Mad Max: Fury Road, the latest dystopian flick about how gangs, anarchy, and super-fast driving become a way of life after humans have irrevocably destroyed the natural world, was surprisingly (and awesomely) full of strong female characters. There was no-bullshit badass Imperator Furiosa, a bunch of enslaved “breeders” who traded their chastity belts for artillery, and — perhaps best of all — a tribe of older women who sped around on dirt bikes, taking down bad guys left and right. It was great.
So why didn’t any of those women make it into the to-be-released Mad Max: Savage Road video game? Ars Technica reports, dishearteningly:
The Mad Max game trailer and the gameplay we’ve seen include no major female characters, such as Fury Road‘s Furiosa character (played by Charlize Theron in the film) or Beyond Thunderdome‘s Aunty Entity. Theron recently called the new film “an incredible feminist movie“; Internet commenters have since argued over whether that description is entirely apt, but Theron is certainly less likely to say the same about the upcoming game, at least in its current state.
To be fair, the video game isn’t supposed to be a direct adaptation of Fury Road — plenty of male characters from the movie don’t appear in the game, either. But it’s like the game’s developers are not even trying:
[…] The game trailer revolves around dudes, dudes, and more dudes, all driving cars and getting into fights—with the exception of a single woman who appears to be both an unwilling captive of a bad guy and Max’s romantic interest. Given its ties to a film packed with combat-ready women, a careful portrayal of sexualization, and a major consultant best known for penning plays like The Vagina Monologues, the game’s approach may raise eyebrows among some players.
Oh, another video game where the women are just passive, anatomically impossible sex objects? Yawn. This isn’t just a feminist issue — although it is certainly that — it’s unoriginal and boring, and for that, even MRA-ers should be annoyed.
Fury Road was awesome for a lot of reasons, but the impressiveness of its female characters was a big one because we just don’t get to see that in action films very often. Who knew that women could stand up and fight for themselves? (Actually, we did — and we’ve known the whole damn time.)
