When you think of post-apocalyptic movies, the soon to be rebooted 'Mad Max' series tends to be among the first that spring to mind. They paint a bleak but not unfamiliar image of the future; with barren and flattened landscapes, oil living up to its name as being "black gold", and an aggressive male-dominated world where violence, slavery and sexual abuse are the norm.
There are many films like this of which most are, more often than not, humourously bad low budget affairs. However, one such movie in particular that I had the chance of seeing last year has remained with me, but not for the reasons that you might expect.
'The New Barbarians' (1983), set in the aftermath of nuclear war, follows a ruthless gang by the name of "The Templars"; intent on eliminating what dregs of humanity remain. Meanwhile, a bunch of lone warriors band together as a resistance to their tyranny.
The film itself is nothing special, but its protagonist "Scorpion" goes through an experience which seemed to me like quite a strange idea to explore. Towards the final third of the movie he is captured by The Templars, and in front of the entire gang is forced to bend over before being sexually abused by their also male leader; "One".
In a dystopian world where leadership tends to be determined by virility, Scorpion not only recovers from this trauma the next morning but also manages to maintain his masculinity and gain the respect of the people as their appointed leader. All of this respect is earned despite a bizarre change in his wardrobe to a slightly homoerotic suit of see-through armour.
However, One does eventually get his comeuppance during a final moderately high speed car chase, whereby Scorpion manages to drive a large pneumatic drill into his backside. His final demise being the head-on collision and subsequent explosion of his vehicle, naturally.
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