What Mad Max has showed me:

[Dr_Liszt]

Is if female counterparts share almost the same amount of time as the main title's characters, then it's a chick flick and the main character is a side character. Even though people had seen the Mad Maxes before and KNOW that the main character is supposed to be an observer that gets involved in other people's stories, suddenly it becomes a problem when the story is about women. They suddenly are taking over the spotlight in a manly movie for men and is not ok. Even if the story begins and ends with a our manly hero, if you introduce a woman with almost the same exact screen time it means they are taking over the roles, and society, and freedom.

It reminded me of that study Aels refers when boys think they are being overrun by women when they see a 50-50 split.
SOCIETY SUCKS!

[Anakin McFly]

this is why, after we move to Italy, we will move to space.

There is no sexism in space.

[Unvoiced_Apollo]

I really don't get the complaints either. i guess some are just threatened when a strongly characterized woman is paired with as strongly characterized man.

[sikax]

Not that I agree with it, but I don't think that pointing out that Max is a side character means that it's a problem that he's a side character; just an observation.

[Dr_Liszt]

What is happening here is the same thing that happened in Aels' study.
Men feel overrun with a 50/50 split.

[Cassius Clay]

But 50/50 is technically side.

[sikax]

What study is that? I must have missed it.

Anyway, Max is quite obviously the main character of the movie. On the surface, it seems like he and Furiosa split the responsibilities down the middle, but there are more instances when she is dependent on him to help out than he is on her. After all, he's a nobody who's more or less apathetic to everything. He's a vessel, a weapon, and Furiosa uses his ability. He doesn't need anyone because he has no ambition for anything. So yeah, I disagree with the whole "Mad Max is super feminist" thing.

[Cassius Clay]

There are actually lot's of solid critiques for why Mad Max ain't as feminist as people claim.

A lot of black feminists have criticized it's praise. And I saw some criticism from Sarkeesian(though she's sometimes a bit too white feministy for my liking).

[aels]

this is why, after we move to Italy, we will move to space.

There is no sexism in space.

Except on Mars, where all the men are from

[Dr_Liszt]

There are actually lot's of solid critiques for why Mad Max ain't as feminist as people claim.

A lot of black feminists have criticized it's praise. And I saw some criticism from Sarkeesian(though she's sometimes a bit too white feministy for my liking).

I think Sarkeesian is right about the critiques.
But I do think, for an action movie, it was an advancement. Which again, takes me back to the OP, a little bit of power and representation of women in a male-oriented movie is seen as taking over.

[sikax]

I wouldn't mind if women took over. I'm exhausted.

[aels]

What study is that? I must have missed it.

I'll try and dig it out for you although I can't remember where I found it and I am having a nightmare stroppy day of hate. So it might take a while and also I might give up and throw my computer into a swamp.

[Derived Absurdity]

I just looked up Anita Sarkeesian's critiques and they were really not convincing. I was going to answer them but this is the second article I saw when searching for them and it does it well enough.

http://thehumdrumdiary.com/2015/05/23/a ... -feminist/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've actually heard many points made that Mad Max is not quite as feminist as people make it out to be, and I think some of them are solid, but these points don't really seem to work.

[Dr_Liszt]

I think this movie is a glorification of violence, a trait used for men, so Sarkeesian is correct about that one. It was not a tragic representation of violence, if people are saying this movie was less than fun and awesome is wrong. This movie was fun and awesome and violent. But as Sikax said, there's nothing wrong with it, but let's stop pretending this was in any way feminist.

Also Furiosa is NOT a feminist representation of women, since she is a strong character because she took over men's idea of what is strong. However, this movie also gave us a wide variety of female representations, a lot of them which rejected violence and used their brains and smart instead of guns.

So is not really a "feminist" movie. But it gave us a strong main character, it gave us more women representation, all the characters have growth, they're not just there to be silent or look pretty or to serve as objects to enhance Men's goals. So as far as I'm concerned it did take into account feminist ideas to not make this movie sexist. But it didn't challenge the already sexist protocol nor the glorification of violence.

But again, my OP is not meant as whether this movie was the perfect feminist movie or not. It clearly was not. But I meant it more as a complain to the "waaaaaahhhhh Furiosa has a lot of screen time, she clearly is the main character, she stole the spotlight waaaaaaahhh" And it's like No. Calm down.

Tom Hardy is clearly the protagonist
Tom Hardy has more screentime than anyone.
Max's character still has an arc.
In this movie Mad Max is still the observer on other people's problems. The difference this time is that the people with the problems, happen to be women. This tiny little difference is what has caused all this confusion in little people's brains.

[Gendo]

I assure you that had Furiosa been a guy, I would have had the same comment. And it wasn't a complaint for me. I was fine with it being about Furiosa.

[Pope Bucky]

I seem to remember skimming the study on the perception of men regarding the male/female split. IIRC, it was something like a 70/30 male:female split is perceived as an equal ratio in a crowd. More than that, and the women are outnumbering the men.

Personally, I like a strong woman story. Show me Gina Carrano kicking some guys ass. Give me that Hanna movie or something similar.

GURL POWER!

[aels]

I seem to remember skimming the study on the perception of men regarding the male/female split. IIRC, it was something like a 70/30 male:female split is perceived as an equal ratio in a crowd. More than that, and the women are outnumbering the men.

That's as I recall it as well.