Core Post 2 - Hard Bodies

In Susan Jeffords’ article Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era, she notes the change in the notion of ideal masculinity in Hollywood from 1980s to early 1990s. Ivan Reitman’s Kindergarten Cop was an example of a celebrated family man, but the star Arnold Schwarzenegger has the most “hard body” to make the character masculine. The celebrated masculinity is much tied to his body. In another case she talks about, Beauty and the Beast, which Disney made a live action version recently, the body of the beast is not represented has “hard-core masculinity” but as a “curse.”

Jeffords also commented on the impact of the shift from hard body to family man on the female character Sara Connor, that the masculinity makes “her in direct competition for the Terminator’s role, a job—and a body—that she just cannot fit” (Jeffords 162), and that she resembles an animal more than a human. It reduced her character’s complexity to the basic survival needs, and her body no longer fit for a parental position.

My mother used to like Schwarzenegger very much, and the fact that he became a state governor in California added to his star power. We didn’t care about politics, but we thought being both a movie star and a political figure is really cool. I think his hard body comes off as protective capability for the first impression and that helped his image.