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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.
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.
Am I anti-men thinking this sounds really stupid or have I just internalized my philogyny?
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.
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
No, it isn't a good movie. Not anywhere near a good movie. Actually kinda a dumb movie. It does have lots of car chases and explosions to distract you from the fact that it is a bad movie. I'm sure it will be successful - nobody eats at McDonalds for quality food but they still eat there.
Well I suppose if you like movies about neurotic New Yorkers whining about their sex lives on the couch at their shrinks office and sitting around a table at some cafe slurping a latte while venting their outrage over people who pick their noses at traffic lights then a Mad Max film might seem like a bad movie.
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 ?
No, it isn't a good movie. Not anywhere near a good movie. Actually kinda a dumb movie. It does have lots of car chases and explosions to distract you from the fact that it is a bad movie. I'm sure it will be successful - nobody eats at McDonalds for quality food but they still eat there.
It's the first big-budget action movie in many years with practical effects. This is a huge deal for fans of the genre. Action movies have been shot badly for so long now people start to forget wheat they're supposed to be like. All CGI and jumpcuts to hide the fact the actors aren't in the action, which really detracts from the fun. Long (duration) shots with no jumpcuts so you feel the action rather than yawn at camera tricks, wide shots so you can actually follow what's going on in a fight: this is the stuff that makes action entertaining. The action scenes in the Indiana Jones movies (recent abomination excepted) are great examples, with shots that last about 90 seconds between cuts, practical effects, and stuntmen performing all the action on screen, it all makes the movie immersive in a way that, say Guardians of the Galaxy isn't. I liked the latter too, but none of the fights made me wince when someone got hit - a neat film, but not engaging in that way.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
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)
Very little CGI was used in Mad Max.
"Over 80% of the effects seen in the film are real practical effects, stunts, make-up and sets. CGI was used sparingly mainly to enhance the Namibian landscape, remove stunt rigging and for Charlize Theron's left hand which in the film is a prosthetic arm." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt13...
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
When you claim that there was no plot after 5 minutes into the first movie, you prove your bias and stupidity. The Road Warrior had more plot than similar movies of the time. The plot could be summed up as "standard siege film" but that's more a genre of plot, than specific plot. There were side/sub plots about father figures, redemption and such.
What helps is to identify the protagonist. By the classical definition, it's the character with change. Mad Max undergoes no change. The protagonist in the movie is not Mad Max, but instead the wives/harem. And the antagonist is the villain (not always the case, but is here). The villain wants the harem to not change.
Same setup as #2. Where Mad Max wasn't the main protagonist, but a plot device for the villager's protagonism (yes, I know that isn't a word, but it's still a word if you know what I mean).
If there's "no plot" then the speaker is too dumb to find it. If it had "no plot" then it would fail in the theaters, no matter how much of a spectacular it is.
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