I Know What Mommy Saw.
I’ve been a fan of action, horror, thriller, gangster, sci-fi, western, war, martial arts, etc. - “dude” tv and film - for as long as I can remember. My earliest memories are of watching Cowboy Bob Kelly in the ring on some snowy South Mississippi Channel 7 affiliate and trying to bash the tv with a glass coke bottle because the bad guy was winning. I was four. I could act out The Good, the Bad and the Ugly by the time I was 6. My dad was an open-minded unbiased media fan and collector and I had no restrictions on my choices other than my own good judgment, so I gave myself a thorough, and I think excellent education.
“Luckily”, I grew up in a culture that spawned and revered tough girls, so I was not only not ridiculed but respected for my taste in films. I didn’t get asked to chum around with the other girls much, but on the whole, it definitely seemed like a fair trade to me.
I did have one femme cousin who shared my unorthodox interest in these genres of film, tv, comics and fiction, and we went to great efforts and Olympian wheedling to get to see every new and classic film we could get to. We were glued to Turner Broadcasting and the early days of HBO when we weren’t reading second-hand Stephen King, Louis L’amour, Heavy Metal, Epic, Robert E. Howard or the Doc Savage pulps. We never had money, of course, but we found money when it was time the latest fantasy flick or Eastwood joint to come out on the big screen, and would start begging for a lift to the theater days, even weeks before, or just hike it if we had to. Deep down we always secretly knew that we had the best of all worlds. Not only were these movies some of the best ever made, but the gruff, clever, lightning fast, and generally badass heroes of them all (and many of the bad guys too) were often also ripped, hot, unstoppable - and to our great pleasure - artistically and relentlessly beating the hell out of each other. Often with explosions, if we were lucky.
(Most of) the boys didn’t know what they were missing (until ‘300’).
Over the years my love grew. My cousin had always leaned more toward Westerns and War, and I to Horror, Sci-Fi, Martial Arts/Action, though we never forget our oldest loves and both still re-watch our old favorites often and try to see all the good new films that come out. She eventually had kids and is occasionally caught paying to see a chick flick. It happens to the best of us, I suppose. As our lives changed and we grew up, I found myself alone in a social vacuum, with no one to watch and talk about my favorite films with. I did eventually discover nerd boys of course, most of whom still like martial art/action films less than I do, but loved me anyway, because I had boobs, but it was almost exclusively a girl-free zone for many years. With the exception of the occasional geek-girl crossover film and hanging with the few girls who liked Roadhouse because it has Patrick Swayze AND Sam Elliott in, my first 25 years of film buffdom (pun intended) were pretty lonely.
And then something changed. Looking back, I see that bohunks like - for brevities sake, the entire cast of the Expendables franchise - had a lot to to with the change in the tide. I remember smuggling Mickey Rourke flicks into the head RA’s office in my Bapstist Student dorm, and making sure they saw the GOOD Patrick Swayze films too. They didn’t really like them, but they would sure as hell sit through them. Well, wiggle. But when Dwayne Johnson hit the airwaves as more than a pretty defensive tackle, it seemed like media realized that both kinds of oily boobies would sell Mtn. Dew and KFC. Then Hercules and Xena hit the small screen, and it was on. Brad Pitt and his ilk just rode in on that wave, and it’s been a rippling, sweaty, meat-hammer-dubbed abfest ever since. Thanks to the standard formats of Action Films of old (James Bond is the first thing that comes to mind), everyone was willing to accept a smooth, hot, clever, well-equipped hero without much fuss. The films are usually fun if not outright awesome, and face it, a dude like that is always surrounded by cool weapons/toys and dozens of incredibly gorgeous and under-dressed badass women, so the dudes didn’t complain - much.*
Hollywood caught on quick and began to reel out the girl-bait with films like Desperado,The Crow, Mission Impossible, the Mummy, Fast and the Furious - all good action films, but heroes so pretty they just couldn’t be all for the boys. Suddenly these were the movies of ladies’ nights, and we didn’t have to sneak anymore! The old-school, laid back, handsome-but-pudgy guy hero had been replaced by these chiseled, relentless, growling psycho beasts with good - if often temporary - fashion sense and interesting morals. Life was good. I wholeheartedly believe this era in film paved the way for the inevitable coming out of the Bromance.
The day I really knew we, the ThunderBunnies of the world, had carved out our own niche in the genre was when I begged a few girlfriends to go with me to see xXx**. We went on a weekend, maybe a Sunday, for a matinee in a deadish mall. Some were moms and housewives stealing hours, probably all of us on a budget, and we were sure we’d have the place to ourselves. We were wrong. The theater was easily ⅓ full - at a Sunday matinee of an action film in a hippie town, and the audience was 99% women. I was truly stunned. Like the Grinch, my heart grew 3 sizes that day.
Yes, it took a more urbane, prettier, sometimes gender-bending, racially varied and decidedly more fashion-forward new breed of badass to - haha - swing us around, and I still rarely find girls who share my obsession with the real toughies like The Kurgan, Marv, Bronson or Danny the Dog. But I still feel that warm glow when I realize how many there are who now openly share my love for Riddick, Jayne, Jet, Jason and any role Viggo Mortensen ever chooses to play. And I love that my favorite
real boys respect and admire these actors and heroes too. It really is a brave, new world.
This change in film production and its fandom was a sign of a bigger change, that of the breakdown of old-fashioned gender rules and boundaries in every aspect of life. Now all films traditionally known as Guy Stuff are no more. Since these films are being made with an even bigger, broader audience in mind, their popularity has increased along with their production budgets and they just get better all the time. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord and pass the Beefcake!
Now, if we can just do the same thing for chick flicks... *Sigh*.
-S.
*Getting through the transition in action films from early 80’s to 2000s was like a slow-motion version of sitting next to that VERY uncomfortable redneck guy in a packed theater during 300. Poor guy. I guess me clenching my fists and moaning softly every time someone died probably didn’t help either.
**2002 was also the year of Scorpion King. And Blade II (Bonus, Donnie Yen!), The Transporter, Knockaround Guys, Equilibrium, Salton Sea, Shiri, Two Towers, Minority Report, Die Another Day, Bourne Identity, Road to Perdition, MIB II, Reign of Fire ... that was a good year in film for action and Orc Girls.
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