(Not About Games) The new Mad Max provoked some bizarre reactions!

edited in General
The new Mad Max provoked some bizarre reactions!

And those in turn provoked some amazing parody (this might be the funniest thing I've read all year).

http://jezebel.com/the-new-mad-max-film-is-so-feminist-my-scrotum-killed-i-1705273679

I really enjoyed the movie. The score was unbelievably good (and I'd say worth the admission fee alone, it's almost all massive percussive chase music and dread inspiring metal orchestra). I love post-apocalyptic backdrops, and this was a true post-apocalyptic spectacle. I loved the stunts and the costumes and the cars, but on top of that some of the CG scenes were hauntingly beautiful (though in a couple moments the CG car chase shots seemed slightly cliched).

And while I think there's definitely a few awkward stereotypes in the film; it's not without problems, I prefer the glass half full view that The Mary Sue takes in reviewing it: http://www.themarysue.com/george-miller-feminist-answer-franchise/ (though there have been more scathing reviews to the way that Fury Road portrays gender that sound like the reviewer watched a different movie, or at least expected a lot more from it in this regard).

Also, I found this interesting, a comparison between the portrayal of women in Game of Thrones and the Mad Max franchise (with a tight focus on how sexual violence is portrayed in the two texts): http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/05/19/we-are-not-things-mad-max-versus-game-of-thrones/

Comments

  • I saw the movie as a work of art. And like (even aged 4+) people can recognize fiction and understand that the portrayal is not real. I enjoyed it a lot and highly recommend it.
  • Question - which of those links can I read without being exposed to spoilers?

    People have already dropped enough hints about recent GoT episodes on twitter that I have some clue of what's going to happen (Thanks, Internet -_- ).

    But I refuse to risk spoiling Mad Max for myself. :/
  • @BlackShipsFilltheSky: Thanks for posting that last link, I read that last night and was considering posting it here. One thing struck me as a potentially good way to explain the difference in the focus on sexual violence in the films: Imagine that instead of sexualised violence, we were talking about Furiosa's amputation?

    The Fury Road approach is just to go "Oh yeah, that seems to have happened, she's got this rad-looking metal arm thing going on that she uses without thinking because it's her arm. Anyway, here's what she's doing now..."

    The GoT approach would be to go "Look how terrible it is that she's lost her arm! This is how she lost it! Look, look at the sinews separating, look how shocked her face is! Oh right, there's this story stuff happening now but to see it you have to LOOK PAST HER RUINED ARM!"

    Is it really that hard to see the difference in portrayal?

    Also, last night Anita tweeted that Fury Road isn't a feminist movie. She's right (sorry, you'll have to scroll up from the linked tweet, you really don't want to try and hunt for her next tweets among the filth in the replies to the first one) and it's a point well worth making.

    This tweet also had a good point: "A lot of modern feminist readings of media boil down to 1. Is there a lady? 2. Does she do something cool? It's a weakening of the theory."

    Remember, if MRAs are really angry about something, that doesn't mean it's actually feminist. Yes, Fury Road is better in so many ways than other movies and does a ton of stuff really, really well (and I enjoyed the movie a lot) but that doesn't mean that's what feminism looks like now. Still, by all means, if you're making stories, tell them like Fury Road does rather than the GoT way.
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    @garethf I think the Jezebel link isn't really about the film, but about the MRA response to the film. And that MRA response was based on the trailer rather than experience of watching the film. So I think you're okay to read that one, but you'll enjoy it a lot more after seeing the movie.

    The other links aren't really safe. I don't think there's anything that will make your movie experience significantly worse, but I'd rather rather see the movie first myself. (and in any case the articles will be more relevant after seeing the movie)

    @dislekcia I also saw Anita's tweets. I don't think a movie where violence is the primary solution to the big problems and has some regressive camera work cannot be feminist. That's essentially the point Anita is making. I think it's a noble ideal. But I think it's her ideal. A lot of people share those values, and most of those people will be feminists, but that's not the same thing as those values defining feminism.

    (Those certainly were not the critical values mentioned in the UCT feminism 101 course I studied. I guess UCT could have been wrong, though the UCT course conformed quite closely to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism. I suspect Anita is just slightly fringe to the movement)

    I don't think Mad Max Fury Road is particularly feminist though. It's notable for being significantly more feminist leaning than its contemporaries (like that Mary Sue article points out), but Fury Road has some pretty weak company when it comes to gender portrayal.

    (I'd define Anita's concerns about violence as humanist concerns, though I see the irony in me trying to define the movement she's a part of after my previous comments)
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  • I don't think Mad Max Fury Road is particularly feminist though. It's notable for being significantly more feminist leaning than its contemporaries (like that Mary Sue article points out), but Fury Road has some pretty weak company when it comes to gender portrayal.
    That's pretty-much what I was trying to say about the movie not being 100% feminist just because it's less sexist than other movies. Yes :)

    I'm not sure about downplaying what Anita tweeted through definition stuff though... It feels strange to me to say to someone that's studied (and lived) the hell out of something that their application of that knowledge/understanding is wrong. I'd rather try to see what underpins their perspective and see if I can learn something from that.

    I'm still a way off of properly getting the time to be able to really consider and research the implications of what Anita is saying, but the core of it rings true to me: As far as I understand it right now, it seems to be talking about how typical action movie tropes that are simply less sexist aren't feminist because they still adhere to power structures based on the expression of violence and domination over other people. A more feminist ideology would dictate that domination over other people not be considered a viable course (maybe, not sure about this) and that, rather than violence being a power structure, different methods of subverting that entire (violence enabling) structure be explored. All of the power expressed in Fury Road is very normative, you're strong because you do cool things like drive fast and kill people.

    As to whether that means you can have a feminist action movie, I dunno... I suspect yes, you could, but maybe it would be action in the visceral/experiential sense of action (like extreme sports) instead of interpersonal combat. I certainly agree that the "This person is strongest fighter, thus they also leading politician and responsible for all society" trope isn't feminist in the slightest.
  • It might help the conversation if people define what they understand to be a "feminist" movie.

    Is it one simply lacking in sexist tropes, male gaze etc? Featuring strong female character roles? Or one that analyzes/promotes feminist social issues? Or something else?

    There's a danger in these kinds of discussions of talking past each other.
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    dislekcia said:
    A more feminist ideology would dictate that domination over other people not be considered a viable course (maybe, not sure about this) and that, rather than violence being a power structure, different methods of subverting that entire (violence enabling) structure be explored. All of the power expressed in Fury Road is very normative, you're strong because you do cool things like drive fast and kill people.
    This might be true, but it also makes the criticism a bit weak because...

    Two things come to mind. One of the wives yelling "no needless killing" at someone as they are about to kill someone. And stopping Max from killing Nux, and them ultimately taking Nux in and caring for him.

    The world/film might be all the things you say, but the women and their motivations are not portrayed as such. With the exception of the shotgun-toting biker-grannies, that is.

    Furiosa and the wives are not driven by a need for confrontation and power. Their purpose from the beginning is to escape.
  • This might be true, but it also makes the criticism a bit weak because...

    Two things come to mind. One of the wives yelling "no needless killing" at someone as they are about to kill someone. And stopping Max from killing Nux, and them ultimately taking Nux in and caring for him.

    The world/film might be all the things you say, but the women and their motivations are not portrayed as such. With the exception of the shotgun-toting biker-grannies, that is.

    Furiosa and the wives are not driven by a need for confrontation and power. Their purpose from the beginning is to escape.
    Both of those things fall into the realm of analysing only the characters in the movie and not the construction of the movie itself. The film is about violence. It paints violence with its lens, frames it, revels in it. In the world of the movie, it's normal to not only see this much violence, it's fetishised when it's displayed... Now these are "normal" things for an action movie, sure. But that's what I'm talking about when I say the movie normalises violence.

    It also forces characters to engage in violence because that's the only power structure available in the constructed setting of the movie. They may not be driven by it, they may not be violent people, but the language of power in the movie is still violence.

    This is very much what that second tweet I linked to above is saying: Feminist analysis is not just finding a female character that does cool stuff in a movie and saying "There you go!"... Just like having a character that doesn't kill anyone suddenly makes a whole movie pacifist.
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    I think when we say "feminist film" we're talking about a film that expresses feminist values right? That in the fiction that the film creates women aren't diminished in their agency or worth (particularly when compared to the men in the film) and that systems that oppress women are criticized. Does that sound right?

    I think the portrayal of violence in feminist works is really interesting, and it's certainly somewhat contentious. Obviously I have a bit of a stake in this debate (as I'd like to make games that are both violent and appreciated by feminists).

    I think one could argue that the film is about women escaping sexual oppression, literally fleeing a horrendously patriarchal system to a utopia where that patriarchy doesn't exist, but eventually being forced to turn around and overcome the patriarchy by outsmarting them. The film is also about male oppressors using violence to maintain their oppression and the protagonists defending themselves, but with little retribution or revenge sought by the protagonists despite how wronged they were.

    Obviously that's a big simplification. But I think that in broad strokes that describes the premise of the movie (which I'd think is a very feminist premise).

    I do think in that case Fury Road goes a bit further than being less sexist than its contemporaries. It manages to avoid overt sexism, and pass the Bechdel test, which really should be the least we expect from action films. It has a little unnecessary sexualization, which errodes some of its feminist message, but it is about women teaming up to escape sexual assault, and I'd think that gets some points. I think that's a fair side better than just not being sexist.

    I don't think the existence of the strong female character of Furiousa really has much to do with whether Fury Road is feminist or not, it's the minimum we should expect. I think Anita focussing on that as the evidence for feminism in the film in her tweets is a bit of a straw man (I'm sorry @Dislekcia, I know you really respect Anita, but she didn't really engage with this movie in her tweets).

    Regarding violence:
    I'm pretty certain some violence is acceptable to Anita. She has a picture of Buffy on her Feminist Frequency twitter channel. And while the Buffy series never displays violence in the fetishist excess that Fury Road does, Buffy does portray violence (and even active aggression) as valid responses to a threat. Both Buffy and Fury Road exist in violent worlds where violence is necessary to solve problems. Importantly Buffy has strict rules about when violence is acceptable (don't kill anyone with a soul is important, also don't kill those who don't harm others even when they have no soul), and Buffy condemns characters that don't abide by those rules, and like @rustybroomhandle pointed out, Fury Road expresses quite similar attitudes about violence as Buffy does. The protagonists in Fury Road regard violence against others with similar disdain as the protagonists in Buffy do. Max himself doesn't kill needlessly, but he is a self described animal at the start and I'm pretty certain we're meant to assume that Max is more of a human by the end, someone who believes in helping others. The point being helping others in desperate times is contrasted to Max's animalness and the antagonists' barbarism. The movie pretty clearly sends the message that forgiveness rather than revenge reaps benefits (in not killing Nux, who is clearly redeemed by the end of the film). These are all quite similar values to those of Buffy, the biggest difference in my mind being the graphic nature of the violence and the seriousness of the tone (which Buffy doesn't share). And to some, sexual violence against women might be more problematic in Buffy than in Fury Road.

    Personally I think Buffy is super fucking interesting from a feminist perspective.

    I'm pretty certain that real world violence is broadly not considered a tool of feminism. Violence is a tool used to oppress women after all, and very very rarely to free them.

    Though I'm much less certain about the portrayal of violence in film. (Again, I do have a stake in violence being okay when contextualized appropriately). I do think it's possible to portray violence as necessary, and even fun, without contradicting feminism (like Buffy doesn't contradict feminism to most feminists, presumably Anita included). Though I don't think the portrayal of violence is what feminist creators should aspire to.

    Again, not trying to argue that Fury Road is a shining beacon of feminist film :) The film never feels like it is about feminism, it feels like it's about car chase battles across a post-apocalyptic hellscape. The feminist themes (if I'm reading them right and they do exist) feel by turns incidental and hamfisted to the film.

    There are some studies that show that the portrayal of violence does have effects on aggression, and there may be poor conflict resolution behaviours that can be learnt from film, though that's not really a feminist issue as much as a being a good person issue. And also the film is R rated I believe to keep kids away.

    Also I do think that Anita was seeking to counterbalance reviewers proclaiming Fury Road as feminist rather than reviewing the film on its own merits. In my mind the best reading of Anita's tweets is that she wasn't so much wrong as overreaching and oversimplifying in order to offset other feminist reviewers who she felt were exaggerating Fury Road's merits.

    (Personally I think Anita is far from infallible when it comes to feminist theory. I think she's best when she's done a lot of research into something. That said I still learn a lot from her, and obviously I think her cause is utterly virtuous)
  • Also I do think that Anita was seeking to counterbalance reviewers proclaiming Fury Road as feminist rather than reviewing the film on its own merits. In my mind the best reading of Anita's tweets is that she wasn't so much wrong as overreaching and oversimplifying in order to offset other feminist reviewers who she felt were exaggerating Fury Road's merits.

    (Personally I think Anita is far from infallible when it comes to feminist theory. I think she's best when she's done a lot of research into something. That said I still learn a lot from her, and obviously I think her cause is utterly virtuous)
    I don't know. I don't really understand why it matters whether someone is infallible or not... I just don't think it's a good idea to label an argument as being a straw man or saying someone hasn't engaged enough with a thing when it's clear that what they wrote was considered beforehand. That was a lot more tweets than most people wrote about Fury Road. Did the people saying that they loved the movie in 1 tweet engage more?

    I'm trying to understand the argument, not dismiss it. What I wrote above is what I think I might understand so far. I certainly don't think anyone is saying X or Y contradicts feminism, just that Fury Road isn't a feminist film. I'm not sure why that's contentious... It's okay for a movie not to be strictly feminist and have better female representation/characters than other movies, right? That's a thing that can happen without something being contradicted? I mean, the argument isn't "This movie isn't feminist enough and is terrible as a result", it's "this movie, while less sexist, is not feminist in the way that people seem to think it is". I want to find out why, that's all.

    I'm not really bothered with ways to make Anita's argument wrong.

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    Likewise, I think it might also be okay for a movie to be feminist and not perfectly so?

    I reread Anita's tweets and they're not as contentious as I was making out in the previous post. I do disagree with her that violence that is framed as fun negates feminism (e.g. Buffy), and that for something to be feminist it must offer real(ish)-world solutions to real(ish) world problems, but otherwise I think her critique is reasonable (even if I disagree with her conclusion, and wish she'd gone into more detail).

    I guess I'm getting defensive because I perceive her as this thing that people will descend from the internet to defend at the slightest provocation.
    what I wrote above is what I think I might understand so far. I certainly don't think anyone is saying X or Y contradicts feminism,
    Well, surely an argument that X thing means something isn't feminist could be said to contradict a feminist message? That's the sense in which I was trying to use the word "contradict" or "negate"... those words probably sounded a bit harsh but I'm not sure how else to phrase a thing that makes a piece of media less feminist (like including a male gaze and sexualized women etc). "Undermine" might be better.
    just that Fury Road isn't a feminist film. I'm not sure why that's contentious.
    Well some feminists have said it is a feminist film. Most reviews either criticize it for failing to be a feminist masterpiece or applaud it for being feminist leaning at all. While Anita says it is not a feminist film. By definition that's contentious then. More proof here: http://www.zimbio.com/Beyond+the+Box+Office/articles/QBrSxRuPQRt/Breaking+Down+Unexpected+Feminist+Debate+Mad . I've found I've agreed with a few of the things those that view it as moderately feminist have said more than Anita's comments.

    My first post contained an article from MarySue.com that said the movie was subtly Feminist, which you then disagreed with, citing Anita's tweets. In my mind that's the debate were still having, though I realise you are to some degree discussing something else.

    In any case, I'd also certainly like to know more about what Anita meant, or how Anita feels about other feminists' arguments..

    @Dislekcia I'm reminded of a nasty fight we had over whether Anita's statement that Hotline Miami had some sexist messages in it... I remember defending her point bitterly, while you tried to discredit it :)

    (I've just realized I'm a little stressed and tired and I probably shouldn't be expressing opinions on forums)

    One more short article that captures some of the discord I feel when reading Anita's tweets (and it discusses it a bit in a level headed manner). https://storify.com/LukeMaciak/is-mad-max-fury-road-a-feminist-film
  • It probably is not strictly a "feminist" film - not by Anita Sarkeesian's rigid set of principles anyway. Although I knew that she would not find it as such based on her evaluation of a character from another film; Mattie in True Grit (2010). The character is a strong, independent-minded girl, but again Anita's view is that it does not count as feminist because her strengths are things that generally fall under considered-to-be masculine traits.

    If you have not seen the film, you only need this one scene to familiarise yourself with Mattie:



    This type of thinking makes me a bit uncomfortable, because it feels eerily like it's pigeon-holing people into gender-roles. Guns and hot-rods are for boys, and girls play with ponies.
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    "I think when we say "feminist film" we're talking about a film that expresses feminist values right? That in the fiction that the film creates women aren't diminished in their agency or worth (particularly when compared to the men in the film) and that systems that oppress women are criticized. Does that sound right?"

    I'd agree with that.

    The discussion about violence and power structures is interesting, but I wouldn't personally agree that violence and the expression of strength through violence is particularly contrary to feminism.

    That's dancing close to boxing certain behavior types according to gender, which I would say feminism is against, really.

    In my understanding, feminism is about equality. That means not limiting the spectrum of stories told by gender (among other things). So there should be stories about women solving their problems through fists and bullets, and there also should be stories of stay at home dads struggling with loveless relationships.

    But, as a society, we tend to gender stories like we gender toys, "blue stories" and "pink stories". Boy stories are about action and girl stories are about feelings.

    There are some stories that break out of their gender boxes, yes, but not nearly enough.

    I think people are saying this is a "feminist" film, or at least a feminist "win", because it represents progress in pushing female representation in what is traditionally a "blue" story, a male story.

    (At least, I assume that's what they're saying, from what I've picked up. As I said, I haven't actually watched the movie, yet.)

    In a similar way to how getting Black Widow clothing and toys made and promoted equally in stores etc would be a win for feminism, as that would be making progress in having women being represented in a traditionally male-dominated space. Black Widow is still a problematic character, but getting the female superheroes equal representation with the male superheroes would be a feminist win.

    In an equal world, the pantheon of iconic action stars would have as many Ripleys, Sarah Connors and Furiosas as John McClaines and Rambos, and they'd have as much and as good a representation in our media.

    Anita can disagree with any of all of that, of course. I respect her, but part of respect is being able to respectfully disagree.
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    I think that there's a lot of confusion over feminism as an ideology, message and measurement. Let's use another -ism as an example:

    Pacifism is a lens through which to view the world (measurement), a concept to be communicated to others (message) and a way of approaching problems (ideology). We can call a character in a story a pacifist if they don't adhere to violence, of course, they're MORE of a pacifist if they actually say "I am a pacifist" while acting like one. That doesn't mean the story that they are part of is a story about pacifism (it could be full of violence in other ways), for a story to be pacifist it has to both strongly communicate the message of pacifism and adhere to the ideology of pacifism as a solution to whatever problems might be written into the story. There are essentially three distinct gradients here: 1 for the portrayal of individual characters, 1 for the underlying ideology of the story and 1 for the effectiveness of the communication of that ideology.

    So, what's the ideology underlying Fury Road? What does it communicate with its world and how characters solve problems within it? I can see how it can be argued that ideology isn't feminism. At the same time, I can see how individual characters, when compared to characters in different movies are measurably more feminist as characterisations. That's cool and I don't disagree that it's happening, but those characters can be that way without the movie's underlying ideology becoming feminist. We can measure any movie or character through the lens of feminism, some characters will be more feminist and I like that directors are putting effort into that.

    So what does an underlying feminist ideology mean? I'm not sure... If I puzzle it out, it looks a little like this in my head:

    Gender equality is a big one. For Fury Road to have that, we'd have to have female villains... The movie is pretty strict about gender roles: The bullet farmer could have easily been a woman without it changing the plot at all, for instance. There's an all-male warrior caste called the warboys (what happens to the women born half-life?) and the only women we see that aren't in roles defined by their gender are the filthy beggar types and Furiosa (even the grannies are gender defined - there aren't any grandads). That's interesting. I think you could have a feminist movie with all of those things, but the movie would be about addressing that, probably not with explosions.

    As I understand it, female exceptionalism (where a female character acts as a man would in order to gain power in a world dominated by men) is actually a sexist bias confirming thing. No matter how feminist that individual character, the underlying ideology of the world is still patriarchal AND the patriarchal means of power are defined as the correct means to establish and keep power. This is where the point about violence comes in... Violence is such an inherent part of action movies that we don't even question how they frame every problem as something that can be solved with punching, explosions or murder. That at it's core is Machiavellian - might makes right. For the sake of action movies, we're supposed to be glad that the might is wielded by benevolent people who we can relate to in mostly patriotic (yay American freedom and justice for all provided-you're-exactly-like-us) ways. (Yes, I'm aware that a lot of the issue with female and PoC representation has to do with that "relate to" idea) Many people would argue that mandated-excercise-of-power-through-popular-vote isn't an interesting thing to watch... Again, I dunno about that.

    So yeah, I can see why a movie whose world and story are decidedly patriarchal and gendered, whose ideological underpinnings appear to be Machiavellian in nature and aren't well communicated, and whose main characters are exceptional might maybe not be strictly feminist as a film, but contain feminist characters. I think the movie is trying hard to be less sexist and that's fucking awesome. I also really enjoyed the movie.

    I'm also not attacking anyone by saying this, I'm just trying to puzzle something out...

    P.S. So does the lack of PoC in the film's positions of power make it racist? ;)
  • dislekcia said:
    P.S. So does the lack of PoC in the film's positions of power make it racist? ;)
    I've also seen it called both ableist and praised by people with disabilities.
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    I've also seen it called both ableist and praised by people with disabilities.
    I don't understand... Are you saying that's a bad thing? That's definitely a complex concept that's hard to distil down to a simple yes or no.
  • Nope, no judgements made at all. Just pointing out a thing. You pointed out another social issue, I pointed out one too.
  • Ah, this is why I suggested starting by defining what we understand by these terms, what is meant by a "feminist" film.

    I wouldn't define it the same way, but if you go by that definition, @dislekcia, then sure, it isn't a feminist film.
  • So I can finally click into this thread after watching the movie :)

    It seemed that, like @garethf said, feminism is being understood differently by different people.

    I understood the film as being described as feminist because it shifts the usual power balance in action films away from a pure male domination, it had strong themes of empowerment of the females and liberation from a physical domination, by men, as it were.

    Now I had no idea feminism was a thing about "no violence" or "non-regressive camera work". Isn't that sexist? (like @rustybroomhandle said too) Or is feminism by that definition no longer about gender, but some ideological set of themes that has nothing to do with sex, and actually should be assigned a different name than "feminism" which is obviously gender-loaded?

    The lack of PoC is definitely glaringly obvious, on both "castes" in their social standings. The warboys I can understand as being selectively bred and were al... basically aggro dolly the sheeps, and it makes sense that a Hitler-like figure ruling by propaganda would engineer his society to be like that, so it's part of the fiction, but of course the fiction could be re-wrote to accommodate PoCs. On that I'm ambivalent. Though the lack of PoCs in the oppressed caste didn't make as much sense, unless they were basically the dregs of the selective breeding, and thus it stands to reason the PoCs were bred out.

    BUT there was the one PoC among the escaped wives. And I think I spotted one in the crowd during their return, I'll have to go back and see. But one out of a million is not significant, in fact it highlights the lack.

    One thing I found a bit lacking was the way that Nux turned almost 180 on the spot when he was "discovered" by the goggles woman (I don't know their names... Sorry if they did come up). His entirely life's worth of propaganda and indoctrination was instantly flipped when he had every opportunity to still sneak up on the drivers and shank them all and/or go to Valhalla by pegging while doing so (by his beliefs). But instead he instantly turns. The plot needed that, but I felt it couldn't been handled better.

    Other than that it was such a smart action flick. I can't remember when last I put "smart" and "action" together. It was also super crunchy - going to the analogue in a way that's nothing like Lord Of the Rings made Mad Max hard-hitting and ingenious in a great way. The vehicular battle concepts were simply stunning. Loved the bendy poles, spear grenades, harpoons with the drop rakes, all that stuff. So smart.
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