That thing belongs in a museum

I've been talking about movies here a lot this past summer. There's at least a partial reason behind this: summer, for me, is a time of movies. As I have much spare time during the summer months, and many of the big Hollywood blockbusters roll out during the summer season, my summers have often been devoted to movies, both the new and the old that I have missed. As I have a penchant for talking about what's on my mind specifically at the moment I start talking, or in this case, writing, it should come as no surprise that movies crop up a lot during the summer. Anyway, we'll be talking about movies today. Again.

I went to watch the Expendables 2 on monday, kind of on a whim. For those of you wandering if you should watch it: it's better than the first one, but it's nothing new. Then again, if you thought it would be, a reality check might be in order. It's sometimes gruesome, sometimes stupid and sometimes funny, and it piggybacks off nostalgia very heavily. If you loved the 90's action flicks and/or the action hero mentality of that time, the movie is clearly meant for you. If you didn't but want to see a little boys' grown up flick, it's probably meant for you anyway. Let's go into a few specifics.

Anyone who's seen a commercial, trailer or anything of the sort for the movie should know by now that the movie is practically more of what the first Expendables was but with a bigger budget and more of the 90's action stars rolled in. The movie isn't soulless, not like the new Spiderman, but it's not high culture either. It's meant to be a blockbuster that rakes in the 20- and 30-somethings that loved the action scene when they were kids, but with a touch of more modern style to bring in the younger audiences as well. It succeeds okay in all of this, with none of the parts truly shining.

To me, the most interesting (if not the best) part of the movie was Chuck Norris telling a Chuck Norris joke: the amount of meta put into that was somewhat huge. Overall, the movie's biggest running gag is making fun about all the tropes that the 80's and 90's gave to the action scene and the jokes run really thick in places. Most of them aren't that good, but their biggest point is, I think, being easy. I don't think I missed one.

As I said, the the movie relies heavily on nostalgia and the action hero machismo. The movie even prods fun at it's own nostalgia drive, with one of the last lines of the movie being "That thing belongs in a museum" by Sylvester Stallone, replied with "Don't we all?". Overall I like the take on nostalgia that the movie takes: nothing too serious, nothing too deep, and poking fun at itself for doing it all the while. I'll get back to nostalgia on a later date, so let's see about the machismo part.

Machismo is usually a word used contemptuously: it's a bad thing to be macho or to like things macho. And still, action movies like this one rake in viewers in their thousands, wanting to see guys punch the lights out of each other. These action flicks, the scifi and fantasy from the 1950's onwards (especially the pulp) and the tropes from thereon have always leaned on the juvenile male empowerment fantasy: the comic book industry has made basically all of its money on this and only this until the 1990's, and still makes most of it's money on this today. We might get back to that, but that's a can of worms I don't want to open today.

Machismo, as despised as it may seem to be, sells. I'm using the word on purpose here, by the way, even though it doesn't cover much more than maybe half of what I'm actually talking about. Personally, I often love the scenes where one or a few guys take on overwhelming odds in an outstanding display of bravery and skill. Heroic last stands, lone heroes plunging into an unwinnable fray, personal sacrifices for the greater good... this list is much longer, but you get the jist.

I don't much like the character cults that rise around these kinds of things, nor do I usually like the angsty, broody heroes that get tossed into these situations. To me, it's about a choice: you see the odds, you know the tally is against you, and you do it anyway. One of the coolest moments in video games, for me, in the last few years? Gabriel Angelos, Commander of the Blood Ravens, charging alone against former Chapter Master turned Demon Lord Azariah Kyras, with one last comment to the Chapter Librarian: "Commend my service to the Emperor, Librarian. I go now, to redeem our Chapter."

Somehow, the Space Marines (and, sometimes, the Imperial Guard) of the Warhammer 40 000 universe embody the traits I prefer in this sort of machismo: they wage an unwinnable war against uncountable foes and yet they don't quit: indeed, they fight tooth and nail for every inch of ground given.

This is why games and books and movies are awesome: there are no heroic last stands to be had in our world, there is no one higher cause to fight for that surpasses all others, and thus it is left to fiction to give us those fleeting moments of utter certainty. Fiction shows us things that are not, and by showing them gives us a sense of what might be entitled in that. Fiction shows us certainty that is not present in our everyday world, fiction shows us heroes with a righteous cause that cannot be disputed. This, to me, is why machismo sells.

Of course, fiction also mirrors us the ambivalency of choices, the uncertainty of life and the fact that there are no right choices, no ultimate battle between good and evil, black and white, but only questionable shades of grey. But that is, indeed, a story for another time.