by Neil Vodavzny

We are told by no less an authority than Jeremy Warner, the Telegraph’s business editor, that:

New technologies will spawn new jobs in new industries that will be far more rewarding than those they displace

They’ve been telling us that since the Luddites were displaced from their spinning-jennies. By relating this mantra to the Mad Max franchise – and specifically Beyond Thunderdome (1985) – I will endeavour to show that the machine-age generates conspiracies by virtue of the fact that it displaces peoples into a no-man’s land. The habit of the mind is to plant seeds of doubt to occupy the negative space.

This has already partially been approached in “Mythical Action” (and sequels). That is to say, myths are predicated on action which is antagonistic, involving predator-prey relationships, harvests, seasons. A world without action (in that sense) has no myths and therefore in the mythical sense doesn’t exist.

However, myths belong in a fantasy-world, which is why I’ve argued that superheroes are more real than reality in that sense. They have the moral authority notoriously absent in conflicts of unfathomable motivations where the action we see are not morally comprehensible in the sense of good versus evil, fidel versus infidel. A lot of this is down to social capitalist ideology crawling like an omnivorous slug round the planet, leaving a trail of destruction wherever it roams. Meaning, the global money-machine that tramples traditions, and I suppose doesn’t generally benefit living systems, as opposed to monetary systems. How can the moneys invested in such a desolate cause be put to any moral use?

This paradox is indirectly the subject of the third instalment of Mad Max – second only to Planet of the Apes (1968) in the sci-fi allegory stakes - set in a de-fosilised steam-punk dystopia where machines have run silent since the last saurian carbon-reserve was consumed. Exactly what powers the renegades’ gambling-den of Barter-Town is succinctly put by Tina Turner’s Auntie Entity:
“You know how to shovel pigshit, don’t you?”

With its clunky costumes, power-games, steam-age factory and savage tribal rituals (the Roman-style free-combat Thunderdome set-piece between Max and Blaster), Barter-Town is like a Wild West frontier transported to a Middle-Eastern despot’s abandoned oil-depot. The pigs are significant in that they also make an appearance in The Road Warrior (1981) in the fortified keep of the self-sufficient fuel-hoarders. While most sci-fi scenarios envisage some sort of solar-nuclear future, Mad Max is obstinately organic. Pigs are very difficult to ignore when they’re trampling all over you, as the embargo-prone Master discovers when he is toppled from his armour-plated mount Blaster.

For all its authoritarian flaws (though a bit of dominatrixing never hurt anyone), Barter-Town gives a very good impression of the vitality of place. Nothing is abstract in Barter-Town, even the energy supply. It’s quite a crude allegory, but in a holistic system things are real, as opposed to theoretical – see “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” (better than the Ridley Scott movie).

Seeing as it’s Mel Gibson, there’s also a type of Biblical subtext in his galloping across the deserts dressed in a fool’s costume, to suddenly appear before The Children in the guise of a saviour. This is their home-made mythology, as related by storyteller Savannah Nix, which we later see in the form of a wrecked fuselage. In dire straits things often turn to myth because they are stories of events that happened, often cataclysmic ones.

Any society that’s tribal is based on a myth – that’s the way the spiritual authority works to guide behaviour. If the myth doesn’t serve – as with The Children – then it’s replaced by one that does. In this case, with no fuel to power the ancient fuselage, there’s no flight, so it’s over to Max.

Primordial view of the future from genius Aussie-Greek director George Miller (Miliotis). In such rugged and necessarily simplified landscapes, the significance of signs seems to become a social feature. The Children have a fetish doll of Captain Walker, long lost pilot, and the hulk of the airliner looms like a colossus in the dunes. I use the word “genius” advisedly, otherwise people would be queuing-up to direct the next Max or Planet of the Apes. Before going any further on the relevance of steam-punk to a right-wing future, what roughly makes these geekish minds work?

Brian Singer, of the X-Universe, makes the comment of a brief flare-up on the set of X-2:

“I was a bit Younger then and movies can be a bit overwhelming and sometimes actors don’t fully understand what I’m doing with all the moving pieces..We resolved it the next day”
(Empire)

As a comics fan that makes a lot of sense. Superheroes occupy a parallel universe which is every bit as complex as the real one. Not only that, but upcoming Days of Future Past is billed as a sequel to both First Class and Last Stand; a parallel future is accessed when Wolverine is ‘phased’ from an apocalyptic future into the past (by Kitty Pryde).

Now, you need a certain type of mind to marshal all the facts – the story is by Singer with Kinberg and Vaughn – into a coherent whole. Of course, it helps to be a genius, but it’s also possible that Jews tend to be better at this type of thing. Whether that’s true or not, there is a racial component to the way the mind works. We happen to live in the age of facts, and people who find siphoning facts relatively easy will do well. Like I’ve said, facts aren’t restricted to reality, it can be fantasy and the same applies.

When you consider simpler or tribal societies, signs play a much larger role in behaviour. This is obvious if you consider the time of the Old Testament; the “information landscape” would contain Pontius Pilate and shepherds. Today it contains 24/7 BBC agitprop – I mean, news and entertainment channels. What I’m saying is we live in the world as it is (“I yam what I yam “ – Popeye). In Biblical times these signs were important, so we get those types of stories. I have it on the best authority there is no Jewish conspiracy, so have to take it on trust.

There are people who use their brains in ways that may have some racial component. That is not a conspiracy. It’s just a racial difference. If I go by Daniel’s piece (previous), facts are ideal (or fantasy); signs are cross-cultural, antagonistic myths (see here). The one is obviously more real than the other. We live in confusing times and, in fact, that may be the only conspiracy. How does the brain work, let alone a genius one? Not wholly rationalising for one thing. I noticed a picture of Woody Allen looking utterly perplexed, next to a story on Dylan Farrow’s accusations; I’m inclined to think that’s being honest.