Abstract

Laura Copier builds on Elizabeth Castelli, who characterises the discourse on martyrdom as highly ambivalent, yet persistent and powerful to this day and age, evaluating martyrdom as ‘an idea without a precise origin’ (Castelli, 2004, p. 35). Because it is both impossible and unproductive to pinpoint the exact historical moment in which martyrdom came into existence, Copier focuses, with Castelli, on the ongoing manifestations of martyrdom, in particular on the sustained investigation of contemporary, popular, and secular representations of martyrdom. The discourse of martyrdom is so powerful precisely because of its adaptability and, critically, the transformation of the object that it allows. It is not just the concept of martyrdom that is not fixed; it also causes related discourses to change. One of those discourses is Hollywood cinema, and its representations of gender and the body in female action heroes. Castelli's ‘culture making’ dimensions of martyrdom that ‘depend upon repetition and dynamics of recognition’ are played out, as Copier shows, in the female character of Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) in the 2015 film Mad Max Fury Road. Through a close reading of the film's genre, narrative, and iconography, Copier argues that the female action hero Furiosa is able to transcend and destabilise the equation of martyrdom with death.

Keywords: Hollywood cinema, iconography, anti-hero and victim-hero narratives, trauma, redemption and empowerment

I live, I die. I live again!