AustLit

'Max Rockatansky is both straight and the best driver on the roads, and the villains in Mad Max and Mad Max 2 are gay motorcyclists. The demonisation of bikies and homosexuals in the two films is an interesting trope—all the more so because it has passed almost without comment or debate. George Miller' pits Max, the heroic heterosexual cop against the homosexual 'baddies' in the Toecutter's gang and Lord Humungus' tribe. After the death of his best friend, wife and son, Max is repeatedly drawn into the unknown and unlawful world ofthe bikies. As agents of death heralding the coming of the apocalypse, the bikies are exiled to the Forbidden Zone and are manifested as both queer and dangerous. Max fords the bikies worthy and proficient rivals who ooze a tough and extremely muscular masculinity. This article examines Max's quest to exterminate the rogue bikies and how Max's body becomes a contested site which both propels the narrative and offers itself up to mutilation and the gaze.'

Source: Abstract.