Taken built an entire franchise off it, producing a plot which relies on the cliché explored in its purest and most exploitative form. It’s a trope that returns incessantly throughout the genre, spanning decades and countless iterations: from Sarah Connor’s status as the mother of mankind’s saviour in The Terminator, to John Wick’s puppy, the murder of which – as a last gift from, and symbolic stand-in for, the recently deceased wife – sends him on a city-wide killing spree. The protagonist’s possession of her body signals triumph, and defines him as Hero. It’s no coincidence that the end of an action film so often involves a woman rescued, or a woman avenged. And so, it becomes the battleground over which male characters fight, a prize both sides will struggle to possess.
More often than not, the female body is code for something else: stakes in a company, wealth, political or personal power, leverage. Who is she? Whose is she? What can I use her for? What will she get me? In films defined by adrenaline-fuelled heroics and high physical exertion, often arbitrarily packaged as masculine endeavours, a woman’s body is very rarely her own. In a lesser action film, the gaze of the male – protagonist, antagonist, and bystander alike – is firmly on the woman. Upon first viewing, it’s easy to misread the direction of Max’s stare. The camera cuts to the pool forming underneath the pipe. His eyes widen, and the stare grows more intense. His stares are intercut with shots of the wives huddled together, and a wary Furiosa. For a couple of seconds, all you can see is the belt laid at her feet. It hits the sand, and the camera lingers on this image. Bolt cutters in hand, a wife finishes the task of cutting away a chastity belt. A silent stand-off ensues.Īmid the tension, there’s a dull thud. Max, shotgun raised, stares at the scene before him.
The women, covered only by thin, gauzy cloth wrapped in strips around their bodies, rub dirt from their thighs and wash their faces with water from a pipe.
an oasis? A mirage? After yesterday’s chaotic battle through a sandstorm, it certainly appears a trick of the desert. He rounds the back of the rig, shotgun in hand and unconscious War Boy slung over his shoulder, to find. The first time the Five Wives appear on screen, we see them as Max does. Rheanna-Marie Hall looks back at the detonation of this physicality for the Five Wives in George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road. The male gaze often hinders this, but the female body becomes its own form of weapon when used wisely. It’s a man’s world but there are always women fighting hard enough to make it their own as well.