Well, we’re not talking about the police at all—that’s a completely different matter.
As usual, let’s start with the non-definitions: we’re not here to offer film criticism, but rather to take the temperature of society: turn around please, yes, that’s it… trraaackkk.
Cinema, as a human creation, is itself both a product of its time—and thus influenced by prevailing narratives—and, at the same time, a form of active propaganda: neorealist cinema and Netflix series, respectively.
Order is one of the consequences of reaching a social pact among various entities. It is generally generated and maintained by a small tribe that sees prolonged stability — and thus longer survival chance — in collective contribution.
Declining Western society subverts order, and cinema celebrates that subversion.
Think of Immortan Joe from *Mad Max*, who is clearly presented to the audience as a villainous usurper. BUT, if you look at the beginning of the film and compare it to the rest, it’s clear that Immortan’s Citadel is a place of law, order and industry. Hundreds of people are crammed into the Citadel and they don’t devour one another—would you believe it?—in fact, there are hydroponic farms and the Citadel has a water pumping system. They have rituals, a temple, and a cult; aware of their short lifespans due to radioactive contamination, they have a cult of war aimed at protecting the community. Consciously or unconsciously, the director has portrayed a society in the process of reconstruction where the male leader holds the reins and is respected by all. The leader is not a leader through oppression of the members of HIS community, but rather of those outside it, thereby protecting both his dynasty and, with it, that of the Citadel and those who live there. The opposite is true today, where the state devours the resources produced by the forced signatories of the social contract in the form of taxes and fines for speeding at 35 km/h.
The commercial alliances with Bullet Farm and Gas Town, which are also self-sustaining systems, are aimed at developing their own communities through the trade of goods. In fact, clear tribal and familial dynamics can be observed among the characters who are part of the Citadel, while the leaders of the other two cities mentioned cannot stand Immortan’s family squabbles but, in keeping with their alliance, fight against external threats to restore and maintain order. Enforcing law and order benefits all parties, as well as Immortan and all members of the individual communities.
Furiosa, in the name of belonging to another group or a set of ideals that clash with the harsh reality outside the Citadel, rebels against Immortan’s order and acts on instinct (planning her actions, yes, but driven by emotion rather than the logical rationality of survival), stealing goods and causing quite a mess. Immortan thus comes across as the villain, when in fact he is the one who maintains order and keeps resources under wise control. At the end of the film, when Immortan’s body is displayed as proof of the overthrow of power, the outcasts gain access to the Citadel. The obvious but unstated consequence is that order within the Citadel will either have to be restored by force, or the Citadel will collapse without a leader to maintain order.The communist idea that those human wrecks, barely capable of surviving on their own in the hostile environment of the Wasteland, cannot possibly be of any benefit to the Citadel community—yet must by right be part of it without actually contributing anything—is a classic epics of a certain “champion of justice” that, in reality, creates only chaos and disorder.
A brief reflection could also be made on The Creator; let’s just skip over the whole series of improbable nonsense about mega-tanks being taken out by a mine thrown at the hatch… The bottom line is that the Americans have shot themselves in the foot (yes, we know the movie says the nuclear bomb that exploded in LA was human error) through their abuse of AI, and they’re determined to wipe it off the face of the planet at all costs. A discussion of AI in general would take a long time, but we could say that there’s only one way to tame AI without it gaining the upper hand over the human race: namely, education in symbiosis with a human being. But this is not the case in the film, which depicts sentient robots—or those simulating sentience—that apparently live in harmony with humans in Asia, where the United States bursts in with its overbearing actions to search for the Creator (called Nirmata in the film). In reality, the Americans are acting out of a higher interest: to preserve biological life on Earth rather than succumb to artificial intelligence/robotics. Yet they are the ones portrayed as the villains, just as in Avatar. The Americans are thus judged as the enemies in the film; in reality, anyone who attempts to preserve humanity, even at the expense of human lives, would likely be celebrated as a hero rather than ridiculed as an idiot who has mega-weapons at his disposal yet is unable to fire two shots on target (let’s set aside here the meta-meaning that the U.S. is, in fact, in military disarray; this is another possible interpretation but one that falls outside the ethical scope we prefer to discuss).
Politically correct cinema works to subvert the order by celebrating the destructive and self-destructive madness of a Joker portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix. Heath Ledger’s Joker was an active character whose entropy was perfectly logical in contrast to a hyper-righteous Batman. That Joker highlighted society’s contradictions. Phoenix’s Joker, on the other hand, justifies the character’s madness through clear cause-and-effect driven by a sick society, thereby effectively celebrating that insane, centrifugal behavior.
We could go on from here, making fun of Marvel’s failed heroes, but let’s avoid that due to a lack of depth; the only anti-hero who is actually more of a hero than the others is Deadpool.
What a lovely day!