Emily Goodwin

    Every interaction between an individual and the media is coded with messages about our culture, beliefs and morals. Often these messages are not obvious and the whole interaction occurs subconsciously. Different media either works to reify dominant power structures or to question them. By specifically examining Mad Max: Fury Road as a feminist critique of patriarchy I can show how the film works to subvert our own dominant power structures. When fully analyzed, the film proves that even the action genre has messages about those structures as well as the importance of examining those messages. The film is subversive in the ways it elucidates the negativity and dangers related directly to patriarchy, patriarchal attitudes and the gender binary.