Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road
Much lip service has been paid to feminism’s supposed comeback — especially in terms of more authentic representations of women in pop culture. Charlize Theron’s recent portrayal of the badass protagonist Furiosa Mad Max: Fury Road, for example, simultaneously inspired feminists while incensing various “Male Rights” groups across the country. Broad City has been lauded for its pithy dialog and mold-breaking portrayal of female friendships. But though this proliferation of strong, multifaceted women taking over billboards and box-offices is encouraging, though comedians like Amy Schumer and writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie certainly deserve the attention they’re receiving, we cannot ignore the fact that these successes don’t erase the persistent reality of global misogyny.
The truth is, this so-called feminist revival is occurring in conjunction with a conservative backlash. In early February, Stephanie Sinclair’s harrowing New York Times feature “Child, Bride, Mother” exposed the pervasive epidemic of child marriage in Guatemala — a phenomenon not only horrifying in and of itself, but one that further perpetuates high rates of maternal and infant mortality. When Emma Sulkowicz graduated from Columbia University, she was still hauling her mattress across the stage. Days before seeing Mad Max, I left a voice message for North Carolina Governor McCrory regarding HB 465 — legislation that will extend the period a woman must wait before having an abortion from 24 to 72 hours. Two days before I started writing this essay, a story on my Facebook newsfeed described a Pakistani teen’s efforts to fight child marriage in her community. On that same day, thousands marched in Buenos Aires to protest the government’s lack of leadership regarding femicide.
We may breathe a sigh of relief (or, in their case, pot smoke) that Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson have joined the traditionally testosterone addled ranks of Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel’s non-apologetic shtick of sex and weed for laughs; that poet Claudia Rankine received many well-deserved accolades for her poetry collection Citizen: An American Lyric; or that Cheryl Strayed and Gillian Flynn were two of the most talked about authors in 2014. But the truth is that these depictions of brazen women merely serve as superficial distractions from our basic rights being restricted, diminished, and destroyed on a daily basis.
What’s more? Most of these depictions can be considered true victories since even they are undergirded by sexism. Mad Max was directed, produced, and written by men, for example, and it’s the rule rather than the exception: according to the Women’s Media Center’s 2015 report, Hollywood studio senior management is still 92% white and 83% male.
So while I’m thankful I now have entertainment options that refuse to perpetuate the ‘damsel in distress’ trope, I’m not ready to give up the good fight just yet — and I urge my fellow feminists to resist complacency as well. It’s time for women to be given more than just some more realistic female characters on our screens. It’s time to hear us roar.
