Tough Luck

Sylvester Stallone, at 61, is starring in the first Rambo film since 1988, called simply Rambo. Hulk Hogan, 54, re-emerged this month as the face of NBC’s unlikely new hit, American Gladiators. Mr. T, the mohawk-sporting muscleman who squared off against Stallone in Rocky III back in 1982, is back as a TV pitchman for the popular World of Warcraft video game.

Even the Terminator is back—in Fox’s new series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles— although the original star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is busy with other engagements in California.

The leading action symbols of the Reagan ear—with all their excess, jingoism and good vs. evil bombast—have returned. And they’re still as ripped and imposing as they were 20 years ago.

At an age when mere mortals find their bi-ceps reduced to cookie dough, these human action figures have retained not only their muscle tone but, more important, their value as brands. Mark Koops, an executive producer of American Gladiators, attributes its success in part to Hogan’s enduring status as a symbol of both high-testosterone swagger and integrity in the eyes of fans—certifiable dudes, undoubtedly—of all ages. “He has such a huge following—kids from 6 to 60.”

Koops, speaking on New Hampshire primary day, said the appetite for these action figures represents more than a joke. “Everyone is talking about change” in the political sphere, he said, but many guys in fact “want to go back to the way things were, the things they knew.”

This is a moment in American history bedeviled by a sinking economy, the possibility of environmental catastrophe and violent conflicts in the Middle East and beyond. Anxious Americans are very unsure of their position in the world, which leaves some open to any “fantasy having to do with a sense of traditional masculinity,” said Judith Halberstam, a professor of English and gender studies at the University of Southern California. She said that these living G.I. Joes communicate the American instinct to cut to “not bother with politics, just go in with force and fix things.”

Tracy Lovatt, the head of strategy for BBDO New York, the advertising agency that produced the Mountain Dew campaign with Norris, said that the myriad troubles facing the country have created an appetite for the heroes who seemed omnipotent during the ‘80s. “Everything seems to be up for grabs,” she said, “This country needs stability, and in an archetypal, hyperbolic way, that’s what these figures represent.”
Alex Williams (NYT)