The Old Woman You Didn't Know You Needed

The Voices We Ignore

Mad Max: Fury Road was an objectively good movie, and one of the best times I’ve ever had in the theater. The story, the acting, the sheer audacity of it… all wonderful.

The movie was also remarkable in that it gave us something we don’t often see (then or now): Middle-aged and old women, a whole group of them being portrayed positively AND realistically.

There’s no shortage of perfect girl bosses in film and TV. Collectively, we’re all rather sick of them. The Many Mothers—bad asses though they were—were not given super powers. They were women, with all the frailty that implies, though they powered through those frailties to make a difference. They identified themselves, first and foremost, as mothers. As caregivers. As people who make things grow. And in their brief time with the young women under their care, they were able to pass on that wisdom and steer the girls away from cynicism.

Even in the most wholesome of Hallmark movies, we don’t get a lot of this from older women on the scr…