www.thebiblog.net, west coast, february 19, 2010

while the mad max trilogy was filmed almost entirely in australia (and launched mel gibson’s career - also an australian), its visual language was thereafter adopted by the anarchist and gangster rap sub-cultures of america's west coast. the films, released in the early eighties relied on a dystopian punk aesthetic: dust, grease, blood and engine parts. these visual cues parralleled a storyline depicting a world without rules: anarchy.

the burning man festival, staged yearly in the desert in nevada, is perhaps the most overt celebration of the post apocalyptic anarchistic aesthetic of the films(although firearms and motor vehicles are prohibited at the event). just as in barterville from mad max beyond thunderdome, the burning man organization claims that "there are no rules about how one must behave or express oneself" at the festival _ a version of lawlessness. In addition, one of the central features of the festival is a full sized re-creation of the thunderdome erected by the death guild, a san francisco punk music label, where nightly death matches are held (foam batons are used instead of weapons and no one has actually died). in recent years, pranksters replaced the thunderdome signage with a banner reading "hot topic", the name of a suburban chain store selling goth merchandise to bored teenagers _ a critique of the death guild's ode to capitalism, and a movie that grossed $36,000,000 for warner brothers in 1985.

the anarchist community was not the only californian sub-culture to adopt the mad max aesthetic. the themes of anarchy and lawlessness were equally relevant to the west coast gangster rap scene of the 90's. the video for tupac shakur's california love is said to have been filmed on the original set of mad max beyond the thunderdome, and generally parallels the themes of the movie. appropriately, this was 2pacs first single after serving eleven months in prison on sexual assault charges. his problematic and rebellious lifestyle would eventually lead to his death in 1996, from gunshot wounds_ a final perverse nod to the violent themes of the film.

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