What Lunacy Alters A Philosophical Take on Mad Max Fury Road

Abstract

In this article, our objective of study is to show how the movie Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) successfully uses the depiction of lunacy as hyperreality to deepen the main narrative of post-apocalypse in the movie. We aim to conduct this study as a philosophical and phenomenological examination of elements encountered within discourse of the movie. In this study, by investigating how the postmodern notion of hyperreality is cinematically used to deepen the sense of post-apocalypse, through the lunacy of the character, Coma-Doof Warrior, we aim to clarify the philosophical depths of the movie. A portrayal of his lunacy, as a case of hyperreality, helps to saturate deeper the sense of the post-apocalypse in the Fury Road. As for the process of our examination, we first explain different scopes of hyperreality in order to be able to focus on its usage within postmodern thought, especially by Baudrillard. Second, we show the philosophical connections between perceptions of hyperreality and notion of apocalypse. Among these connections, we specifically emphasize a phenomenological impossibility of a particular sense of post-apocalypse, since this sense of post-apocalypse is at the core of the relation between sense of reality and sense of post-apocalypse, as depicted here. Then, since this relation between reality and post-apocalypse is cinematically put into work in the theoretical background of Fury Road to amplify the sense of post-apocalypse, this shows that there is an underlying philosophical understanding of societal collapse and apocalypse (both as internal and external, both on a major and minor scale) in the movie. This understanding in the conceptual structure of the movie uses the close relation between characteristics of lunacy and notion of hyperreality, through the depiction of the character, Coma-Doof Warrior. Last, by relating that this depiction can be thought as an element within philosophy of film, we show this movie successfully uses the lunacy as hyperreality to deepen the sense of post-apocalypse. In the end, we reach to a point where we enrich the philosophical grounds of the relevant discussions regarding the movie.