Mad max truck12/8/2023 ![]() One of the movie’s plots revolves around the transport of fuel in a fuel tanker. In Mad Max 2, fuel has become one of the most valuable commodities, and characters kill each other to keep their vehicles on the road. He drives a souped-up 1973 Ford XB Falcon, a car which was manufactured almost exclusively by Ford Australia. In the first film in the Mad Max franchise, Max becomes “ the fastest thing on the road” after the deaths of his wife and son. In targeting the fuel, the Ottawa police reinforce the threats to petroculture, and arguably, their tactics would not be successful without the already strong reliance on fuel that dominates our country. This limitation to the open road suggests that the “freedom” within the ‘freedom convoy’ is really about the privilege to drive - perhaps across a borderless, unregulated landscape similar to the one in Fury Road.įuel supplies to the truckers have been seized and Ottawa police warned that anyone caught bringing in fuel would be arrested, and an oil tanker was removed. The protest was sparked by the recent announcement that truckers require proof of vaccination to cross the U.S.-Canada border. When the ‘freedom convoy’ set their sights on Ottawa, even though the protest was ostensibly in response to COVID-19 mandates, part of their plight resides in threats to petroculture. As such, we have trouble imagining a world that is beyond fuel - post-apocalyptic films embody this limitation. Petroculture refers to the ways in which our lives revolve around fuel, not just in our cars and pipelines and generators, but seeping into all aspects of our very existence. What the Mad Max franchise - and Fury Road in particular - really gives us is a warning about our over-reliance on fossil fuels. Rather than adopt alternative forms of energy or transportation, the survivors in the film create ever more dangerous vehicles - “ Frankenbeasts” - and revere them. The vehicles in the film mutate into monstrous machine hybrids. In the film, vehicles occupy a special place due to limited fuel supplies and the subsequent death of automobile manufacturing. Fury Road gives us a glimpse into a world of dwindling fuel stocks where the only pastime is to, ironically, engage in excessive and futile car chases. Much of the film comprises car chase scenes typical of the Mad Max franchise, but the film ultimately ends with the characters returning to the Citadel, rendering the chase scenes relatively redundant. And in contradiction, Immortan Joe and his War Boys consume fuel excessively for most of the film. He urges his citizens not to become addicted to water, in case “it will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.” Immortan Joe understands restraint in a world of limited resources, and he restricts access to both the water and the fuel. Immortan Joe controls access to both water and fuel. They are relentlessly chased by the Citadel’s dictator, Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) and his band of War Boys. Defeated, they must ultimately return to the Citadel, from which they originally escaped. Mad Max: Fury Road is the fourth film in George Miller’s franchise, after Mad Max (1979), Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985).įury Road follows Max (Tom Hardy), Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and a group of women who are used as breeding stock as they flee across a desert wasteland in search of a rumoured paradise-like haven. ![]() As a popular culture researcher, I am interested in how this similarity prompts a consideration of what continues to fuel, so to speak, these ongoing debates. The visuals produced by the ‘freedom convoy’ - loud, honking semi trucks and a party atmosphere - is eerily similar to the monstrous machines that rumble through the desolate landscapes in the 2015 Australian movie Mad Max: Fury Road. The convoy reflects our continued inability to find a middle ground when it comes to debates surrounding COVID-19 mandates and proposed vaccine passports. The media has been inundated by images of the ‘freedom convoy’ that began converging on Ottawa on Jan. This article was originally published on The Conversation Canada on February 14, 2022 ![]()
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