"I’m going to tell you a story about llamas. It will be like every other story you’ve ever heard about llamas: how they are covered in fine scales; how they eat their young if not raised properly; and how, at the end of their lives, they hurl themselves – lemming-like- over cliffs to drown in the surging sea. They are, at heart, sea creatures, birthed from the sea, married to it like the fishing people who make their livelihood there.
Every story you hear about llamas is the same. You see it in books: the poor doomed baby llama getting chomped up by its intemperate parent. On television: the massive tide of scaly llamas falling in a great, majestic herd into the sea below. In the movies: bad-ass llamas smoking cigars and painting their scales in jungle camouflage.
Since I know there’s probably a fair amount of you out there who haven’t seen the first three Mad Max movies, I’m here to tell you a li’l secret about them:
All the people complaining about how Max “isn’t the main character” in Fury Road are big ol’ Fake Fanboys cause Max’s primary character trait in literally every movie is “I hate this, why is it happening, please leave me alone to brood in the desert in peace”.
He’s much more the central focus of the plot in the first movie but in Road Warrior and Thunder Dome he basically just gets kidnapped or beat up by wankers in weird bondage outfits and spends the rest of the movie trying to leave as soon as possible while other people are like “please solve our absurd post-apocalyptic problems”. There is not one single point where Max actively seeks out being a hero until it is forced upon him. He ACTIVELY TELLS PEOPLE WHO ASK HIM FOR HELP to take a hike.
Mad Max himself would like nothing better than to never, ever, ever be the main character.
He would also like for people to stop stealing his fucking car.
Nobody wants to escape his own movies more than Max Rockatansky.
He understands better than his own fanboys that his life sucks and you don’t want to be like him, to be Max is humiliating and painful. Every time he gets dragged into a conflict, he ends up worse than he started. Max seems to realize no good can come of this, and is weirdly genre-savvy because he’s always trying to make a getaway at the first signs of encroaching Plot. I find this darkly comical and endearing – at no point does he snap off witty quips and save the day and get the girl. Ever. He’s perpetually a weird desert loser with terrible luck. It’s great.
What makes Max a badass is the ability to survive to the end of any movie he’s unfortunate enough to find himself in.
This relates to a theory I have, which is that the archetypal Western Male Hero is James Bond, to the degree that people (Mainly straight white men) start to see every Western Male Hero as James Bond.
Which is to say an aggressively masculine, quip-spitting, hyper violent womanizer. The ultimate Male Power Fantasy. A new supermodel love interest (or two) every film, a gun in his hand, and no consequences for his actions.
Consider:
Captain Kirk: Painted as a headstrong idiot who spends all his time banging green skinned alien queens. In reality, a pretty firmly Feminist character.
Han Solo: Pictured as a suave too-cool-for-school scoundrel. Actually kind of a mess with a ship that’s falling apart. He constantly has people after him, not because he’s some sort of superscoundrel that makes powerful enemies, but because he makes deals with dangerous people, and then fails to live up to his end of the bargain. From what I recall, it’s not even that he double-crosses them or anything, he just screws up.
Mad Max: To quote that one hilariously stupid review that helped make the movie so popular, “In the post-apocalyptic future, it’s going to be MEN LIKE MAX THAT ARE IN CHARGE!” Max just wants to drive his car around the desert and be sad. He doesn’t want any of this.
It’s like, the Male Power Fantasy (as exemplified by James Bond) is so strong that we feel a need to cast everybody we can in that same mold.
Seriously this
Max is not ‘in charge’ of anything Max is a broken shell of a human being who has lost everyone he ever loved and suffers from severe post traumatic stress disorder and his life is a non-stop struggle just to live through another day in the nightmarish hellworld that he is trapped in, he is literally never ‘in charge’ the movies are about him being dragged against his will into whatever bizarre and horrific thing is happening in this Nightmare World this week and doing his best to survive and, sometimes, to just help out the actual heroes of the film because something about them reminds him of the person he used to be instead of the wreckage of a human being he has become
something i think about a lot is what if alien species have less biodiversity on their planets. like if they’ve got maybe 20, 25 species of bugs, total. so they come to earth and they’re like “whoa.” or they’ll like be like walking down the street and they’re like “ok what’s that” pointing at a st bernard and you’re like “oh that’s a dog” and they’re like “whoa, neat, i’ve heard about dogs.”
and you walk for a while longer and then they point at a yorkie and they’re like “what’s that?” and you kind of have to be like “…that. that’s also a dog.” and they’re like “wait, really?” and you’re like “yeah.” and it takes them a while to absorb this but then you just keep walking.
and like you’re going for a while and somebody’s walking their bull terrier and you’re like trying to walk faster hoping your alien friend doesn’t see but no dice they’re like WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT and you’re like “that. that is a dog” and they let out an anguished wail
and like every time after that they see a weird four legged creature they’re like “that BETTER not be a goddamn dog” and half the time you gotta wince and be like “actually,”
Dear everyone who says “Oh it doesn’t matter who I vote for, Trump will never win”… it does matter. It absolutely does matter.
Britain gave in to the racist and xenophobic rhetoric. And the consequences to the EU - and to the world at large - will be catastrophic.
I don’t care if you hate Hillary. I don’t care if you think Hillary killed your cat and stole your yogurt. I don’t care. You have to vote for her. You HAVE to vote for her. You cannot allow a megalomaniac racist piece of shit like Donald Trump become the President of the United States of America.
Do not give in to fear and hatred. Do not allow xenophobia and bigotry to run this nation. Do not. Do not. Do not.
I never thought I’d see the day where a nation like Great Britain allowed hatred and fear to rule. Don’t let that happen here.
Also, because I’m seeing this suggestion in the comments, DO NOT write in Bernie. As much as it sucks (and boy does it suck), in order to ensure Trump doesn’t end up in the White House, we have to unite together and vote for Hillary. Writing in Bernie’s name (or Gary Johnson’s) will do nothing but split the vote.
It’s the lesser of two evils here kids. I always knew I’d vote Bernie in the primaries but that I’d have to vote Clinton in November. If you write in Bernie, you are basically voting for Trump.
The top two edits which erased Ruth Negga were recently reposted from Pinterest in the Preacher tag and got more than 150 positive notes so far.
A lot of people might be unaware that Ruth Negga was erased by Photoshopping her out. I reblogged the post myself before I figured out what had happened and went back and deleted it.
This is racism. This is misogyny. Let’s not contribute to it. There are already plenty of photos of Dominic Cooper and Joe Gilgun together! You can celebrate them together without LITERALLY ERASING A BLACK WOMAN because she doesn’t fit your worldview. Please, whether you reposted this purposefully or on accident, reconsider this and call it out when you see it.
I understand that you think I acted too emotionally. And putting aside the fact that men always say that about women they work with, I’ll get straight to the point. I am emotional. I do bring it into my work. It’s what motivates me. It helps me to get into the headspace of our victims… See what they’ve seen. Even if I don’t want to, even if it horrifies me. And I think it makes me a better agent. If you have a problem with that, sorry. You can fire me.
Can’t really say it any better than that so I ain’t eem bout to try.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court
on Thursday rejected a challenge to a race-conscious admissions program
at the University of Texas, Austin, handing supporters of affirmative
action a major victory.
The
vote was 4-3. Only seven justices participated in the decision. Justice
Elena Kagan had recused herself for prior work on the case as United
States solicitor general and the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat
remains vacant.
What a pleasantly unexpected outcome actually. I knew Elena Kagan wouldn’t be able to rule on this case, so I figured the 4-4 split of Liberals vs. Conservatives on an issue like this would tip to the Right without Kagan there to add a fourth voice, but nope. Kennedy came through in the clutch and even wrote the majority opinion, so good day to you, Ms. Abigail Fisher. She’s already graduated from Louisiana State at this point anyway, but I’m glad her white whine won’t succeed in setting back racial progress half a century.
OOPS!! BYE
y’know if they really wanted to challenge that kind of admissions policy they needed to find a qualified white student who was rejected
since every single white person who complains about affirmative action claims they can prove beyond question that a brilliant white kid of their acquaintance was denied admission in favor of a less-qualified black student, that shouldn’t have been difficult, right? I mean, unless they can’t actually prove that at all… nah, that’s impossible.
I mean that’s probably why Fisher’s lawsuit ignored that of the 47 people with lower grades who got in 42 were white. It’s like Fisher & the people bankrolling this lawsuit thought no one would actually look at the facts.
So at one point in time I was planning to write an MCU fic about Pepper Potts and Hope Van Dyne, and all I really had was a word document with the title, “There’s a Special Place in Hell for Women Who Don’t Help Other Women (And Bitch, I Will See You There)”
and the premise was that Stark Industries and Pym Technologies are basically the bitterest of tech enemies, and as the respective heads of their companies, Pepper and Hope are determined to destroy each other, even as they are both on the new Avengers lineup together.
“Cute suit,” Hope says to Pepper suited up as Rescue. “Tell your boyfriend he made you look very pretty.”
“Cute suit yourself,” Pepper replies to Hope suited up as the Wasp. “Did your daddy make it for you?”
“No, I upgraded it myself. Because I actually understand the technology my company sells.”
“So good for you and your company. We all know scientists make the best CEOs. Hey, how are your stock options doing? I heard some dire things on CNN the other day.”
“It’s been a rough quarter, I’ll admit. Of course, a rough quarter for Pym Technologies has nothing on a rough quarter for Stark Industries. Now I forgot, how many evil sentient robots have you guys made this week?”
And meanwhile Rescue and the Wasp just saved fifteen hostages.
At the successful mission after party, Scott and Tony make the mistake of talking to each other, which means that Pepper and Hope both come over, and there’s like the actual sound of Kill Bill sirens when they see each other.
“Love your hair today, Hope,” Pepper says. “Not enough modern women are willing to publicly declare that they are more than just their looks.”
“Thank you, Pepper,” Hope says. “Some of us modern women just have more to fall back on.”
“Oh come on,” Scott says cheerfully, while Tony makes a little throat slitting gesture like stop, Scott, you wanna stop. “I know you two really like each other.” Pepper and Hope stare at Scott with unmitigated horror. Scott grins all the wider. “You two get drinks when you’re in the same city. You work together on missions all the time. Hope can’t stop talking about your work, Pepper, and Tony says that you’re a big fan of Pym Tech’s new direction. You guys are like the kind of enemies that are basically friends.”
“No,” Pepper says after a long pause she shares with Hope, the only time they have ever willingly shared anything.
“Scott,” Hope says, “we’re the kind of enemies that are basically enemies.”
Pepper turns to Hope. “You’ll notice that my boyfriend knew enough not to say that.”
“My boyfriend has faith in people,” Hope replies. “Maybe Tony should try that sometime.”
“Why does this now involve me?” Tony asks, but no one is listening to him, mostly because he is superfluous to the actions here because Stark Industries may have his name, but Hope is here to wrestle with the CEO. And Pepper is quite possibly willing to literally wrestle.
“I hate her so much,” Pepper tells Tony that night in bed.
“I can tell,” he says, “from the last two hour speech you’ve given on everything Hope Van Dyne has done for Pym Tech in the last week.”
“She’s my true nemesis,” Hope tells Scott as they both ride their ants through the city for a midnight jaunt. “I want to destroy her.”
“You saved her life in battle like four times today,” Scott replies.
And Hope just whispers, “Destroy her.”
It is, in many ways, the most passionate relationship in these women’s lives.
Tumblr is the gift that keeps on giving… reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it reblog it Tumblr Gets Deep: Next … Continued
