We are fast becoming a "Mad Max" society.

[Brigid]

I am talking about the original "Mad Max," not the rather cartoonish "Road Warrior" or the silly "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome Tthough the first half would have made a thought-provoking short film on its own)." If you haven't seen the original, or if it had been a while, give it a look.

The world Max lives in is rapidly decaying into simple barbarism. Violence and chaos. Civil authority appears to have almost completely broken down. Apparently as a last desperate effort to quell the violence, the Main Force Patrol was created. Other than their uniforms, they are little different than the psychopaths they chase around on the highways -- and Max knows it. Only his wife and child keep him sane. After they are killed, he has little reason not to become just as incapable of empathy as thugs like Toecutter and Night Rider.

Is Max's world so far-fetched? Take a look around and you tell me.

[Mr Deltoid]

1. Welcome to right wing world

Strap on boys, we're in for a fight.

[bainz]

2. Nah.

Just went to the store to buy dinner and other than the thugs who ride on 22" wheels and pump bass at the intersection while lights control traffic, my trip was pretty much uneventful.

The price of ground beef had gone up, but I wouldn't consider that as apocalyptic as the world that Max was dealt.

[polichick]

3. Right wingers are building a "good Christian country" - woohoo!!!

[leveymg]

4. The muscle car chases, the musclemen in Mohawks, and Kawi 1000s made the movie

Without those hi-testi aesthetic elements, the film would have been a complete bummer - a real world America run by the extreme Right would be the apocalypse in grey, dusty tones of enforced conformity. Thirsty, boring, obedient, and fanatically paranoid. Not much fun.

[vaberella]

5. Well if that's the case I want to be Tina Turner, Queen of the Thunderdome! n/t