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We were only three to go see this movie, our daughter had to work and honestly I wasn’t all that excited to see it, though my husband and our son were enthusiastic about George Miller’s latest incarnation of his Mad Max universe. I remember seeing the original years ago and it left me cold and disgusted by humanity’s descent into barbarism. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing much of the same. This time out however George Miller made a different type of movie, the setting was the same, but the players occupied different roles.
I had read articles referencing Men Rights Groups calling for an international boycott of this movie on the grounds that it betrays the original vision and unfairly villainizes manhood. Before seeing the movie, I had seen the trailers and based on those, I couldn’t understand why these Men Rights Groups felt persecuted. However, having now seen the movie, I really don’t understand why they felt men unjustly portrayed. This movie was all about control and power, the main villain had all of the power and megalomanically exerted his control over everything and everyone. What gave him his power? Water ownership. What did he control? Water, food, women and all of the other types of property including mother’s milk. The drama that drove the entire movie was a human rights issue, precisely women saying that they were not property, they were not to be owned by anyone, not to be used as brood mares or breastmilk factory farms and their attempt to reclaim something that should be inherently theirs without question.
There is nothing controversial about human rights, every man, woman and child should be the recipient of their own rights. In a brave new world it would be a non-issue, sadly we are in the 21st century and we still have slavery, indentured servitude and inequities across the board. I find it sad that while watching Mad Max, I was thinking of Boko Haram, child sex trade trafficking, women disenfranchized in many places as well as other minorities. When are we going to evolve on a global scale and put these dark realities a thing of the past?