AustLit

'An event known as 'Wasteland Weekend', held annually in the Southern California desert since 2010 and billed as 'the world's largest post-apocalyptic festival', allows attendees to 'live for four days in a world pulled straight out of the Mad Max movies and other post-apocalyptic films and games, beyond the grip of so-called civilization? Because it resonated so deeply throughout American culture, The Road Warrior powerfully affected depictions of convincing post-catastrophe scenarios. [...]Brin's novel undermines the very concept of a super-powerful (male) saviour to whom a community would owe its survival. The familial ethos is drowned in the awesome spectacle of individual heroic carnage. [...]in spite of Miller's narrative intentions, the Max that achieved nearly ubiquitous cultural acclaim was a tough, clever, resourceful mercenary, not an administrative middleman. [...]while the Postman occasionally tips his cap to the Road Warrior, Costner's nutty folksiness and clunky dialogue, exhibiting neither economy nor eloquence, betrays his unsuitability as a heroic saviour.'  (Publication abstract)