Five reasons ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ is the girlboss movie we actually DO need



Nearly ten years ago, "Mad Max: Fury Road," featuring Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy, dazzled audiences across the globe with its post-apocalyptic, dystopian narrative. The film was a success, scoring 97% on Rotten Tomatoes and winning six Oscars.

Now the franchise is back with a new film, starring Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth, but does the movie live up to its predecessor?

Many have been skeptical of “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” given that most modern female-centric films tend to come with a progressive agenda.

“Leading up to its release, a lot of people were rolling their eyes thinking that this is going to be just another tale of a woke feminist girlboss,” says Lauren Chen, who's BlazeTV's guru when it comes to exposing woke cinema.

Surprisingly, however, “almost nobody – especially those who've actually seen the movie – are calling it woke, feminist, or implying that Furiosa is a girlboss in any type of way.”

“Even though Furiosa is a woman and she is strong and a main character, she is far, far from the Mary Sue likes of Rey or Captain Marvel that people are so keen to hate on,” Lauren explains, adding that “Furiosa is a good case study of how a character can be strong and a woman and competent but also not be a feminist Mary Sue wet dream.”

What makes Furiosa a real girlboss?

For starters, “she actually makes mistakes,” unlike the Mary Sue archetype, who is practically perfect in every way.

Further, “she actually has to learn, grow, and rise through the ranks in order to be successful,” says Lauren, who condemns Rey and Captain Marvel as examples of modern-day Mary Sues who’ve “gotten everything that they want right away without ever having to work.”

“[Furiosa] really starts from nothing – a little girl with no skills … and it's only after years and years and years that she eventually gains not only a title that is worthy of respect but also skills to go along with that.”

“Reason number three why Furiosa is not a Mary Sue,” according to Lauren, “is that she does not have magical superpowers that make her better and stronger than everybody.”

In fact, “she gets her own a** handed to her many, many times throughout the film. She even loses an arm because she gets outsmarted,” Lauren explains. “She’s a character who goes through hell, which makes her interesting.”

Additionally, Furiosa’s character diverges from the typical female lead role in that she actually “depends on other people” – unlike the trendy goddess archetype whose strength and independence transcend any need for support or community.

“Furiosa herself is not perfect, and that actually allows for other characters to, you know, do things in the movie that are meaningful,” says Lauren.

The last reason for why "Furiosa" is not a Mary Sue film has to do with the male characters in the movie. To hear the final point, watch the clip below.


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Lara Croft goes woke; no longer a ‘raider of tombs’ to ‘escape colonial past’



Phoebe Waller-Bridge has officially taken on the role of director for the Lara Croft TV series, and Amazon has announced that the show has been greenlit — but fans are not happy.

Waller-Bridge recently starred alongside Harrison Ford in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny," where she played a very feminist character who berated Ford at every turn.

“So, is this Amazon iteration of Lara Croft going to be more of the same? Just an obnoxious girl boss who only exists to undercut her male colleagues and costars? We’ll see,” Lauren Chen says, calling her Indiana Jones film “a pretty spectacular failure.”

Lara Croft’s Tomb Raider video games have also faced criticism from fans across the globe who believe that each time a new version of the game comes out, Croft gets less attractive.

“To those of you who are Tomb Raider fans and are thinking, ‘You know what? Doesn’t matter, I’m just going to ignore the series and play the games because at least those will continue to be good.’ Well, I mean, I wouldn’t be so sure,” Chen says.

“As people have pointed out, it seems like there is actually an effort being made to make Lara Croft uglier and uglier, because of course due to feminism, as women now we are supposed to be offended by attractive women for some reason.”

Not only have video games across the board been catering more to woke ideology, but Croft especially has formerly represented the “pinnacle” of female attractiveness in video games.

“As we saw with gamer gate and more recently the whole Sweet Baby Inc. debacle, the gaming industry is by no means safe from wokeness either,” Chen says.

And it’s not just Croft’s attractiveness that’s been under attack but also her character.

The game Tomb Raider: Shadows of Truth gained negative attention as creators claimed they were transitioning Croft from “a raider of tombs to a seeker of truth” in order to escape the game's “colonial past.”

“I’m not even kidding, this is a real thing,” Chen says.


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'Dune: Part Two': Is it worth seeing?



Usually when Lauren Chen reviews a movie, she’s forced to be critical due to the political propaganda and virtue-signaling that’ve come to define modern cinema.

However, “Dune: Part Two” is an outlier in that it’s “a good movie,” says Lauren.

“In fact, this is one of the best-made movies that I have seen in a long time. It is entertaining; it is beautifully made and acted,” she says, adding that the “level of care and dedication and ingenuity and attention to detail” put into the film is “not something that we see a lot from Hollywood” these days.

“In an age where it seems like every month ... Disney is trying to push some new Marvel film down our throats, it is just nice to see a filmmaker like Denis Villeneuve take his time and invest resources into making something as good as it could possibly be.”

The acting impressed her as well.

Timothée Chalamet, who plays the lead role of Paul Atreides, “is very quickly becoming one of my favorite actors,” says Lauren, noting that “in part two, he really is given the material to shine, and he absolutely steps up to the challenge.”

Austin Butler, who plays Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, also “stood out” in his performance, which was “unsettling in a good way,” Lauren adds.

Florence Pugh, who stars in the more minor role of Princess Irulan, was nonetheless “great” despite not getting much screen time.

The only actors who left Lauren wanting were Chani, played by Zendaya, and Emperor Shaddam IV, played by Christopher Walken.

Zendaya’s acting “didn't leave me breathless,” and Walken just “[didn’t] fit in this movie,” she says.

But overall, the acting and the cast were strong.

That’s not to say the film didn’t have its shortcomings, however.

“There are some pacing issues,” Lauren says, adding that “there is probably too much time spent on Paul kind of chilling in the desert,” which were the “low points” of the film.

While Lauren acknowledges that “Dune” “is actually a book that took place over quite a long period of time,” in the film adaptation, “there was a lot of inconsistency over how much time was passing.”

“For certain scenes, time was almost moving too slowly ... but then in other cases, especially when action was involved, it was like things were moving too fast,” she points out.

Regardless of the movie’s flaws, “if you ask me, 'Is ‘Dune: Part Two’ worth checking out?' I would say the answer is absolutely yes, and I would even say go see it in theaters.”

To hear more of Lauren’s review, watch the clip below.


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To enjoy more of Lauren’s pro-liberty, pro-logic, and pro-market commentary on social and political issues, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Disney headed for another train wreck: ‘X-Men’ gets woke remake with nonbinary character



On March 20, a new animated show called “X-Men ‘97” will drop on Disney+, and according to the top fan account on X, @XMenUpdate, the series “revisits the iconic era of the 1990s as the X-Men, a band of mutants who use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them, are challenged like never before, forced to face a dangerous and unexpected new future.”

But before you excitedly think that Disney is finally honoring an original fan base by creating a series set in the 90s, think again.

Instead of being “steeped in nostalgia,” as a 90s throwback should be, “X-Men ‘97” will feature nonbinary characters, which is interesting, granted "nonbinary" wasn’t even a concept in the 90s.

“From everything we've seen so far, it looks like ‘X-Men ‘97' is going to be exactly as woke as what we've now come to expect from Disney,” says Lauren Chen.

@XMenUpdate posted that the character Morph would be “nonbinary” and have “an interesting buddy relationship with Wolverine.”

Not only is the original character of Morph a man, but even the image of the new Morph @XMenUpdate attached to the post “very clearly shows a male,” sighs Lauren.

Per usual, "X-Men" fans are upset that Disney is once again ruining a beloved classic by pumping it full of political propaganda. In fact, people were so outspoken about their frustration with Morph’s revamp that @XMenUpdate “locked replies” on the post and then “proceeded to call everybody bigots in a follow-up post.”

“If Morph being nonbinary makes you angry, you clearly don't know what X-Men stand for,” the account posted.

In another post, it said: “The X-Men have and always will be symbols for inclusion and diversity. If you’re a bigot and have a problem with that, you’re not an X-Men fan and you don’t understand the slightest thing about them.”

“If you are a fan who doesn't like this new version of Morph, I don't think that automatically makes you a bigot for noting that. ‘Hey, you guys are departing from the source material for what seems like ideological reasons,’” corrects Lauren.

“Yes, the X-Men as a concept” was built on “the message of inclusion,” she continues, “but the idea of a nonbinary character doesn't really fit into that, if you ask me, because the point of the X-Men is treat everybody the same regardless of their differences, but when it comes to nonbinary people, it's more like they are the same as everybody else but they want to be treated differently.”

“The entire premise of a nonbinary gender identity is actually trying to make something that is really essentially the same as everyone else into a different category, which is the opposite of the X-Men's messaging.”

To learn more about the “X-Men ‘97” and the controversy surrounding it, watch the clip below.


Want more from Lauren Chen?

To enjoy more of Lauren’s pro-liberty, pro-logic, and pro-market commentary on social and political issues, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.