Throughout countless years of cinema, a main priority for studios across the globe has always been money, whether it be a big budget blockbuster or an independent studio, creators have always needed to attract a big audience to fuel future projects. Because of this desire to attract an audience, exploitation within cinema began to emerge, companies and studios would try and latch on to an idea or theme that audiences would be familiar with and use it to gain a bigger following. Exploitation within film has taken many forms over the years and is still present today, common themes include nudity and gore, two things that were often found in B-Movies when creators were trying to attract a bigger audience to a lower budget film, in some cases being used as a substitute for quality.
Now although exploitation was first really seen in early B-Movies, it is without a doubt still present today, being used as a kind of 'money magnet' within the film industry. Companies and studios need to ensure that they are going to make a profit from their creative projects and so litter their films with traits and motives that they believe an audience will happily pay money to see. A good example of this within modern cinema is George Miller's 2015 film Mad Max - Fury Road, as the film itself essentially runs as one huge car chase accompanied with a cast characters pushing the ideas of feminism.
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| Fig 1: Movie Poster: Mad Max-Fury Road |
The idea of a feature length car chase being the soul plot of a film completely runs on the ideas of exploitation, the whole film essentially depends on an audiences will to enjoy pure action and destruction, something that luckily pays off in Mad Max - Fury Road. The whole film is almost entirely action, from the very offset of the film the viewer is forced into a car chase, which leads to another car chase, again relying on a modern audiences enjoyment of all out action, luckily it seems that within the current cinematic climate of destruction in films, audiences across the world loved it.
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| Fig 2: Screenshot: Mad Max-Fury Road |
The idea of feminism also plays a huge part in Millers action packed blockbuster, namely in the form of Charlize Theron's character Furiosa, a woman seeking to take back her pride and freedom back from the grips of this apocalyptic world. This notion of Feminism is extremely important to this film as it manages to balance out some of the times when it seems that all the film is concerned about is sheer chaos, it adds a dimension to the story that really needed to be there to keep the plot slightly more relatable, as within the modern world the idea of modern women gaining equal rights and fighting for their deserved pride is something audiences are familiar with.
It almost seems that the reason this tone of feminism runs throughout the plot of Mad Max - Fury Road is due to the state of the modern world, it feels as if this major point was included to not only further the plot but to attract a wider audience, which essentially comes down to fact that the film is exploiting the current affairs of the modern world and the its issues with feminism and equal rights to entice more viewers.
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| Fig 3: Screenshot: Mad Max-Fury Road |
By no means is George Miller's 2015 action hit Mad Max - Fury Road a bad film in any way, the special and practical effects are exceptional and really give the film an edge, it just cannot be disputed that the idea of exploitation is without a doubt apparent in this film, whether it be the all out action and stunts, or the more current ideas of feminism, Miller certainly ensured that his creation would gain a huge following.
Illustration List
Fig 1: Movie Poster, Mad Max - Fury Road, http://www.comingsoon.net/movies/news/428175-madness-these-are-more-mad-max-fury-road-posters#/slide/1, Accessed on: 19.11.16
Fig 2: Screenshot, Mad Max - Fury Road, http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Mad-Max-Fury-Road-Trailer-Explosive-Violent-Crazier-Than-You-Imagine-68603.html, Accessed on: 19.11.16
Fig 3: Screenshot, Mad Max - Fury Road, http://www.indiewire.com/2015/05/10-reasons-why-charlize-theron-in-mad-max-fury-road-is-the-badass-successor-to-aliens-ripley-187650/, Accessed on: 19.11.16
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