"Who Killed the World?": Monstrous Masculinity and Mad Max

Abstract

In a futuristic, dystopian Australia, Max Rockatansky is a lone warrior struggling against the forces that have ripped his family, and society as a whole, to shreds. From rogue motorcycle gangs to violencebased legal systems, the Mad Max films depict a world in which the most toxic aspects of masculinity have poisoned society, mutating into something far more dangerous — something monstrous. The series presents a version of monstrosity that has sunk its claws into the very masculinity it usually serves to validate; in light of these subversions, this analysis utilizes monster theory in conjunction with gender studies to examine toxic masculinity in the Mad Max franchise