Does what it says on the tin
April 11, 2011 11:45 AM   Subscribe

An exegesis of sexual subtext in "Predator"

via* brundlefly's twitter

* i.e. "stolen shamelessly from"
posted by jtron (93 comments total) 13 users marked this as a favorite
 
COME ON! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? FINISH ME!
posted by benzenedream at 11:50 AM on April 11, 2011 [19 favorites]


Subtext?
posted by RogerB at 11:50 AM on April 11, 2011 [10 favorites]


There's a sexual subtext in everything, if you go looking for it.

Well, except mainstream porn, oddly enough...
posted by hincandenza at 11:53 AM on April 11, 2011 [8 favorites]


This has got me thinking about the new version of Arthur, which made me realize that my original understanding of Arthur was mistaken. I had assumed the film was about an older gay man and his bisexual ward exploring their mutual obsession with Liza Minnelli, but now I am lead to believe that this was all me projecting.
posted by Astro Zombie at 11:54 AM on April 11, 2011 [16 favorites]


Metafilter: There's a sexual subtext
posted by blue_beetle at 11:57 AM on April 11, 2011


Whoops, forgot to call attention to Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan, linked above. Text here
posted by jtron at 11:58 AM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


The past is a different country, they do things differently there... and at the time there was nothing the least bit gay about Arnie movies. And Freddie Mercury was just a bit flamboyant.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:59 AM on April 11, 2011


Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan

I loved the stream-of-consciousness PoMo commentary at that link - takes me back to my undergrad days 20 years ago. Is post-modernism still discussed in Student Union Building pubs and cafeteria's these days?
posted by KokuRyu at 12:03 PM on April 11, 2011


And of course I managed to mangle that quote, such was my shock at the implication of the gayness of 80s Arnie

Though by coincidence I happen to watch the opening to Commando yesterday... and even I thought 'Wow, that just looks really gay now'
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:04 PM on April 11, 2011 [3 favorites]


Interesting point about the Predator committing suicide. It's a historically common trope in depictions of gay/lesbian characters, even in pulp fiction written FOR gays and lesbians.
posted by hermitosis at 12:04 PM on April 11, 2011 [2 favorites]




As we see the character Dutch, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger struggle to understand and accept the existence of the Predator, we are actually witnessing the struggle for dominance in the psyche of a gay man who has not yet understood or accepted his own identity. The jungle of Dutch’s mind is the setting for the fight between his Super-Ego, manifested in the team of hyper-masculine marines, and the Id of the Predator, who represents a pure homosexual archetype

They say men must fight each other because they are not allowed to hug or hold hands.
posted by KokuRyu at 12:04 PM on April 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


Good. Now do Alien.
posted by Jairus at 12:05 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


Alien 3 was the gay one.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:07 PM on April 11, 2011


Commando is like the least convincingly closeted movie of all time.
posted by Artw at 12:09 PM on April 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


Dutch’s transformation takes a pivotal step when he is free from society’s stultifying influence. He is free to indulge in his long-denied desires, EX: wearing makeup (albeit made of mud).

Jesus fucking christ. Enough with the "gay men want to dress as / be women" thing.
posted by hippybear at 12:09 PM on April 11, 2011 [8 favorites]


Seriously. Straight or gay, who doesn't want a bit of blush now and then?
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:12 PM on April 11, 2011 [3 favorites]


Hold on. You have to slow down. You're losing it. You have to take a breath. Listen to yourself. You're connecting an action movie from 1987 with sexual subtext that might have been included and some religious hogwash. You want to find sexual subtext in the world, you will be able to find it everywhere. Sexual subtext on the street corner and your front door. Sexual subtext riding on the elevator. When your mind becomes obsessed with anything, you will filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:12 PM on April 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


Or concealer.
posted by mmmbacon at 12:13 PM on April 11, 2011


"Subtext" is an anagram for "buttsex."
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:13 PM on April 11, 2011 [145 favorites]


Always before a big date, too.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:14 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


I'll let you decide if that was meant for mmmbacon or Faint of Butt.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:14 PM on April 11, 2011 [3 favorites]


When your mind becomes obsessed with anything, you will filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere.

I think that would work if not for the fact that most human minds are, in fact, obsessed with sexual subtexts.
posted by codacorolla at 12:17 PM on April 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


And yeah, I appreciate the PI quote, but I'm just saying.
posted by codacorolla at 12:17 PM on April 11, 2011


Dennis: Okay, will you stop? I don’t want to have conversations anymore about dude’s physiques.

Mac: Dude, in body mass alone…

Dennis: That’s what I was trying to avoid — a conversation about body mass, okay. We’ve had that conversation five times a day for the last month because we keeping watching Predator and all you talk about is Weathers and Jesse “The Body” Ventura and how many pounds they can pack on.

Mac: It’s important to pack on mass. You’re talking about carbo-loading…

posted by sswiller at 12:18 PM on April 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


filthy light thief: Sexual subtext riding on the elevator.

That immediately brought to mind Aerosmith's "Love in a Elevator", and the thought that there's not much subtext going on there.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:24 PM on April 11, 2011


If something is explicitly sexual, the subtext is always about something mundane. The theme of most porn films is that Burbank is too crowded. The subtext of Last Tango in Paris is that roommates are more trouble than they're worth.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:29 PM on April 11, 2011 [21 favorites]


So ... We should't get to the choppa ? Because that implies the completion of the act ? Or we should, because by going to the choppa, we don't see him in the act, allowing him to still be in the closet ?
posted by k5.user at 12:31 PM on April 11, 2011


Jesus fucking christ. Enough with the "gay men want to dress as / be women" thing.

I think this meant more in the vein of a "men want to dress as/be women" thing, not just gays. As in, they are fascinated by femininity and (consciously or otherwise) would like to explore it, but are completely forbidden to, which creates all sorts of repressed fantasies/gay panic etc.
posted by hermitosis at 12:32 PM on April 11, 2011 [3 favorites]


Male bonding is the primary element of the movie Predator and the focus of nearly every scene. That's text, not subtext.
posted by zippy at 12:35 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


*laugh* okay, hermitosis. I'll accept that.
posted by hippybear at 12:36 PM on April 11, 2011


Great, now I will never be able to see, use or think the word subtext without thinking of buttsex. Thanks Faint of Butt!

Wait, does that mean the subtext of subtext is buttsex for me now. This is just not a hole I want to fall down. Or repeatedly be stuffed into. Or something. Buttsex.
posted by Belle O'Cosity at 12:37 PM on April 11, 2011 [5 favorites]


I had assumed Arthur was about an older gay man and his bisexual ward exploring their mutual obsession with Liza Minnelli, but now I am lead to believe that this was all me projecting.

Hobson: Would you remove your helmet, please?
Arthur: Why?
Hobson: Please.
[Arthur hands him his helmet]
Hobson: Thank you. Now your goggles.
Arthur: Why?
Hobson: Please.
[Arthur hands him his goggles]
Hobson: Thank you.
[slaps him across the face repeatedly]
Hobson: You spoiled little bastard! You're a man who has everything, haven't you, but that's not enough. You feel unloved, Arthur, welcome to the world. Everyone is unloved. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself. And incidentally, I love you.

posted by zippy at 12:39 PM on April 11, 2011 [3 favorites]


Wait, is it because the Predator was wearing fishnets? Or all those dangly skull bangles... "Stop shaving, you dont have a beard!!!"
posted by Capricorn13 at 12:49 PM on April 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


GET TO THE CHOPPA!*

(*Note, for those unfortunate to not be British or not watched enough Carry On films, chopper is slightly old-fashioned British slang for penis.)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 12:53 PM on April 11, 2011 [3 favorites]


The tangent I'd like to contribute is that the background of the Stalin painting in the background of that blog looks just like the sea view of Michael Caine's estate in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
posted by norm at 12:57 PM on April 11, 2011


This is stupid and fundamentally does not understand Predator. I mean, it talks about Jesse Ventura's character as disapproving of homosexuality because he calls people a bunch of slack-jawed faggots.

But.

Let me stress that I really am not making this up. I think the movie *really does* portray Ventura's character and Bill Duke's character as being lovers, or as having been lovers. Bill Duke's reaction to Ventura's death is **very** strong. And when queried about it, he replies to Schwarzenegger that "He was my ... friend" with pregnant pause, after which Schwarzenegger gives him a slightly shocked look.

So... yah, Predator is in part about the gay, but I don't think in the way the author says.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:59 PM on April 11, 2011 [12 favorites]


Ruthless Reviews did a series of features where they discuss, amongst other things, the homoeroticisim of 80's action movies. Commando, I believe was the Most Homoerotic 80's Action Movie Ever.
posted by jivadravya at 1:13 PM on April 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


That's text, not subtext.

TBH, there's something fairly depressing about the mock-abstruse/faux-scholarly tone in the blog post and the FPP (tags: overthinking beanplating), given that this basically takes an utterly obvious reading and dresses it up as if it were a hilarious voyage into arbitrary overinterpretation. "Using post-freudian dialectical analysis"? Those words have meanings, but this isn't it — this is more properly called using your fucking eyes. I get that the author maybe is just taking Film Studs 101 and thinking non-literally about what happens on screen just seems super-clever right now, but come on. "Action-movie violence is homoerotically coded" is a template for a 1990s film-studies article in a student-run journal, not some ground-breaking difficult new idea.

yah, Predator is in part about the gay, but I don't think in the way the author says.

Why can't it be both? There's the more general reading of the action-movie homoerotics, violence as displaced male love, and then there's the specific character pairings — Duke/Ventura and Arnold/Predator are both worth looking at separately. Since all the subsequent Predator movies (pre-Predators, anyhow) conclude, with differing degrees of explicitness, with the forming of a love-relationship between a Predator and a chosen human (who has mastered violence as proof of his/her worthiness), it seems pretty natural to look back at that relationship in the first movie, whatever you think of the Ventura and Duke characters' love-bond (which I agree is pretty explicitly portrayed).
posted by RogerB at 1:15 PM on April 11, 2011 [4 favorites]


The Predator is basically a white Rastafarian with a vagina instead of a face. I could wax poetic about that for several thousands words if it earned me a degree of some sort.

I wish I still had the essay I wrote whilst bored at work one day about how Dutch & co*. It was knocked up in about 3 hours one afternoon but I was ever so proud of it. I am sure I had posted in on MeFi but that was just my Predator haiku. Apparently the essay was on my userpage but I've replaced that with a big load of old shit.
posted by longbaugh at 1:17 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


D'oh - forgot the link to the entire Ruthless 80's Action catalogue.
posted by jivadravya at 1:17 PM on April 11, 2011


Good. Now do Alien.
posted by Jairus


Alien is about rape. Aliens is about motherhood. Alien 3 is about abortion. Alien Resurrection is about 109 minutes too long.
posted by Brainy at 1:20 PM on April 11, 2011 [26 favorites]


Now do Alien.

Alien is all about fear of the womb. Also, forcing things down throats.
posted by zippy at 1:23 PM on April 11, 2011


Yeah, I don't mind people pulling back layers and looking for subtext but this is a gimme isn't it? Sometimes, when Arnold puffs on a cigar - he's just puffing on a cigar.
posted by P.o.B. at 1:31 PM on April 11, 2011


... or a cock. It is our choice as the viewer, right?
posted by P.o.B. at 1:31 PM on April 11, 2011


Good. Now do Alien.

Done.

Film Studs 101

*giggles*
posted by Panjandrum at 1:36 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


RogerB, I sincerely and unironically hope to read more of what you have to say on this, so please let me know if you expand your writings on the homoeroticism of the Predator series.
posted by jtron at 1:37 PM on April 11, 2011


From the article:
Bondage gear and outsized physical dimensions represent the gay ideal

Is this really true? Maybe a type of queer ideal, but it seems to me that there isn't any one gay ideal, just as there isn't any one straight ideal.

Which leads me to question whether this article is satirizing film studies or common misconceptions of homosexuality. Or both? Or maybe it's just drivel?
posted by jnrussell at 1:40 PM on April 11, 2011


I noticed that bondage gear thing and seems kind odd to me too. What was the alien supposed to wear, a leisure suit?
posted by P.o.B. at 1:42 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


Which leads me to question whether this article is satirizing film studies or common misconceptions of homosexuality. Or both?

Perhaps you missed this at the bottom of the article:

*Idea originally conceived by a friend, and inspired by this piece by J.G. Ballard, and also by this.
posted by hippybear at 1:45 PM on April 11, 2011


I know he's joking in his style, but I can't disagree with him one bit!
posted by lumpenprole at 2:11 PM on April 11, 2011


Now do Alien.

Alien is about the worst day at work, evar.
posted by djrock3k at 2:21 PM on April 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


Tarantino did something similar in a movie once talking about Top Gun.
posted by acheekymonkey at 2:30 PM on April 11, 2011


This "does what it says on the tin" thing was (very) mildly amusing the first several times, but it is already well past its prime. Please stop it internet. Thank you.
posted by datter at 2:51 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


Why can't it be both?

Sure, it can.

But if I'm right, we have to understand Ventura's character's talk about "slack-jawed faggots" as something other than just disapproval of homosexuality. Maybe it's cover for his relationship with Bill Duke's character. Maybe the squad knows he's gay, even if Arnold doesn't, and he's expressing his disdain for more "effeminate"* gay men as opposed to "manlier"* bears.

*Me can be bit of thicky. Me not know right words here, but not want to offend.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:55 PM on April 11, 2011


But if I'm right, we have to understand Ventura's character's talk about "slack-jawed faggots" as something other than just disapproval of homosexuality.

Maybe he just likes lots of teeth during his blowjobs.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:01 PM on April 11, 2011


I've been working on the theory that Predator was about guerrilla warfare in the face of a technologically advanced enemy. You start off with an elite fighting force helicoptering in to fight a guerrilla force in south america, then the tables are turned on them when the predator arrives, and Arnold Schwarzenegger is reduced to a mud covered savage.
posted by es_de_bah at 3:02 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


codacorolla: I think that would work if not for the fact that most human minds are, in fact, obsessed with sexual subtexts.

Dat's da joke.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:21 PM on April 11, 2011


Predator is actually a biblical allegory in which the unclean are punished and only those baptized and cleansed of sin can effectively conquer the Devil. Or its about a vaginafaced space alien that skins people alive. Either way its probably the greatest moving picture of our time, and should be used to calibrate weather instrumentation because of its inherent perfection.
posted by jnnla at 3:25 PM on April 11, 2011 [4 favorites]


Tarantino did something similar in a movie once talking about Top Gun

Top Gun had a gay subtext? I thought that was the text.
I thought this was going to be a link to One Cute Motherfucker”: Homosexuality and the Threat of AIDS in John McTiernan’s PREDATOR

I like the Ruthless Reviews. I thought it was just snark until I saw the movie where Brendon Lee tells Dolph Lundgren 'You have the biggest cock I've ever seen'.

Cracked wrote an article about how Alien was about rape, which is pretty obvious. Jim Sterling at Destroctoid wrote an Alien vs Predator article that he argued one was better because it was a dick. Think it was the alien. And last week I saw a short that ended with someone going down on what looked like a combination of the Predator and a facehugger.

Still haven't seen Predator but this isn't the first guy to see the subtext.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:29 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


Woah, woah, woah




... you haven't seen Predator!?
posted by P.o.B. at 3:38 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


yeah, seriously dude, what the fuck? That's like not having seen Robocop or The Thing.
posted by Artw at 3:41 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


Good. Now do Alien.

When you say "do".......
posted by jpdoane at 3:45 PM on April 11, 2011 [2 favorites]


I can't decide if this article is the satire that I think it is, or a sinister homophobic rant cleverly disguised as satire.

But holy crap is it awesome.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:49 PM on April 11, 2011


Here I did a couple:

Robocop: Man has near death experience, loses family, and then rejects family after he has lost his manhood. Then takes on a "close" relationship with a female coworker who is overtly masculine.

The Thing: Camp full of men find an "alien" substance. After they bring it back to camp, it slowly changes each of them. After a series of "refusals" to integrate with alien, the killing leaves only two men left alive. These two men obviously have a deep affection for each other because neither takes the initiave to kill one another even though one of them has already accepted their inevitable nature.
posted by P.o.B. at 3:54 PM on April 11, 2011


Still haven't seen Predator

I'm sorry but I'm afraid you'll have to leave the internets until you have rectified the situation....
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:56 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


What I always wanted to know about Commando: why is the antagonist wearing that pink mesh shirt, and why is he "the toughest" enemy and yet so pudgy and not tough looking?
posted by Meatbomb at 4:24 PM on April 11, 2011


Because he is Vernon motherfucking Wells, the right hand of the Humongous here to Fuck. You. Up.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:27 PM on April 11, 2011 [3 favorites]


Let me stress that I really am not making this up. I think the movie *really does* portray Ventura's character and Bill Duke's character as being lovers, or as having been lovers. Bill Duke's reaction to Ventura's death is **very** strong. And when queried about it, he replies to Schwarzenegger that "He was my ... friend" with pregnant pause, after which Schwarzenegger gives him a slightly shocked look.

Yeah, I got the same read on that scene the last time I saw Predator, too (which was the first time I'd seen Predator as an adult). Did McTiernan ever do a commentary on Predator? I guess maybe the surprise was supposed to be that anyone liked Ventura's character at all, that these tough guys have feelings like everybody else, etc., and I can see how it'd look like that on the page, but it so doesn't play that way.

Also, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I never before realized that the Predator was the Edsel to Alien's Cadillac, as it were.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:28 PM on April 11, 2011


yeah, seriously dude, what the fuck? That's like not having seen Robocop or The Thing.

I was going to see The Thing at a local cult night but I had to try and win money in a poetry contest. I realize how much of a wanker that makes me. I might watch it with Lovecraft Bro.
I have seen the original, and strangely enough I'm reading a John Carpenter interview now.

I tend to see movies when they're on TV, and when Predator was on I fell asleep. I did once play both the Predator and Ash Ketchum in a particularly bizarre Feng Shui game at an RPG con. I think I ended with capturing the Alien in a Pokeball and taking Goku's head as a Predator trophy.

And yes, I have seen all the Alien movies. And Robocop.

why do I have that other link about Predator I posted bookmarked at work?
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:31 PM on April 11, 2011


Did McTiernan ever do a commentary on Predator?

Yeah... I listened to parts of it once. Lots of good stuff about how the shots work, and IIRC lots of stories about how amazingly fucked up and dangerous Sonny Landham is, but I don't think That Scene comes up.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:33 PM on April 11, 2011


Still haven't seen Predator but this isn't the first guy to see the subtext.
`posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn


Would it help if I said that Predator is like Lovecraft in Columbia? You need to get yourself between a TV screen and some sort of video rental business RIGHT NOW, or I will never take you seriously ever again. No, not though the stars themselves should cease to shine.
posted by anigbrowl at 4:35 PM on April 11, 2011


Still haven't seen Predator
What would Franz say!
posted by Brainy at 5:07 PM on April 11, 2011


Would it help if I said that Predator is like Lovecraft in Columbia?

That explains the rasta villain.

I have played through Capcom's Alien vs Predator sidescroller. Several times
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:07 PM on April 11, 2011


nevermind, I take it back. He hasn't seen it either
posted by Brainy at 5:15 PM on April 11, 2011


nevermind, I take it back. He hasn't seen it either

I demand the next Predator movie feature a Dali-Predator
or Franz's new album has a song about Predators
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 5:17 PM on April 11, 2011


we have to understand Ventura's character's talk about "slack-jawed faggots" as something other than just disapproval of homosexuality

Yes, the blog post is definitely being dumb about this. In fact, masculinity-as-homophobia is pretty much the exact precondition for the displacement (of sex into violence) that action-movie homoerotics relies on. Men can't love other men with their feelings (and/or penises), because that would be gay, so they love other men with their guns instead. Expressing emotions through violence or aggression certifies them as masculine, so even loving another man isn't being a "faggot" provided it's expressed via bullets. Or armwrestling.
posted by RogerB at 5:24 PM on April 11, 2011


Expressing emotions through violence or aggression certifies them as masculine

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!

"the biggest thrill was when we hit wardrobe"
posted by zippy at 5:30 PM on April 11, 2011


That explains the rasta villain.

That would be Predator 2, which you should watch as soon as you finish the first.
posted by P.o.B. at 5:43 PM on April 11, 2011


Predator 2 is the third best Predator movie.
posted by Artw at 6:00 PM on April 11, 2011


Between Predator 2 and Predators is a toss up for me. Like the first, they both have a great cast and both are really solid. Busey delivers a more believable crazy character than Fishburne, and Fishburne's character didn't nearly get enough screen time. Plus you get the full deal with Paxton in the 2nd. Predators even had room to be better if they hadn't tried so hard to recapture scenes from the first.
Makes you wonder how they went so wrong with those AvP films.
posted by P.o.B. at 7:07 PM on April 11, 2011


Why can't it be both?

Why does it have to be either?

Subtext: what I wish things meant, even if they almost certainly don't, that will also impress my professor
posted by obiwanwasabi at 7:28 PM on April 11, 2011


That's just an echo...
posted by crushedhope at 7:36 PM on April 11, 2011


Now see, I always thought the Predator should have unlatched it's armor, in that great scene, to reveal female breasts. The Predator was just a hard working single mom, finally on a long deserved vacation to work on her skull collection in peace, get her nails done, her dreads tightened, her freak on. This wasn't a war, it was a great first date!

Just another example of the mis-communication between the sexes. Sigh...
posted by tar0tgr1 at 10:59 PM on April 11, 2011 [1 favorite]


Predator 2 had a wily antagonist who survived incredible trauma and had truly disturbing teeth. And then there was the alien...
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:06 PM on April 11, 2011


Now see, I always thought the Predator should have unlatched it's armor, in that great scene, to reveal female breasts. The Predator was just a hard working single mom.

That's the Alien Queen's schtick.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 11:12 PM on April 11, 2011


True that, probably why I just assumed the Predator would be a female then baffled when it didn't mate with Dutch LOL

All this reminded me of a nifty fan-made trailer for a Batman-Predator crossover I saw years ago at a con, Dead End.
posted by tar0tgr1 at 12:46 AM on April 12, 2011


I like this analysis because it confirms in a reflective sort of way that all those Falcon movies were about aliens invading earth and hunting humans for sport.
posted by Pastabagel at 7:05 AM on April 12, 2011


On a less crazy note, I always thought the way to appreciate predator was to watch every scene as if you were seeing it from the Predator's eyes, which are the eyes of the interstellar big game hunter. The film is an allegory of the cruelty of game hunting.

In other words, all the shots of sweaty muscles, macho talk, etc are viewed by the predator the way a hunter views the overdeveloped antlers on a huge buck. Furthermore, if you pay attention, the predator kills guys in order from least muscular to most. The weakest, slowest of the herd are picked off first, right? Then the bigger guys who are less cut or flabby, until Arnold, who is the professional bodybuilder of the group.
posted by Pastabagel at 7:13 AM on April 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


/semi-related anecdote

My husband has a cousin, a genial fellow, but a relentlessly hyper talker. You learn to just talk around him but not let him corner you. Anyway, a few years back he was into weightlifting. But not just weightlifting, but weightlifters. Schwarznegger was his hero, he owns every movie the man was in, but there was some champion weightlifter dude that he also followed. He would talk your ear off about meeting these guys, "stalking, haha" these guys, trying to be like these guys, etc. Once while he was in full steam, he ended a sentence with "He has the most beautiful thighs!!!"

All around the room, you saw eyebrows fly up, and wheels turning in people's minds. Obsession with weightlifters + no girlfriend + "beautiful thighs." Huh.

If this guy is in the closet, he hasn't come out to us yet. And maybe we're all jumping to conclusions and his appreciation of manly thighs was merely about achieving optimum muscle mass.
posted by emjaybee at 9:21 AM on April 12, 2011 [1 favorite]


It's too bad we missed the one greatest opportunity in all of history to title a post "The Predator Blew My Brains Out".
posted by millions at 9:36 AM on April 12, 2011


When I read this, I hear it in the voice of Werner Herzog.
posted by Jon-A-Thon at 11:55 AM on April 12, 2011


The film is an allegory of the cruelty of game hunting.

I was thinking last night how close Predator is to slasher flicks like a Friday the 13th or a Halloween movie. The interesting thing about Predator 2 is that the script gets flipped halfway through. Predators, on the other hand, definitely takes the literalness of hunting up a notch.
posted by P.o.B. at 2:57 PM on April 12, 2011


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