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 the behind-the-scenes action at the Mr. Olympia competition. Previously considered a narcissistic and, thereby, feminized preoccupation, bodybuilding found a new appreciation among American men in the 1970s amid a growing cultural emphasis on self-realization and self-fulfillment. It allowed American men to embrace the softer, more self-centered brand of masculinity that the culture required, while they also maintained such requisite traits of traditional masculinity as strength, health, and heroism.

Schwarzenegger achieved even greater national fame through his films of the 1980s and 1990s, in which he offered models of ideal masculinity that changed with the times. During the 1980s, as Reagan sought to appeal to white middle-class men by promoting corporate growth, reducing the size of the federal government, and pursuing an aggressive foreign policy, Schwarzenegger starred in action films as an extraordinary-everyman figure. These films fed masculine fantasies of escape from the pressures of corporate work and suburban life, supported Reagan's militaristic policies by seeking justice through violence, and indirectly praised Reagan's approach to government by featuring heroic military figures who defied inefficient institutional bureaucracies that stood in the way of social improvement. Such films as Commando (1985), Predator (1987), and The Running Man (1987) addressed the concerns of white middle-class men who feared marginalization within a society in which minorities and women were competing for their jobs and challenging their authority.

Arnold Schwarzenegger on the beach at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival in France, where his documentary film Pumping Iron was presented. Schwarzenegger fueled a new cultural appreciation of bodybuilding and, during the 1980s, symbolized an ideal of muscular masculinity that reflected an anxious concern with national military strength. (AP/Wide World Photos)

In the 1990s a growing men's movement advised men to embrace their emotional and nurturing sides and spawned a fathers' rights movement. At the same time, cultural conservatives urged the importance of fatherhood, criticized feminism and single motherhood, and stirred national political debates about “family values.” In response, Schwarzenegger's films shifted toward a softer form of masculinity. In films like Kindergarten Cop (1990) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Schwarzenegger's characters begin as cold-hearted [Page 408]killing machines but gradually learn to use their skills in defense of traditional family values. Fathering becomes the vehicle for portraying masculine emotions, ethics, and commitments; for reasserting patriarchal authority; and for counteracting deficient parenting by career women and single mothers. In Terminator 2, for example, Sarah Connor's obsessive efforts to prevent the end of the world have landed her in a mental institution and her son in foster care.

...