired, 70% of managers were females and they openly discriminated in favor of females for team leader positions the ratio was 80% female to 20% male. They did things which would be illegal if a man did it. The law wasn't being equally enforced.
People hire people "like" them unless the government gives them a reality check. Women are equally able to discriminate, behave in a prejudicial fashion, and abuse the power of their positions.
The area where it is imbalanced in favor of males is at the very top. Among 60 year old males- the percentages are m ore like 80% male and 20% female. Where we need affirmative action is at the top- not in the bottom or even in the middle any more.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Maybe not in terms of the planet's population, but in many industries and in positions of power and authority, men are still a majority.
...and those men comprise an exceedingly miniscule percentage of the male population. The rest of us in the 99.999th percentile aren't as "empowered" as those guys.
BTW, males DO outnumber females worldwide, but females outnumber males in the vast majority of the developed world.
Good grief, dude. Not everything has some deep underlying 'message'.
Well, I would agree with you...except, they brought in the author of the 'Vagina Monologues", Eve Ensler, to consult on making the film. You do not bring her in unless you are putting in some deep underlying message which she would approve of. For that matter, Eve Ensler would not have consented to consult on the film unless she agreed with the message.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
yup
the arc of history is clear: progress is real. it wasn't long ago the idea of gay marriage rights or marijuana legalization seemed distant and impossible
bigots, sexists, racists: they may whine and bitch, or go full douchebag and do immoral things, but their fate is clear and certain: the dustbin of history. they are losing, and they will lose in the end
don't get me wrong, sexists, racists and such losers will always exist. it's just that they will no longer dominate the social, legal, and political status quo like they used to. the fact that they no longer do is, like the arrow of time, proof of the march of history and progress
you will always encounter sexists and racists. a moronic comment on slashdot. a throwaway comment by a loser coworker. a catcall or a tweet from who knows where that momentarily catches your eye
ignore them. they hold no power
such shitbags will always linger like a fungus in a dank basement, the socially malformed pathetics of any society. serious civilization has moved on without them, and will continue to make them more and more irrelevant
like cannibalism and slavery, things that also do still exist, and always will exist, in the dark cracks. but are now an exotic shocking fringe, and no longer dominate our societies
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
1. Return of Kings is not MRA. Return of Kings is anti-MRA. That's a pretty big difference.
2. It's not plural activists. It's *one* guy.
3. This is the first time ever I've seen someone use RottenTomatoes as a reference for movie quality? Why?
I think this is the first time I've seen "MRA" in a slashdot headline (I could have missed some, but I do check reasonably often). It's certainly the first time Return of Kings attention-getting trollish posts (including stuff like "why girls with short hair are damaged" and "why to date a girl with an eating disorder") has baited slashdot, that I'm aware of.
But the bigger concern is- is slashdot going to really enter this territory? This is hugely controversial stuff. We've already seen "feminism Friday" become a thing- normally some genderwarrior-bait story near the end of the week, normally told from a feminist perspective- sometimes legit, sometimes not. One piece that is largely controversial on slashdot is the "should we bend over backwards to get girls in tech" thing, obviously built in controversy for a bunch of professional tech people, and we see it *over and over again*.
But this is beyond that. You would expect people to have differing opinions on that stuff, and whether you are opposed or in favor, it's pretty relevant. Random gender warring stories, such as this, are not.
I'll also point this out: the editorial staff seems to be pretty strongly on one side. It may be difficult to give MRAs a fair shake, but certainly, by calling RoK an MRA website, and by linking that as the first thing ever, they aren't even fucking trying. This would be like calling out "feminists" and then linking to some really ludicrous 70s-edge position as being the standard-bearer. A Voice For Men's website is probably a better place to start if you want to actually go find non-strawmen points to analyze / refute- they at least self identify as some version of MRA, not some reactionary / PUA crossbreed like RoK.
The people who discuss these gender things online tend to be full-on soldiers, on both sides. They will do or say anything to slam the other side, they will dox, they will make false claims, they are fighting a fucking war. And you want the slashdot commenters to be in on this? Gross.
I was so ready to be disappointed, fearing that this would be another jumpcut, way-too-zoomed-in CGI-infested snoozefest like so many other action movies of the last few decades.
I was pleasantly surprised to be presented with a lean mean, no-holds-barred guns-a-blazing action blast with tons of awesome practical effects and long-duration shots that really let you take in every bit of the insanity instead of only showing you glimpses. It was great, honestly, truly great.
Eat the rich.
That sounds kind of awesome, tbh.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It would be so if only MRAs actually cared a fig about discrimination or violence against men.
If you follow the movement, you'll see it has a lot less to do with making anyone's life better and a lot to do with attacking women.
Ah yes, the classic "pay no attention to the rationality of the argument, I can assure you that somehow it's all about invisible oppression."
This appeal to emotion is something I've never understood. Does logic warp in the presence of such accusations? Do valid points become invalid if countered with claims of misogyny? Is 2 = 2 somehow not correct because the author was accused of being an MRA (and therefore bad by association)? How do you rationalise away the valid points about discrimination against men by claiming that arbitrary persons attack arbitrary women?
I'm kind of in two minds here. I think I'll hedge my bets by pirating it but deleting it without watching it. Or at least not properly paying attention.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That web site is not an advocate for "mens rights", it's a flaming, garish train wreck of a crock of shit. (Tell us how you really feel)
No more so than any other brand.
Think of the people that read the Perry Rhodan, or the destroyer Novels. Mad Max as a brand has certain expectations. Both have been going on forever and are able to do so because they meet expectations. Mad Max has it's own expectations.
The setting is post Apocalyptic Australia.
There must be a group of people struggling towards the future.
They must be opposed by the forces of chaos and evil trying to plunge mankind deeper into darkness.
Then there is Max the rogue element driven by his loss. The tragic and flawed hero who stands against the darkness.
I don't care if they decided to make a movie with Charlize Theron as the action lead. I actually enjoyed Aeon Flux may have been one of the few people that did. The key is that when I went to see Aeon Flux I had a pretty good Idea of what I would be getting which was about a certain style and aesthetic. Many people complained the movie wasn't consistent with the cartoon but they miss the point that the cartoon was nowhere near self consistent.
So if this isn't a Mad Max movie, that's fine but it is false advertising.
Maybe if it were an acutal Men's rights activitst who was saying this. This comes from a peice on Return of Kings, which is NOT part of the Men's Human Rights Movment, but is instead a pickup artist site run by a man who is hostile to the Men's right's movement.
The Men's Human Right's Movment is more concerned with the following:
The unfair way in which family courts treat men with regards to custody, child support and alimony
The lack of services for male victims of domestic violence.
The male suicide rate.
Selective Service and the Draft
Infant circumcision.
Women earning positions of power or being represented as powerful isn't even on their radar. Several of the most prominent men's rights activists such as Karen Straughan are female.
I hope this is educational.and might open your eyes a bit.
That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
How about a retraction Slashdot for not doing your fucking research.
http://www.returnofkings.com/31590/5-reasons-i-am-not-a-mens-rights-activist
Clearly not a men's rights page. He even has reasons why not.
That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
You see a conspiracy where there is none. They had sex slaves in the plot and wanted to do a better than average portrayal, making them proper characters instead of the usual generic dross. They got in an expert to consult.
What exactly are you trying to say? That this person taints everything she touches? Can you provide specific criticism of the film to support that point? Or are you just saying it is a zero sum game and that men must lose out for women to be portrayed positively in movies?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Because it looked like the sort of thing that could generate 400+ comments and have people looking at the advertisements on the page.
Yes, and the increasing number of things framed as MRA vs SJW fights are part of it. It's the new bitcoin article of the week.