In May of 2015, Mad Max: Fury Road was released as the third movie in the Mad Max franchise to great reviews[1]. It went on to win six Oscars—the most of the 2016 Academy Awards[2]. George Miller’s Fury Road explores the collapse of civilization into the tyrannical rule of Immortan Joe who enslaves apocalyptic survivors inside the desert fortress, the Citadel. When the warrior Imperator Furiosa leads Immortan Joe’s five wives in an escape to the safe haven, the Green Place, she forges an alliance with Max Rockatansky, a former captive of the Citadel. The film follows them as they traverse the Wasteland and try to outrun the ruthless warlord and his henchmen.
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While Fury Road is consistently praised for its central themes around vengeance, solidarity, and more aptly, it’s strong feminist themes, it is often ignored for its contrasting depiction of disability. Disability is typically illustrated in dystopian films as a way to signify evil, whether it be through the use of physical deformities or mental illness. While Fury Road still falls into this trope, the film is entrenched in various disability portrayals that challenge the typical depictions of disabled people as evil, pitiable, or a burden[3]. Disability in Fury Road is common—it is a result of the radiation-based apocalypse and the harsh environment affects everyone, from the Citadels’ leader Immortan Joe, to his followers the War Boys, to The Wretched (the lowliest members of the Citadel’s population), to warriors, and to captives.
Miller explores typical stereotypes of disability, original, authentic depictions, and more nuanced explorations of disability as an environment rather than as an individual characteristic in Fury Road. The depictions can be split into one of three categories: disability as evil; disability as powerful; and disability as setting. Most importantly, Miller uses different depictions of disability to counteract the protagonists, Imperator Furiosa and Max, with the antagonist and his reign, Immortan Joe and the War Boys. This paper will explore the different depictions of disability in the film, as well as the opposing portrayals in the antagonist and protagonist.
Disability as Setting
Though not as common, disabled people are often used in the backgrounds of films and television to enhance a certain atmosphere – typically one of menace, or deprivation[4]. This dilutes the humanity of disabled people by reducing them to objects of curiosity. Disability is prevalent in all environments of Miller’s Mad Max franchise. In the exploration of a post-apocalyptic world that is ravaged by lack of resources and a desert wasteland, it is no surprise that all characters show signs of physical deformity, malnutrition, and radiation effects from the impact of living in a resourceless land. The idea behind the establishing environmental shots[5] in the movie is that Miller is trying to show that this is a world of sickness and death, and the easiest way to show that to the audience is to rely on typical portrayals of sick, dying, and disabled people.
Almost all characters in Fury Road are disabled and as a result, physical disability begins to form an environment, a way of living. Visible deformity forms the background of the population around the protagonists and villains. The imperfect body is simply accepted throughout the film. The emphasis on sickness, as a way to show how Immortan Joe’s rule was literally poison to his people makes disability shorthand for consequences of evil deeds. We are meant to pity their plight but also see how deformity is part of the aesthetic of corruption.
Disability as Evil
One of the most persistent stereotypes and obstacles to disabled people’s successful acceptance into a community is that disability is seen as evil[6]. This is done by emphasizing the character’s disability in a way that marks them as other, drawing on the idea that disabled bodies are broken, deformed, or less than human. Because of the way disability is used to make villains more sinister, it is often common for them to have disabilities that involve highly visible or audible technology[7]. This trope has commonly been deemed as the Evil Cripple[8]. The Evil Cripple is said to become a threat, rather than simply disabled, if and when they use physical enhancements to “overcome” their disabilities.
Disability in Mad Max: Fury Road is used to highlight the grotesque. The audience is meant to be shocked and disgusted at the antagonist Immortan Joe’s diseased skin that remains hidden under armour. His disability is front and center, his face unknowable, only a mask that serves as a respirator is identifiable. Much like Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise, Immortan Joe is unable to survive without his medical devices – his aspirator being removed to eventually be what causes his demise. This stereotype plays on people’s inherent discomfort with those who do not look the same as them, telling them that disability makes characters revolting and morally wrong. While the audience may be able to recognize that Immortan Joe is evil because he imprisons people, he withholds water from the Citadel, and he forces women to bear his children, it is much easier to categorize Immortan Joe because of the way he looks. Disability is used as a shorthand to emphasize how twisted Immortan Joe’s rule has been and how he is an irredeemable villain.
Disability as Powerful
In contrast to the portrayal of physical disability in Immortan Joe, the main protagonist Imperator Furiosa is also physically disabled but is instead portrayed in an empowering, or even neutral manner. However, empowering and neutral should not be compared to the classic disability tropes of Super Crip[9] or Normal[10]. Furiosa’s disability is not glorified, nor is it ordinary.
Unlike Immortan Joe, Furiosa is constantly seen by others without her prosthesis. When the War Rig[11] is cleaned after the sandstorm, Furiosa is without her prosthetic arm. When she falls to the ground and screams after realizing The Green Place[12] is a wasteland, she is without her prosthetic arm. This absence, however, in no way signals to others that she is useless. More interestingly, while Immortan Joe seems to be reliant on his medical devices, Furiosa is empowered by hers. Her prosthetic allows her to drive the War Rig and take herself and Immortan Joe’s wives to safety.
The disability portrayal in Furiousa is also portrayed in a neutral manner. The audience doesn’t ever learn the detailed origins of her disabilities. The disabilities exist outside the coding from the Citadel leaders. Her lack of arm isn’t present as either strength or a weakness. Her disability is the least exaggerated, and its appearance is not mean to horrify or engender pity. Her disability is never discussed or highlighted by other characters, but simply exists. Furiosa’s disability is not used as a plot device. There is no back story regarding her disability, and her character is not used in a way to inspire or motivate the audience.
Furiosa’s biggest difference from Immortan Joe is that she allows that the autonomy a prosthetic device promises is incomplete. Ultimately, Furiosa recognizes her need for interdependence[13] and shares her power with others. Immortan Joe then exemplifies the denial that autonomy is impossible, and no prosthesis, literal or metaphorical, can supply it. He is an evil dictator that rules alone and by whim. He counts the War Boys and his wives as his property.
That Furiosa should be the one to kill Immortan Joe is appropriate, given what the film tells us about disability. Furiosa hooks her prosthetic arm to Immortan Joe’s breathing mask, and then rids herself voluntarily of her prosthesis, tearing away the device keeping him alive. Furiosa may reveal her impairment, but Immortan Joe never can. His apparatus’ removal is both the metaphorical and literal end of his reign. While Furiosa is able to recognize the autonomy her prosthetic gives her, she is not burdened by it and she is not “confined to it”[14]. In this way, Fury Road illustrates the idea that autonomy and wholeness are not necessary in order to have power. Furiosa’s lack of prosthetic does not make her any less powerful, just as her use of it did not render her dependent. With or without the prosthetic, at the end of the film, Furiosa takes her place as the rightful ruler of the Citadel.
While Fury Road is guilty of utilizing visible disability to both underscore the grotesqueness of its villains and to highlight the suffering living in a wasteland ruled by monsters would cause, it also tempers those portrayals by having two explicitly disabled protagonists, their disabilities neutral, neither superpowered nor torturous. Disabled characters have a placed in the Citadel, just as they do in Fury Road. Miller grapples with typical tropes of disability and challenges them with nuanced depictions of disability and autonomy, power, and interdependence.
Bibliography
- ABC. “Mad Max: Fury Road wins the most 2016 Oscars”. oscar.go.com. https://oscar.go.com/news/winners/mad-max-fury-road-wins-the-most-2016-oscars (accessed October 6, 2019).
- Barnes, Colin. “An Exploration of the Principles for Media Representations of Disabled People”. The British Council of Organisations of Disabled People. Krumlin, Halifax, 1992.
- Black, Rhonda & Lori Pretes. “Victims and Victors: Representation of Physical Disability on the Silver Screen”. SAGE Journals. 2007. https://doi.org/10.2511/rpsd.32.1.66
- George Miller., dir., Mad Max: Fury Road (2015; United States: Warner Brothers Pictures), DVD.
- Rotten Tomatoes. “Mad Max: Fury Road” rottentomatoes.com. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mad_max_fury_road (accessed October 6, 2019).
[1] Rotten Tomatoes. “Mad Max: Fury Road” rottentomatoes.com. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mad_max_fury_road (accessed October 6, 2019).
[2] ABC. “Mad Max: Fury Road wins the most 2016 Oscars”. oscar.go.com. https://oscar.go.com/news/winners/mad-max-fury-road-wins-the-most-2016-oscars (accessed October 6, 2019).
[3] Barnes, Colin. “An Exploration of the Principles for Media Representations of Disabled People”. The British Council of Organisations of Disabled People. Krumlin, Halifax, 1992.
[4] Barnes, Colin. “An Exploration of the Principles for Media Representations of Disabled People”. The British Council of Organisations of Disabled People. Krumlin, Halifax, 1992, pp. 12.
[5] I am using establishing environmental shots to describe shots in the film that do not include any dialogue or main characters and instead show background, nameless characters or environments/locations in the film.
[6] Ibid., pp. 11.
[7] Ibid., pp. 11. See Darth Vader, Captain Hook, Bane, Terminator.
[8] Black, Rhonda & Lori Pretes. “Victims and Victors: Representation of Physical Disability on the Silver Screen”. SAGE Journals. 2007.
[9] Disabled people are seen as having super human or magical capabilities as a result or in spite of their disability. Barnes, Colin. “An Exploration of the Principles for Media Representations of Disabled People”. The British Council of Organisations of Disabled People. Krumlin, Halifax, 1992, pp. 12.
[10] A characteristically “normal” person that just so happens to have an impairment. It typically does not impact their life in any significant manner. Ibid., pp. 18.
[11] The War Rig is a custom vehicle created and driven by Furiosa. Miller, 2015.
[12] A supposed fertile area of The Wasteland. It is said to be capable of growing crops and maintaining a population of settlers. Miller, 2015.
[13] Which leads her to Max, the help of the wives during the escape, and the physical and emotional support of the Vuvalini. Miller, 2015.
[14] I use the word confined here to reference how ableist language often says disabled people are confined to their medical devices that actually allow them autonomy, empowerment, and in/ter/dependence.
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