Mad Max: Fury Road

Mad Max, Fury Road is the award-winning fourth installment in the Mad Max film series, released many years after the other films. This film is notable for provoking massive outcry among male action fans (resulting in a MMFR fan creating the Furiosa Test), and being an enormous favorite of feminists and women action fans in general. Tom Hardy plays the ubiquitous Mad Max, but many fans claim that the main character is actually Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron.
==Canon==
After a nuclear apocalypse and series of wars over resources, the world has shattered into small, often brutal, societies. As he roams alone across the desert landscape, Max Rockatansky is captured by a gang of War Boys, young men who serve and obey a warlord named Immortan Joe, and then imprisoned so that the War Boys can use him as a blood donor. When Joe realizes that one of his high-ranking generals, Furiosa, has freed a group of young women called The Wives who were being held to bear his children, Joe sends a war party out to reclaim them. Tethered by IV to a War Boy named Nux, Max is dragged along until he's able to fight against Nux and Nux's partner Slit. Max eventually join Furiosa and the other women, and their initial distrust of one another is overcome as they race from Joe's forces and attempt to find Furiosa's home, a lost oasis in the wasteland called the Green Place, where women, called "the Many Mothers," live in safety.
When Angharad, the unspoken leader of Joe's wives, falls off the rig, the group makes the difficult decision to continue on their journey. Nux is invited into the group by Capable, another wife, and with his help, the rig is able to outrun the war parties and make it to a haven where Furiosa's tribe, the Vuvalini, are living. They explain that the Green Place was too polluted to live in and that most of the tribe is dead; with no other option, the group decides to abandon their quest. Max suggests they turn around, drive through the remains of Joe's army, and take Joe's base for their own. 
After a heated race and battle, Furiosa kills Joe and Nux sacrifices himself to end the chase. As the women reclaim their home and are lifted up into the base, Max leaves to return to the road.
===Characters===
* Max Rockatansky
* Furiosa
* The Wives
** The Splendid Angharad
** Toast the Knowing
** Capable
** The Dag
** Cheedo the Fragile
* War Boys
** Nux
** Slit
* The Vuvalini
** Keeper of the Seeds
** The Valkyrie
* Immortan Joe
==Feminism==
Fury Road received accolades for the depth and scope of female characters. The protagonists of the movie are primarily women: Furiosa, the five Wives, and the Vuvalini; Max and Nux are the only men. Furiosa is the catalyst for the plot, drives it forward literally and figuratively, and is the person to kill the big bad at the end. Needless to say, the movie quickly passes and then surpasses the Bechdel test. 
Despite the vocal and varied support of the movie, some people disgreed with calling it a feminist film. Most notably, Anita Sarkeesian took to Twitter to discuss her opinion on it, stating that "I’m not one to shy away from expressing unpopular opinions. So here goes. I saw Fury Road. I get why people like it. But it isn’t feminist."I’m not one to shy away... Posted on May 19, 2015. Accessed February 20, 2016.Anita Sarkeesian on Mad Max: Fury Road Posted on May 19, 2015. Accessed February 20, 2016.
The movie also riled Men's Rights Activists, who were furious that a woman was the main character. They proposed a ban; in turn, a fan of Fury Road proposed the Furiosa Test as an addition to film critique methods of measuring a movie's feminist qualities: a film passes if it incites misogynists to boycott.
==Fandom==
===Original Characters===
The MM:FR fandom generated a lively and accepting online role playing community. It featured both canon characters and an unusual amount of original characters (OCs). War Boys and Polecats were notably popular as role playing OCs and have a distinct fandom subculture. 
Other OCs were remarkable for their diversity and for their subversive role within the MM:FR universe: the Bullet Farmer's mother, Imperator Librarian, Wasteland philosophers, discarded Wives of the Immortan taking on new roles. 
Role playing OCs spilled over into fanfiction and cosplays.
===Common Tropes in Fanworks===
As of October 2018, AO3 has 2463 works in the Mad Max categoryWorks in Mad Max Series (Movies). Accessed March 28, 2016.; the vast majority of them feature characters from Fury Road. Alternate universes are popular genres, as are fix-its. Authors who stay within the movie's setting often do world building, exploring the foundation of Joe's cult or how the Citadel rebuilds after his death.
===Ships===
Due to the large cast, there are a wide variety of ships for this movie, including slash, het, femslash, and poly ships. Fans have also created ships for characters who identify as agender, and some characters have been written/drawn as transgndered. Popular het ships include Furiosa/Max and Capable/Nux; femslash ships include Furiosa/Valkyrie and Cheedo/Dag; and slash ships include Nux/Slit and Max/Nux. Portmanteaus are sometimes used for ships, such as Nuxable for Nux and Capable, and Suxable for Slit/Nux/Capable.
* Furiosa/Max
* Furiosa/Valkyrie
* Capable/Nux
* Nux/Slit
* Slit/Toast
* Dag/Slit
* Cheedo/Dag
* Capable/Nux/Slit
===Awards===
* Fandom Road
* Mad Max Fanfic Awards
===Challenges===
*Fury Road Exchange
*Gigadumpster Holiday Gift Exchange
==Fanworks==
===Fanfic===
*Fortunae Plango Vulnera by eag: A series of stories that explore the characters and the culture that they develop while living in the Citadel. 
*Orbit by Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune): Probably the most popular MMFR story, with over 33,000 hits on AO3.
*two creams, one sugar by underwater_owl: A popular coffee shop AU.
*The Mountains Are the Same by bonehandledknife (ladywinter) and Primarybufferpanel (ArwenLune): A series of stories about "Furiosa and her War Boys, before and after."
* Flesh and Blood and Dust by Winterling42: A crossover with His Dark Materials.
===Fanzines===
*The Boltcutters Booze Book
*Citadel Nights
*Corvus Cormax
*Fury Road (Mad Max fanzine)
*Gastown Nights
*History is Hard to Know: History People Stories
*Manifest Destiny
*Night Like This
*Wasteland Souls
*Witness (Mad Max fanzine)
===Fanart===
*I heard there was a Hogwarts/Mad Max AU floating around? by youkaiyume
* Tarot Card Art Nouveau inspired illustrations by Katie Elle
* MMFR in novelty T-shirts part1 by yohunny
* Mad Max Fury Road by Shouchinosuke
* Mad Max Fury Road by curry23
* Mad Max Fury Road pin-up by ComfortLove
*Winter Max: Snow Clearing Road by Ulsae
*‘back then, there was no need to snap anybody’ by asia
===Fanvids===
* Na Na Na by violace
===Meta/Further Reading===
*Film Theory Discussion by bonehandledknife A series of in-depth analyses of the film.
* It’s very strange that Mad Max should so effectively embody a line from another, inferior movie... by septembriseur
* The Clan of the Boltcutter or, Why Keys Are Not the Tools of Freedom by Joyce Sully
* A War Rig Of One’s Own: A Very Long Post On Fury Road’s Feminism by wellntruly
* Mad Max and Motherhood by penfairy
* Water Your Eyes Doing by bonehandledknife
* “That’s my car” “that’s my lancer”
*The main appeal of Mad Max for me personally is that it’s an amazingly well made action movie without any of the—pardon my French—unselfconscious dickwaving... by plain-flavoured-english
*Mad Max as Feminist Ally by Tansy Rayner Roberts
*Mad Max: Fury Road is a story about sexists, told by non-sexists. by lierdumoa
*"Mad Max" Is A Feminist Playbook For Surviving Dystopia by Laurie Penny
*Wives, Warlords and Refugees: The People Economy of Mad Max by Kameron Hurley
* Remember Me vs Witness Me by daxxglax
* Bringing Back What's Stolen: Masculinity by Innuendo Studios
==Fannish Resources==
*Mad Max Wiki
* Masterpost of MMFR meta
==References==
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