{"id":197349,"date":"2023-03-24T12:47:28","date_gmt":"2023-03-24T12:47:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whynow.co.uk\/?post_type=read&p=197349"},"modified":"2023-03-24T16:02:12","modified_gmt":"2023-03-24T16:02:12","slug":"how-hollywood-evolved-its-action-heroes-and-what-it-says-about-us","status":"publish","type":"read","link":"https:\/\/whynow.co.uk\/read\/how-hollywood-evolved-its-action-heroes-and-what-it-says-about-us","title":{"rendered":"How Hollywood evolved its action heroes (and what it says about us)"},"content":{"rendered":"
From Arnold Schwarzenegger to Keanu Reeves, the Hollywood action hero has dramatically evolved over the years. But why? Here\u2019s how wider society has forced the muscle-bound leading man to change his ways\u2026 slightly.<\/b><\/p>\n
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On day one of A-level Film Studies, my class was taught that films are not about where and when they\u2019re set \u2013 they\u2019re secretly about where and when they were <\/span>made<\/span><\/i>. <\/span>Avatar<\/span><\/i> is not a fantasy about blue people in the 22nd century, but pondering on climate change, colonialism and the war in the Middle East. <\/span>The Shining<\/span><\/i> isn\u2019t about a dad hacking apart his family \u2013 it\u2019s about the endless cycle of genocide. And <\/span>Transformers<\/span><\/i> is just straight-up military propaganda.<\/span><\/p>\n The same school of thought applies to your big, burly action hero. Spoiler alert: this article will try and teach you about topics like Reaganomics and the ever-shifting perception of masculinity. But the good news is it will use the medium of Schwarzenegger impaling blokes with table legs to do so.<\/span><\/p>\n The watershed of what you and I would consider the ultimate action hero was in the 1980s. Sure, before that point, there had been countless tough-dude protagonists on screen: Superman and Batman were super-heroically stopping crime in serials as far back as the 1940s, and then we got such grizzled badasses as John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson to marvel at.<\/span><\/p>\n