To a Future More Feral Than Fiction

I thought I would post my the text of the intro I gave to the Road Warrior at the film center. I hoped to film it, but that sort of fell through. Anyway, enjoy!

The Road Warrior has always felt like my anthem of hope. It might sound funny that anybody could find hope in a film about such a desolate future.

But I would like to suggest you that the leather clad, 5 o’clock shadow faced Max does not represent the true hero of this story. Like all stories, the real heroes come in the form of the deeper myths for which the stories merely act as vessels. While most people’s brains engage in the superficial action and conflict, the real vehicle Max drives looks like the subversive hopeful ideology; that of our feral future.

To me, The Road Warrior does not appear an allegory, nor a prophecy for the oil wars. When we take off our glasses of denial and really look at the world around us, this film simply looks like destiny. We see rape, domination and the desertification of the planet; all things we have come to know as civilization’s legacy.

But this story comes to us through the voice of a narrator, who we see characterized by the “feral kid,” the next generation already on the rise in our tragically wrecked world. This child tells us that not only does humanity have a future beyond civilization, but that our future lies in the return to a feral life and tribe. He represents the first of the new world, with one foot in the desert wasteland remnants of civilization, and one foot in a wild, feral future.

I, Urban Scout, as a representative of the emerging feral culture, I say to you; Don’t wait for Lord Humungo and his gang to surround you. Let go of oil. Let go of civilization. Start rewilding now.

Here’s to a future, more feral than fiction.

Ladies and Gentlemen and everyone in between:

The Road Warrior!

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