Particular attention is accorded to the obese body, the sculpted body of the body builder, and the composite body of the cyborg. Based on an understanding of visual culture as a key element of culture in the sense of a system of symbolization that provides a social semantics to contemporary societies, this contribution proposes to read a number of figurations of the body in post-industrial societies as paradigmatic of what may be called the body’s age of obsolescence. In terms of work the body has, in fact, become progressively obsolete, and we have been witnessing, in the 20th century, a fundamental realignment of body, work and self. Through technological and organizational change from the mid-twentieth century onwards work has become increasingly dissociated from the body. Unpacking spectacle in this way ultimately produces a number of new tools for film scholars while reimagining, in a significant way, American culture in the 1980s, the action-adventure movies of the decade, and the greater cultural currents in the Reagan era. Additionally, this study argues that filmic spectacle (as experienced by viewers) is actually made up of two discrete dimensions, a physical dimension composed of massive scale and explosions and a physiological one composed of affect and emotion. This study not only elucidates and reconstructs the conception of filmic spectacle to include the male body on-screen, it also identifies two types of male bodies on-screen in the 1980s-the muscle-bound, aesthetically spectacular body and the lithe, kinesthetically spectacular body. A thorough examination of the culture, the movies, and the male bodies on-screen in the 1980s-through the lens of affect theory, cinematography, and spectacle, among others-uncovers a number of significant cultural phenomena that have the potential to shape future academic work. While this still holds true, a closer look at the movies and the era reveals a much more nuanced picture. The consensus among the literature is that a conservative backlash (spurred on by Ronald Reagan’s two terms in office) against a resurgent equality movement gave rise to hypermasculine movies like First Blood and Predator and hypermasculine stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Rippey, Advisor ABSTRACT While popular movies are often overlooked in film studies, the action-adventure genre in the 1980s has drawn considerable academic attention. In its second life, Muscle Beach gradually sidelined female weightlifters and glorified the heterosexuality of male bodybuilders, thus reinforcing traditional gender norms and leading to wider acceptance of the male muscular physique by the 1980s. While the Muscle Beach athletes successfully distanced themselves from the taint of homosexuality by associating muscles with heterosexual glamour, the 1958 scandal reversed this trend and reinforced the stigma attached to muscles. The legitimization of visible muscularity was not a simple process. The Muscle Beach phenomenon illuminates the changing meaning of muscles in America, from the conflation of muscu-larity with homosexuality in the 1950s to the triumph of " hard bodies " in the 1980s. In the following decades a new " Muscle Beach " arose in countercultural Venice. In 1958, in the aftermath of a sex crime panic, the site was closed. In the 1940s and 1950s, at Santa Monica's Muscle Beach, male and female acrobats and bodybuilders performed stunts and displayed muscular physiques.
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