Pointlife
The Point is...We’re still forcefed dribble
The Pointer
mbaum925@uwsp.edu
Dear The Point Is,
Will the newest Rambo movie that came out calendar year 2008 reinforce any ongoing stereotypes?
- Concerned about movie integrity
Dear Cami,
The simple answer is no. That would actually be the answer if you had asked if I like Pauly Shore. The answer to the actual question you asked, is, oh yeah, a whole bunch.
Early in the movie, a missionary group tries to persuade the lead character, John Rambo, to take them into Burma, which, in the flick, is a war-torn country. The male leader of this group is the first to ask Rambo for help. After he refuses, the female lead in the movie, a secondary member in this religious group, goes and pleads with everyone’s favorite psychotic ex-soldier. After her first attempt fails, she returns later in the evening. As she is talking to him, she places her hand on his forearm and makes eye contact in hopes she can melt his heart.
Now, for a man that has not had any female contact in over 20 years, or for a man like myself who hasn’t gone on a date in over a year, this might work. If you were to take a gentleman that cruises for tail every weekend, and ends up getting it, this simple consoling gesture would not do jack. The director of this movie is trying to play on the fact that “a woman’s touch” can ease all a man’s ills and coerce him to do anything. This is too tall of a load to bear. This familiar concept is used in made-for-TV movies in which a teenage daughter has had enough of her overbearing father, so she winks at her boyfriend, tells him he can kill “daddy dearest” and then they run away together. Any teenage boy should come to the realization that if you have $120 dollars in your savings, it should create one heckuva foundation while you are running from the police. After all, the girlfriend you’re committing the murder for is attractive, right? So what could possibly go wrong. Anyway, back to Rambo life lessons.
After Rambo successfully leads these missionaries into Burma, based on the impetus of the forearm touch, he heads back to his cozy digs in Thailand. During this time, the missionaries are getting along nicely injecting antibiotics and rubbing young children’s heads. Standard missionary fare, of course. At about this time, the Burmese guerillas that are causing all the civil unrest bound into town and start shooting citizens and missionaries alike. There is nothing more touching in a Rambo movie, outside of a forearm touch, than blood packs exploding on actors as they fall limp into rice patties. So after several slow motion shots of death, the viewer is brought back to Rambo sawing logs in Thailand. He is awakened by a pastor, who serves as the leader of the church from which these missionaries came. The pastor needs Rambo to run into the country, and, surprise, surprise, save people.
The standard movie audience is then fed lines from Rambo’s mind in a montage, such as “God’s never gonna make it for you, you gotta make it for yourself” and “Killing is in your blood.” Shortly thereafter, when among other military mercenaries, “Live for nothing, or die for something.” Generally, I think I prefer killing motives that show you’ve really flown the coop. Norman Bates, in Psycho, during his descent into madness has two sided conversations with his dead mother. The lead killer complains about how he or she can’t get the stench out of his or her curtains or that the man in the wallpaper told him or her it was a good idea. But it appears to me, Rambo had perfectly logical reasons for engaging in conflict.
Tinseltown, before I hound another one of their shortcomings, legitimately believes Americans still care about a man in his sixties slurring through his lines leaving the rest of us to assume that he is drunk and unable to pronounciate clearly. Here in Point, we can see that by going downtown or to an outlying country bar before 8 p.m.
Since I must remain an upright American and not disclose the ending of the movie, I will dwell on another painfully obvious ideal.Similar to other movies, the non-Americans are perceived to be either calm and peaceful citizens or heartless marauders of the land. This normally hearkens back to a time when communism was king ala Russia and Vietnam. Hollywood will always have stories for years, thanks to communism. Communism provides the perfect “other” to American structure. For whatever nations have leftover ammunition, it could never have come from America, it must have all come from Russia. Of course, if allies England and America ever get challenged by Soviet leftovers in future movies, only two men can save the world: 007 and Rambo. It just seems Rambo got the nod this time.
