Monthly Archives: October 2015

Religious Demagogues in The Book of Eli and Mad Max: Fury Road

Given that both The Book of Eli and Mad Max: Fury Road are set in a post-apocalyptic landscape, it is no surprise that they both cast religious demagogues as villains. While Carnegie of The Book of Eli is a petty tyrant, Immortan Joe of Fury Road is a veritable war lord. Both Carnegie and Immortan Joe lose their power by over-extending their forces in vain attempts to retrieve something they want: Carnegie wants the bible carried by Eli, while Immortan Joe wants the women rescued by Furiosa. What most connects the two villains, however, is their shared interest in using religion to manipulate people. Carnegie wants to obtain a bible, so that he can use its words, which he believes to possess almost magical power, to control people. More creative and more successful, Immortan Joe concocts a warrior-death-cult which combines the Norse belief in Valhalla with automotive imagery to inspire his army, mostly composed of his own sons, to reckless feats of violence. Although both religious demagogues control scarce resources, especially water, they perceive that this is not enough to maintain their power.

Religious Demagogues in The Book of Eli

The post-apocalyptic landscape of The Book of Eli draws on the imagery of the Old West–desolate roads, roving bandits, and a fight in a saloon. After the collapse of civilization, might makes right. The antagonist of The Book of Eli is Carnegie, a petty despot sardonically named after steel tycoon and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie rules over a little town which he hopes to expand into an empire. Using his knowledge of hidden springs, he controls access to clean water, and thugs enforce his will. His dictatorial aspirations are clear from the very first shot of him at his desk, which shows him reading a book about Mussolini. Carnegie’s plan revolves around obtaining a copy of the bible. Books are beyond rare because many were destroyed after the war which wiped out most of humanity. Carnegie sends mercenaries to retrieve any books they find out in the wasteland. He believes that the words of the bible have a talismanic power that will augment his ability to control people. “I know its power,” Carnegie tells Eli. Carnegie disguises his lust for power in religious terms: “Just stayin’ alive is an act of faith. Runnin’ this town’s an even bigger act of faith.” He appeals to Eli to give him the bible he carries. He tries to convince Eli that he wants to use the bible to make the world a better place: “Imagine how different, how righteous this little world could be if we had the right words for our faith. If people would understand why they’re here and what they’re doing, they wouldn’t need any of the uglier motivations.” Carnegie implicitly acknowledges that he lacks the charisma to control people without the magical language of the bible: “And I don’t have the right words to help them, but the book does.” Carnegie’s views are a debased exaggeration of the Protestant concept of sola scriptura: the bare words of the bible are so moving that they will enable Carnegie to convince people to obey him. Eli, however, refuses to surrender the bible and kills a number of Carnegie’s men before leaving town. Carnegie orders his right-hand man, Redridge, to round up a crew to go after Eli. When Redridge expresses disbelief that a book is worth the trouble, Carnegie screams, “It’s not a fuckin’ book! It’s a weapon. A weapon aimed right at the hearts and minds of the weak and the desperate. It will give us control of them. If we want to rule more than one small, fuckin’  town, we have to have it. People will come from all over. They’ll do exactly what I tell ’em, if the words are from the book.” Carnegie never specifies exactly what it is about biblical language–cadence? imagery?–that gives it such power. Unlike other religious demagogues, however, Carnegie does not have a meta-narrative of his own to offer.

Religious Demagogues in Mad Max: Fury Road

Immortan Joe makes Carnegie look like an amateur. Joe has accomplished Carnegie’s aspirations. He dwells in a stone fortress, commands an army–mostly consisting of his own sons–and possesses a fleet of vehicles. Like Carnegie, he controls the water supply. If Carnegie wants to use the words of the bible to manipulate people into following him, then Immortan Joe has crafted an entire cult, complete with its own symbols and rituals, with himself at the center. Immortan Joe is a true theocrat. Whereas Carnegie has a quasi-Protestant belief in the power of the Word, Joe’s religious aesthetics are more akin to Catholicism. Rather than bare words, Joe offers a whole symbolic system. Blending the Norse idea of Valhalla–the hall of fallen warriors–with imagery of chrome and octane, Immortan Joe’s religion meets the psychic needs of his followers. Much as the harvest festivals of ancient religions invest agricultural practices with spiritual significance, Joe transforms the motorized vehicles necessary for survival into potent symbols. With resources scarce and many afflicted with tumors as a result of exposure to radiation, death is all too common and all too meaningless in the post-apocalyptic landscape of Fury Road. Joe’s religion offers the War Boys the chance for a meaningful–even glorious–death.

Immortan Joe possesses all the charisma and creativity that Carnegie lacks. He has no trouble crafting persuasive religious rhetoric to inspire and manipulate his followers. He promises his War Boys that they will “ride with me eternal on the highways of Valhalla.” He tells his people “I am your redeemer it is by my hand that you will rise from the ashes of this world.” Like other religious demagogues, he claims to be his people’s only connection to the divine. He convinces them that he is their best hope for the future, even as he withholds food and water from them. Joe’s rhetoric is always accompanied by profound imagery and ritual. His slaves are branded with the emblem of the cult–a skull in a circle with flames at the top. A similar image is carved into Joe’s mountain fortress. In a symbolic gesture of his beneficence, Joe releases the flood gates that dump water down on the masses–and quickly shuts them again. Like a pastor warning his flock away from riches or alcohol, Joe tells the people, “Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you and you will resent its absence.” Joe’s exhortation, of course, is self-serving: he wants to keep the masses content with what they receive and subservient to him.

Joe relies especially on martial imagery. When he discovers that Furiosa has freed his harem of “prize breeders,” the drums sound the call to war. He blends Norse visions of gaining immortality through heroic sacrifice on the battlefield with the terminology of the internal combustion engine. Early in the film, the war boy, Nux, fervently believes that he is destined for Valhalla: “I am awaited.” When each driver takes up his detachable steering wheel from the pile where they are kept, like Vikings grabbing swords and axes, he says, “By my deeds I honor him. V8.” Before attempting insane feats of danger, the War Boys spray their mouths with chrome paint. Throughout the film, Nux chants the slogans which comprise the religion of Joe’s warrior-death-cult, “I live. I die. I live again.” The War Boys’ fervent belief in a blessed afterlife makes them more compliant to Joe’s will. They are ready to risk their lives for Joe because they believe, as Nux says, that “By his hand, we’ll be lifted up. ” Joe promises Nux that if he succeeds in boarding the war rig and stopping Furiosa, “You will ride eternal, shiny and chrome.” When Nux fails, he descends into despair. He tells Capable,  one of Joe’s escaped wives, “Three times the gates were opened to me” and “I was awaited in Valhalla. They were calling my name.” Ironically, Nux does sacrifice himself on the battlefield, not for immortality, but to save his new friends.

While The Book of Eli implies that religious demagogues have used the bible to influence people, Fury Road depicts how tyranny requires a fully embodied symbolic system to thrive.