The Best Words On Feminism in ‘Fury Road’ So Far

I have been struggling with what to write about all the articles and blogs that tout the feminist messages at the core of, and throughout, the movie Mad Max: Fury Road. Luckily, my struggle is over, because Colin Stacy, on the blog Movie Mezzanine, has written an excellent piece that focuses on one thing — how the actress Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is filmed in that movie versus her only other role, in Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

In Fury Road, Huntington-Whiteley plays the pregnant one of Immortan Joe’s “breeders,” The Splendid Angharad. In Transformers she played Carly, Sam Witwicky’s girlfriend who was a last-minute replacement for Megan Fox.

Stacy’s point, laid out brilliantly in his description of the two vastly different ways each director — George Miller for Fury Road and Michael Bay for Transformers — introduced each character, is that Bay saw Huntington-Whiteley exactly as Immortan Joe does.

After some Autobot exposition and CGI clanging-and-banging to set the stage, Dark of the Moon cuts to a woozily twisting camera following a woman’s slow ascent up some stairs. All she wears is a men’s button-down shirt and lacy panties. There are four specific cuts in that scene, all shots of her legs, butt cheeks, and the front of her torso.

To find out how Miller’s introduction of Huntington-Whiteley’s character is completely on the other end of the spectrum, read the entire article — and I strongly recommend you do — at Movie Mezzanine.