"historic on a fury road"
Life as a road warrior during a pandemic.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Mad Max: Fury Road lately. First of all, it’s the movie’s five-year anniversary, and the internet will not let me forget it! Every other film major I went to college with is posting about the Fury Road, and rightfully so; it’s really, really good. I remember leaving the theater back in 2015 and — in my own gag-worthy display of film major arrogance — announcing that the movie was a perfect example of “pure cinema.” I mean, I wasn’t wrong; it’s one of the tightest action movies ever made and its mind-blowing visuals are somehow never gratuitous. But also, fuck me for amping up my vocab with Criterion Collection buzzwords just for the sake of it.
Anyway, the five-year anniversary isn’t the only reason I’ve been thinking a lot about Fury Road lately. As almost every Hulu commercial likes to remind me, right now we’re living in “unprecedented times” thanks to Covid-19. There’s little to compare this pandemic to in real life. But there are plenty of fictional depictions of crises like this (and much worse). Fury Road is one of those.
In the movie, a group of road warriors make their way across a post-apocalyptic wasteland in search of a home. Last week, my partner Ryan and I made our own journey: from Chicago, where we’d been sheltering in place, to our home in Los Angeles. In Fury Road, the world is ablaze with electric guitars and human-powered war rigs and literal fire. Last week, Ryan and I spent 30 hours in our Honda fit listening to podcasts.
As we stopped for gas somewhere in Colorado and we disinfected our hands for the umpteenth time, I was particularly struck by the mundanity of it all. Even as our world changes in irreversible ways, life didn’t look all that different from my seat in the Honda. There were no war rigs, no military outposts, no new futuristic outfits, no palpable desperation. Only the same ol’ gas pumps brandishing ads for Red Bull as always, and a few patrons who refused to wear masks. I suppose there’s some comfort to be found in the fact that the world goes on spinning, even when it seems like it’s ending forever. But for me in that moment, it was disconcerting. The quiet and normalcy in the outside world felt directly opposed to the inner turmoil I know so many of us are feeling right now.
The only thing that made me feel better was once we got back on the highway, revved up to 75 miles an hour, and sped through an eerily empty countryside. At least the novelty of our cross-country drive seemed to mirror the pure oddness of this point in history.
In Fury Road, the pain of existence is externalized to the extreme. Every frame of the movie is overflowing with feeling: the extravagant car chases, the heart-pounding music, the sweeping melodrama of it all. And it serves the story: with so much uncontrollable suffering, nothing feels more appropriate — and cathartic — than those operatic levels of expression, “historic on a fury road.”
Our road back to LA was far less furious than Mad Max’s. Real life is quiet. And that’s probably necessary; it’d be hard to maintain any semblance of order if we were operating at Fury Road levels all the time. But, oh to be a road warrior, exorcising rage and grief through cries into the open desert air! Imagine the release! It wouldn’t solve much, but, man, would it feel good.
There is so much that is out of our control right now. It’s scary and frustrating. I don’t have the answers, except for my catchall advice to listen to and respect scientists. But one thing I do know for sure is that when things feel off, sometimes the best thing to do is to make your outsides match your insides, even if for just a brief moment. Take that drive down an open road. Blast music as loud as you can. Scream into a pillow. Embrace your own fury.
If you’re looking for some sheltering-in-place resources (including ways to donate food, places to order masks, and websites to keep you entertained), here’s a master Google doc.
stuff i’ve made
I got a big bump up and now I can officially call myself a TV writer!
I wrote this piece about my late grandpa a while ago, but it was his birthday recently and so I’ve been thinking about it/him a lot lately.
stuff i’m thinking about
How we will tell the story of this time in the future
What life was like during the 1918 flu pandemic
The fact that there is no reason for anyone to be a billionaire, let alone a trillionaire
Empty movie theaters offering bits of hope (I MISS MOVIE THEATERS)
How sheltering at home will change how we build our homes
The meaning behind the songs on Fiona Apple’s latest album
stuff i’m loving
These logic puzzles that my dad and I used to do together when I was a kid. I recently bought this book and it’s been nice for giving my brain a break from the anxiety of a pandemic
I’m v late to this one, but: the podcast The Dream
Rewatching New Girl
Listening to the Harry Potter books! For the first time! Ever! In my life! (I always say the least on-brand thing about me is that I’ve never read or seen any of Harry Potter, but that’s changing thanks to all these extra sheltering-in-place hours!)