What Happened To Imperator Furiosa’s Arm?! Who Cares.

May 30, 2015 — 11 Comments

Yesterday my friend Ryan sent me this text:

Screenshot_2015-05-30-12-10-24-1

He was on the verge of unfriending me in real life because I hadn’t yet seen Mad Max: Fury Road.

Well, last night I saw it and…holy crap.

First of all, it’s a gorgeous piece of art. It’s not for everyone, for sure, but I spent most of the time in the theater thinking, “How did they do that??” A solid story, interesting characters, amazing scenery and…freaking car chases. Except that doesn’t do justice to what actually happened for two hours. I texted my brother-in-law afterwards and said, “I wish I lived near a desert so I could drive recklessly through it!”

The reason Ryan wanted me to see it so badly, though, was because of Imperator Furiosa.

Oh, Furiosa.

furiosa

We don’t know much about Furiosa, but we do know that she is strong, smart and compassionate. Her mission, unbeknownst to the evil Immortan Joe, is to transport his captive wives to freedom, which she believes will find them at The Green, the place she was born. The story follows this perilous journey, filled with carnage and careful character development.

What struck me, though, as I’m sure it did nearly every amputee who’s seen it, is exactly what my friend Ryan was hoping I’d notice:

Screenshot_2015-05-30-12-10-41-1

Furiosa’s difference was not a plot point.

In fact, they never addressed her arm throughout the entirety of the movie.

Not once.

Not once while she was driving. Or fighting. Or jumping between vehicles. Or loading weapons. Or shooting said weapons.

And they could have.

We don’t know why she has one hand. We don’t know if she was born that way or if she lost it somehow. We don’t know how her steam punk prosthetic works or where she got it, though we know she doesn’t need it to kick someone’s ass.

mad-max-fury-road-2015-002-furiosa-atop-man-ORIGINAL

All we know is that she has one hand and…it doesn’t matter.

I’ve actually read that she and George Miller actually do know the back story and, according to them, it’s amazing. So, maybe one day we’ll find out and that’ll be awesome.

But for now, I’m happy to watch a movie that incorporates characters with many differences and doesn’t use them as a device, but rather, allows the people with them to be just that…people.

More broadly, in Mad Max: Fury Road we see that difference doesn’t make a person good or bad. We see characters with differences who are evil and others who are heroes. And even others who just are. I could be off here, but I feel like that’s a rarity in the movies these days. I appreciate the efforts the filmmakers put forth to incorporate actors with differences and not make a big deal about it.

Some have complained that they cast Charlize Theron in the Furiosa role rather than an actual amputee. I understand the sentiment, but it doesn’t bother me. For one, they spent $150 million dollars on the movie, so it makes sense they’d want a well-known actress in the lead role. Second, she’s an amazing actress. My opinion is, whatever the arena, no amputee should expect or want to get the role/job/roster spot/etc. simply because they’re an amputee. While we should never be discounted because of our difference, I also think the best person for the job should get it. In this case, Theron got it and she deserves any award she gets for her performance.

Ultimately, if you can handle intense, violent action movies that feature limb-different heroines, Mad Max: Fury Road is for you.

Did you see the movie? What did you think?

Ryan

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I'm a husband, a father, an author, a speaker, a friend...all kinds of things, actually.

11 responses to What Happened To Imperator Furiosa’s Arm?! Who Cares.

  1. I was already inspired to see this movie solely on the regrettable and quite pathetic reaction to the female empowerment included.
    Now I find out the character is living one handed, and I am in.
    Thank you.
    SueH

  2. I saw the movie and the first thing I said to my companion when it was over was,”…not once did anyone ever mention her prosthetic arm…not Furiosa herself or any of the other characters.” That all by itself was interesting. I have also noticed that people who don’t use prosthetics only noticed the arm’s awesome power. Those of us who do use a prosthesis noticed that no one seemed to care.

  3. …I had absolutely zero interest in watching this movie until now.

  4. Do you think the kind of things she could do with that prothesis was realistic (given that finer electronics disappeared in the apocalypse, apparently)? I’m two-handed, and just recommended the film to a woman who is one-handed, and now I am getting paranoic if they somehow minimized her problems via making that prosthetic unreasonably useful… The internet seems to be divided on this point, and I have seen at least one article that says that the prosthetic was overly perfect. I have no idea what is realistic. I hope Theron had been well-instructed in this regard… or the film is uplifting enough that the details don’t matter?

    • That’s a really good question! As someone who used prosthetics as a kid, but not since then, the arm seemed cool, but not distracting. Which I think is a good thing. It seemed pretty seamless and wasn’t a focal point. As far as the actual functionality of the arm…the fingers may have been a bot far-fetched, but overall it seemed reasonable enough not to distract.

      • thank you! I recommended it to her because of the scene where she beats Max without the prothesis, and also because of how awesome and shameless this character is. (This friend doesn’t use a prothesis, and when we were in high school, she used to pay a lot of attention to hiding it.)

        • this came out wrong, maybe, english is not my first language… she not having a prothesis only means that I am clueless about them. Whatever she choses, it is the right one for her.

  5. Furiosa’s prosthesis was very cool and very unrealistic…at least from the perspective of someone who knows a bit about prosthetics in the real world. Her arm was all Hollywood magic. She could do things that even James Bond couldn’t do…such as crawl under a moving tanker truck to perform repairs. Mad Max isn’t normally the kind of movie I’m interested in anymore and I went to see it solely because Furiosa had an artificial arm. Nevertheless, I liked the movie. I am glad to report that no one ever came up to me and said, “Hey, Rick! I saw the Mad Max movie. Furiosa had an artificial arm and she could do everything with it. So what’s your problem?!”

  6. thank you. (I interpreted the crawling so there were places for textile bands/ropes to hook into, specifically prepared to hold someone like this, and just keeping her there is a thing even a simple hook could do, if it was well enough fixed to her body. But I believe you about the other cases.)

Trackbacks and Pingbacks:

  1. We Need More Actors With Disabilities In Good Movies | Living One-HandedWe Need More Actors With Disabilities In Good Movies - Living One-Handed - May 13, 2020

    […] The most recent movie they put on trial (Steven actually chose this one) was Mad Max: Fury Road. If you haven’t seen it, one of the main characters is Furiosa, a one-handed woman, played brilliantly by Charlize Theron. I wrote about it back in 2015, which you can read here. […]

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