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The-Artist-Formerly-Known-As-The-Governator

Just yesterday several online news sources reported that the artist formerly known as the Governator, Arnold Schwarzeneggar, may finally be attached to his first post-office, acting job. Sources say he’ll likely be starring in Jee-Woon Kim’s Last Stand. The film is supposed to be a cross between High Noon and Die Hard, following Schwarzeneggar’s sheriff tracking an escaped drug cartel kingpin attempting to make his way south to the border.

 

Response was mixed around the Net. There’s certainly a lot of fans ready to see Ah-nuld potentially back in action, kicking butt and taking names.  It’s been so long they’re probably ready to take any scrap of acting he can toss their way.  Others were still reeling from the illegitimate child scandal. Personally, I have mixed feelings about the aging star’s upcoming reinvention for a few reasons.

 

Let me start out by saying I’ve been a big Arnold fan as far back as I can remember. I honestly don’t recall my first Arnold flick, though Total Recall was the first I probably saw in theaters upon returning stateside. Though I don’t remember when I first saw them, Conan The Barbarian, Predator and Running Man seem like they always existed. It seems like he’s always been a staple of action cinema and for a guy who’s that high profile, making 1-2 movies a year, almost every year back to 1980, he’s had an amazing track record.  The few duds – Batman & Robin, Conan The Destroyer and some really early work – are few and far between. I could always count on the man to be awesome and entertaining. I’m certainly no musclebound jock, but I always enjoyed Arnold…being Arnold. But every ride has an end and mine came unexpectedly in August 2003 when he ran for governor of California. He hadn’t died (John Candy, Phil Hartman) or been injured (Christopher Reeve) like some of my favorite actors, he was voluntarily leaving film to become something I detested.

 

As I think most people have, I’ve grown increasingly dissatisfied with politicians. As a group politicians have been traveling down the wrong path for at least a decade, possibly longer. They take more of our money, take more time off and take more liberties with the truth as a matter of course. Regardless of party, it seems you can’t believe anything they spew. They divide to conquer, playing off different groups to further their careers while running this country into the ground. And on that fateful day in 2003, when Arnold announced he wanted to be one of them, all the faith and trust I had in the man disappeared.

 

Obviously celebrities and movie stars aren’t the most highly regarded people on the planet. The gossip media works endlessly to dig up dirt they can smear around on the trash I see in the grocery store checkout lines. But for the most part celebrities are just people living their lives. They have their faults and vices and they have their shares of successes and failures. Only because of the tabloids am I even aware of these failures. I hear Arnold had a baby with his maid 15 years ago? Do I really care? That’s his private business – it’s between him, his wife and the maid. It doesn’t make him a better or worse movie star or action hero. I learned a long time ago that just because I like someone’s acting or music or writing does not mean I will like the person behind the art. The creator and the creation have to be separated, because inevitably you will find something about the person you dislike, but that shouldn’t taint the works they’ve created. Arnold groped a woman on a movie set? Not cool, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to toss all the great flicks I own that have his name splashed across them.

 

Becoming a politician is not some private mistake. It’s supposed to be dedicating your life to public service, to doing what’s best for your constituents and your country, but that’s not what politics has become. Nowadays it’s akin to taking up lying as a career. I can’t respect the hypocrisy and the self-centered dedication that go hand-in-hand with the job title. Arnie, you betrayed my trust – that you would always be there making testosterone-filled celluloid and that you would be true to your mystique. I held out a little hope after the announcement and through the recall campaign, but sure enough, Arnold became what I had feared he would become…a true politician. I gave up on him and said goodbye to the hero of my childhood. He would not return.

 

But now his political career appears to be over and he says he wants to come back. Act, he most certainly will. Has there been a more dependable cash cow at the box office than Arnold? Any movie studio exec would cross a steaming, Cambodian jungle of Predators just to get the chance to get him in their next blockbuster. The question is do I care? Most recently I caught him in his discomfort-inducing cameo in the Expendables. The entire movie was bad, the acting, the writing, the sf/x, but the absolute worst scene was the meeting between the Muscles from Brussels and the Muscles from Philly. It certainly didn’t revive my appetite for all things Arnold. I’m not sure if anything can, but the synopsis from Last Stand doesn’t sound like the project to do it.

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