Schwarzenegger, Arnold

1947–

Film Star and Bodybuilder

During the 1980s, Arnold Schwarzenegger visibly symbolized an ideal of muscularized masculinity that gained currency as Republican president Ronald Reagan, promising to restore national strength after the economic and foreign policy woes of the 1970s, presented himself and his policies as tough and aggressive. As the 1990s approached, Schwarzenegger, continuing to reflect a conservative cultural agenda, successfully reinvented himself as a signifier of men's attempt to reclaim a domestic authority that had been challenged since the 1970s.

Schwarzenegger, who won the Mr. World, Mr. Universe, and Mr. Olympia titles before his retirement from professional bodybuilding in 1975, first became a widely known symbol of hypermuscular masculinity in the United States when he was featured in the documentary film Pumping Iron (1977), which chronicled ...