Mad Max heroine Charlize Theron on female roles in Hollywood: 'You're either a really good mother, or a really good hooker'

Charlize Theron has praised Max Max: Fury Road director George Miller for breaking out of the Hollywood gender stereotype mould and showing “the truth of who we are as women”.

The South African-born actress plays the role of amputee warrior Furiosa alongside Tom Hardy’s Mad Max in the action-packed sci-fi film. Her character is very much the dominant between the two, and “emotionally drives” the story forward.

“You’re either a really good mother or you’re a really good hooker,” she tells The Guardian. “The problem with how movies represent women goes right back to the Madonna/whore complex. You can’t be a really good hooker-mother. It’s impossible.”

“George [Miller] just showed the truth of who we are as women, and that’s even more powerful. Women thrive in being many things. We can be just as dark and light as men. We’re more than just nurturers, more than just breeders, we’re just as conflicted. Not to brag, but I think women are better at embracing the dichotomy of the yin and the yang than men.”

Her comments come as Men’s Rights Activists called for a boycott on Mad Max: Fury Road, describing it as “feminist propaganda”.

Aaron Clarey, a blogger on Return of Kings website which focuses on men’s issues, wrote that he was initially excited at the “explosions, fire tornadoes [and] symphonic score of Fury Road,” because it “looked like a straight-up guy flick.”

However, upon seeing the trailers, he was mortified by Theron’s dominance in the movie.

“Charlize Theron kept showing up a lot in the trailers, while Tom Hardy (Mad Max) seemed to have cameo appearances. Theron sure talked a lot during the trailers while I don’t think I’ve heard one line from Hardy. And finally, Theron’s character barked orders to Mad Max. Nobody barks orders to Mad Max,” he wrote.

He claims that he and other men are being “duped by explosions, fire tornadoes and desert raiders into seeing what is guaranteed to be nothing more than feminist propaganda, while at the same time being insulted and tricked into viewing a piece of American culture ruined and rewritten right in front of their very eyes.”

However, the supposedly archetypical celebration of “American culture” is an Australian franchise, made and directed by Australians, and whose lead actors are British (Hardy) and South African (Theron).

His post led others to call for the boycott, while feminists of both genders laughed off his complaints as “hilarious”.