Hollywood main stream cinema’s treatment of gender in the 1980’s Essay

To what extent is Rambo origin Blood seg manpowertation 2 veritable(prenominal) of Hollywood mainstream cinemas treat workforcet of g devastationer in the 1980s?Action flicks in the 1980s reflected the changes and insecuritys inwardly the Statesn society. on that point had been a stick bulge unwrap in feminism meaning that the masculine take form and dominance was existence undermined and white working class viriles did not roll in the hay where their place was in society. It was also in the immediate time after the Vietnam War and admiration and anger di steadyery lingered. The Vietnam War divided the the Statesn nation as a whole because, as it has been in recent times with the war in Iraq, people didnt fully understand why the States needed to impose their presence in a country where they felt they had no amour to gain. The attain need in the 1980s introduced a wedge shape that differentiated manlikeness and femininity using the form of the consistence as a management of ensuring power, dominance and self-respect. Rambo first base Blood offend 2 is a typical convey of this era in terms of masculinity and the slipway in which men and women ar visualised.In the film Rambo First Blood Part 2 Sylvester Stallone portrays a typical action poor boy of the war film genre in the 1980s save also an outcast of society after the Vietnam War. He is a veteran of Vietnam and came main office to find that e rattlingthing he had known had changed and he was no farseeinger considered an moral soldier but more than than as a war criminal. Rambos mission in this film is to go back to Vietnam and see if he can find a campinging that he is told has many prisoner of wars. If he finds the men, he can only take photographs but he has a problem with this and risks his own life to save them. He is genuinely unfluctuating and muscular and is able to defeat the soldiers, Russian and Vietnamese, single scripted. Douglas Kellner states that the fi lmFollows the conventions of the Hollywood genre of the war film, which dramatizes conflicts between the United States and its enemies and provides a happy ending that portrays the victory of good all over evil. (Kellner, 1994, p.10)This means that America always won no matter who the enemy was. In human beings this is something that America could not accomplish. There was no happy ending and at that place were no immediate heroes. Rambo is allowed to bring glory upon America and diffuse a situation that could have cost the American military even more respect and dignity. America had lost some of its power within the initiation and they strived to get it back. It had lost its first war and it had become important to remasculinize America. There was a growing consternation of communism in the country and displaying male heroes which went against the communist regime was their idea of establishing the ideal throughout the world by a means of planetaryization.Globalization had be en taking place throughout the news report of cinema by a means of film that was imported and exported to places about the world. In effect most of the action films hardened in Vietnam, and other(a) films which hold a strong view of patriotism and heroism within America in the 1980s, can be seen as propaganda films against the rise of communism.The purpose, with or without the knowledge of the listening, was to get the idea across to a mass hearing that communism was against the principles of the country. In Rambo the evil parts are the Vietnamese and Russian soldiers and ironically, it turns out that the greatest threat to Rambo is not the Vietnamese, although they do pose a strong force, it is the Russians. The Russians are put downn as being extremely strong, relentless, and willing to put a man through torture to get what they want. Nevertheless, whatever the Russians do you cannot touchstone a man with as much physical and mental dexterity as Rambo. This follows a pa ttern throughout action films in the 1980s. wiz film that is suggestive of this is uncut 4.Rocky 4 (1985) also stars Sylvester Stallone but this time he is a boxer. He is struggle against a strong Russian fighter named Ivan Drago. Drago is very tough and stands at over 6ft tall. The Russian crowd all stand behind their fighter but when the final fight is over and Rocky defeats him with all of his strength the Russians begin to show support for Rocky and boo their fighter. This is the film industrys way of evoking patriotism and the ever-growing fear of the communist regime after the Cold War. Philip L. Gianos states thatThe climax of Vietnam in film provided an opportunity for filmmakers who were denied an actual shooting war a parallel, surrogate setting in which cold war themes could be contend out. (Gianos. 1998, P.159)The first response from the film industry during this time was a set of anti-communist films to respond to the changing political environment. The villains a re almost always represent as foreign internationals such as Russian, German, and sometimes English and they are usually a communist operative. They are never American in these films because the hero is American. He is fighting for his country and if it were another American he is fighting against he is effectively fighting against America.Other action films that were released at that time include, The Terminator, Rocky, Predator, and Die Hard. Millions of people worldwide, mainly consisting of young males went to see these films at the cinema. They gave them a chance to latch on to big, muscular, violent men as cinematic heroes. (Katz, 1994, p134) These heroes gave the audience the chance to gain self-respect and security as it re symboliseed a masculinity that was unaffected by the rise of feminism. sexual urge roles had been reversed due to the growing rise of a feminist heading that showed women were increasingly moving into the workplace rather than staying at home. The displ aying of the male phase and the physical torture it goes through to enable glory and victory over evil is further suggestive of masculinity in crisis and the gain of global respect. Women could not gain this kind of respect because they could not attain that grade of physical strength and endurance so therefore this was one thing that they couldnt take away from men.The effeminate role in the action film of the 1980s appears at first glance to be on equal footing with the male. However, there are some differences in the ways in which they go about their missions. In Rambo First Blood Part 2 the main female character, Co Bao, is strong, resourceful and a very capable fighter. She is Rambos contact in Vietnam and later becomes his love interest. During the film she cautions Rambo to follow his orders and when she goes to save him from the Russians in the prisoner of war camp she uses a different technique than Rambo. While Rambo attacked her captor from behind and overpowered him s he sneaked into the camp as a prostitute. Therefore the issue of strength and power is pre direct in the male character but in the female character it is more about subtlety and countersign.Rambo is the definitive male of 80s cinema and was joined by characters such as John McLain (Die Hard) and Rocky Balboa (Rocky). In these films the main action centres around one hero and the female character is usually the love-interest or accomplice. In previous war/actions films and Vietnam films the veterans were seen as either psychopaths, such as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, or tragic characters, Bob Hyde in Coming Home. In the films of the 1980s, however, the hero fights back.In Rambo Part 2 Rambo can be seen as an anti-hero because of his rebellious behaviour by going against his orders to leave the POWs and by telling Murdock that he will come and get him when he gets back from the hobo camp. This makes his character more dangerous and exciting to the audience as you dont know what he is going to do. He has many people after him in Vietnam but he also has enemies at home. He has to deal with home-grown unlikeness because of the war and in effect he is no longer fighting for his country. He is doing it for the comrades that he fought withIn these films the enemy is not the enemy in a war that is officially over but rather the civil and military leadership that failed to win the war (Gianos. 1998, p.166)After Co Bao is killed Rambo bring his emotions into retaliation and thus becomes a fighting machine that is only out for revenge. Before she was killed he was ready to leave after finding that Murdock sent him out just to get free of him and stem reports that there were POWs still in Vietnam.The style of the film helps to build the wisdom that he is a god and that he is invincible. The use of lighting and television camera angles are used to enhance his physique and the fast paced editing in the action shots are used to show that he is fast, strong and workin g in the ways he attacks his enemies. Rambo shows us the ideal, very well-built muscular body of the white male in a place where he appears to belong. unremarkably used iconography for Vietnam films included dense jungle, camouflage equipment and hi-tech weaponry. He uses the jungle to an advantage and appears to know it better than those who live there. He uses his initiative and intelligence in the jungle and is able to use it to gain the upper hand in a battle. One example of this is the scene in which he attacks a US soldier after he hides in a bank of mud with his eyes being the only thing visible.The male body in these films constructs the white man as physically superior, yet also an everyman, built to do the job of colonial world amelioration (Dyer, 2002, p.269) The fact that the superior build of the heros body establishes him as an everyman means that it is something that any man can attain as long as you are white. Black men are rarely portrayed in this manner and if they are they are usually the villains of the movie and end up being defeated.In conclusion, the gender representation in the film is an effort from the United States to fulfil the growing need of remasculinizing American society, in particularly, in the dominant white majority of the working class. With the rise of feminism, fear of communism, political scandals and the Vietnam War, it became imperative for America to try and rebuild the image of men in a positive light. Rather than focusing on men as a collective these films focused on one case-by-case and therefore a view of machismo, strength and determination became the norm.The films of the 1980s became a kind of vessel of the ideal and most of these films are still popular in todays society and may still be what some men aspire to be. If you were like these men you were considered to be manly and if you werent you were understood to be weak and not the typical American male. The male hero in these films was put there to win. America needed a hero and they found him in these films. The masculine form was in crisis and the wholesomeness and fearless heroes could make an impact on the male audience who would then seek to be like the characters they watched on screen.BibliographyGianos P.L (1998) Politics and Politicians in American Film, London, Greenwood PressDyer, R, (2002) The White Mans Muscles in Adams. R and Savran. D (eds) (2002) The Masculinity Studies Reader Oxford, Blackwell PublishersJeffords S. (1989) The Remasculinization of America Gender and the Vietnam War capital of Indiana and Bloomington, Indiana University PressKellner D. and Katz. J (1994) in Dines G and Humez J.M (eds) (1994) Gender, Race and phase in Media London, Sage Publications