0% found this document useful (0 votes)
128 views17 pagesSpectacular Action Rambo
Rambo essai
Uploaded by
Chan ThorpeCopyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF or read online on Scribd
0% found this document useful (0 votes)
128 views17 pagesSpectacular Action Rambo
Rambo essai
Uploaded by
Chan ThorpeCopyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF or read online on Scribd
37
Spectacular Action:
Rambo and the Popular Pleasures of Pain*
Wittam Warner
dike the shoving around America Cook in the world of the 70s ... finally the
ar senectoun it * minute, as hig and sroug bot havea dee! auything thac's
‘hat atrocious,"
Sylvester Stallone, in interview (Newsweek; October 23, 1985, p. 62)
Pride fad 80 Rambo lastnight. Now fl kzow what £0 do next time.
President Ronald Reagan, july 1985, before welcoming freed hostages from the
TWA ight held in Lebanon (Sunday London Tine, July 7, 1985)
How is i that American flr audiences in the late seventies and early cighties found
Pleasure in entering the World of the Hero bracing new cinematic realm of exeraye
ically samp ci literal violence where moulernskepticings of the hero could be mag-
ically suspended? How does one understand rhe ‘lationship between these new derous
inthe history of pleasure, the developing ee lnology of he action film, and ideologically
fraughe debates about “America's pusiton in he world”? What articulations of culture
and film technique made the production and consumption of the hero's spectacular action
ne Of SME Mose characteristic impulses of a deca Among those films constructed
Beis 2 new literalizacion ofthe heroie~trom Sior Yor (1977) co Robocop (1987), from
Bhs it (1981) to Aliens (19H6)=no films councd ¢ Seater scandal co eriics than Fine
Blood (1982) and Rambo: First Blood Part 11 (1985). Here the action-adventure gense
seemed to strive for a Preposterously direct political address. The ‘story of Jolin Rambo,
ad the films reiguration of the Vieenam Wat age only develop an interpretation of
America's Vietnam defeat as a betrayal of the soley by his nation, it also indulges an
GBeHIY COmpensatory scenario. For many critics tie Popularity of Rambo scemed to
involve an inflection of taste and style in entertainment which, by che way it exalted
dimerica over her adversaries, produced a ftional analogue co Reagan's strident nation-
asm and military buildup. Executed with «deat
spied to beg for the deflating critieal mockery tf
a broaal spectrum of critics to this “return of whe hero" di
wear pula tase. For critics and commentator, the noe vexing scandal of these films
Was the face that they were consumed by vase fnumbers, wich evident pleasure. If there
‘were sver (0 be an instance of the “bad popular,” ene seemed 10 be ic,
4m chis essay 1 will incerpece che pebularity of the Rambo films by exploring the
following thesis. Fo wad aly eighties che rise ofthe heco fm offccd
Audiences a pleasurable way to work upon an insivent historical problem-the perceived
672 RAMBO AND THE POPULAR PLEASURES OF PAIN 673
decline of American power both in relation to other nations, as well as a recent, fondly
remembered past. When this issue is given particularly explicit political inflection in
the Rambo films, the critical condemnation of Rambo as Reaganism-in-film diagnosed
the films’ wishful and tendentious reinterpretation of the Vietnam War. But this critique
obscured several aspects of Rambo’s successful address co its popular audience. The appeal
of these films depends upon subjecting hero and audience to a certain masochistic scen-
ario—the pleasure of intensely felt pain, and crippling incapacity, as it is written into
the action, and onto the body of the hero. Secondly, each film supports the natural
virtue of the hero through a display of technology's magic. Finally, cach film wins the
audience an anti-therapeutic relief from confining subjectivity by releasing it into a
vertiginous cinematic experience of spectacular action. Its precisely what most offended
critics about the Rambo films—their implausible blending of fantasy and “history”—
that gives these films special usefulness for reading the switch point between politic
and entertainment, between debate in the public sphere about “the state of the nation’
and the pleasures of summer action on the silver screen.
Remembering Vietnam, Rescuing America
‘The Rambo films are shaped to intervene in what might be called “the Vietnam Debate”:
that broad and dispersed interpretive joust, or conversation in culture, about the meaning
of the Vietnam War, especially as this, the “first war America evee lost,” seemed from
the vantage point of the early eighties to mark the beginning of the decline in American
power. This “debate” was given new impetus and focus by the Iran Hostage Crisis
(1979-1980) and Ronald Reagan's election (1980). The many different forms of cultural
work on and around Vietnam and the vet in the early 1980s suggest that the war's
trauma was far from dissipated, its wound still open and in need of che kind of sururing
that can only be done with words and representations."
‘How did First Elood and Rambo intervene in the ‘“Vietnam Debate"? The Rambo
films are founded upon the assumption that a beloved object was lost in Vietnam—men
who died, American honor, and, with che war, America's position of post-World War
11 pre-eminence. How might film scenarios be devised chat would redress this loss? First
there must be an interpretation of the war's losses chat allows rage to be justified, locates
bblame in a restricted way, and devises some plausible action chat will afford a new chance
to recover what has been lost. Rambo is the ordinary Vietnam vet who, in his self-
doubts and potential greatness, personifies America. He is justified in his rage, because
America’s fighting men have been in various ways betrayed—they were never allowed
to fight co win; they were not supported at home; as returned vets they were called
“Babykillers.” Who 's responsible for the loss of American honor? Blame is located in
those liberal bureaucrats, and thin-blooded Americans who have wasted American
strength, and squandered America's proper position of priority in the world. It is they
who are also responsible for a suppression of “the fact” that there are still POWs alive
in Vietnam. The Rambo films’ magical solution to the riddle of American decline hinges
tupon a new remembering of war and nation: how one remembers “the War” turns out
to have everything to do with how one can re-member American strength. One must
join and heal by finding and returning the lost “parts” of the nation. But in such 2
“rescue mission” the question of who is essential and expendable comes to the fore.
When asked by his Vietnamese female guide Co Bao, why he, Rambo, was chosen for
this mission, Rambo explains his presence on the mission by saying that, for chose in
power, he is “expendable.” When pressed by Co Bao to explain this word, Rambo
describes someone invited to a party, who fails to come, and is never missed. Later in 674 WILLIAM WARNER
Si film, when they are parting, hee loving rejoinder is: “Rambo, you are nt expend.
able." And’ his is the crux of the film's explicit discursive project sot only t0 reclaim
the American vet as not expendable, but farther, wo discover that whas Rents is and
rhe ts ride, stengeh, will) is precisely chac which is most indispensable for Ancesed
“The scenario of the rescue mission allows America and Rambo one more chanee
Deohaanat he rescue mission is a central fearare of major Viernamn War blog Ine
Ceathunter (1978) and Apocalypse Now (1979). But while these ewe filme on Platcon
(1986), make Vietnam the site for a moral test, and the “retuen'” se action fraughe wich
seubseatching and liberal guile, Rambo follows 3 ery different path, Fin Blas? account
ok eon Rambo's unfair persecution by a small own in the Pacific Northen oc his
delayed but explosive war against the town and its shenif. allow dhe negative ideas about
the Vietnam vet (as haunted, “crazy,” a social cripple) to be assumed and ‘ransvalued,
Uncl they become sources of his uncanny steength. When Fist Blood curned net ne ke
onc ofthe surprise film hits of 1982, havingas Stallone put i, “triggered long-suppressed
Fock a Giectallone and James Cameron developed a script which would ‘ake Rect,
back to Vietnam for the sore of eescue mission that Uncommon Vator (1983) and Chuck
epere: Joba Rambo loses mos of his inernal paralysis, and his fighting ability, no
longer a dangerous anachronism, becomes useful to the nation,
ihe familiarity and tenaciey ofthe idea of living MIAS should not obscure what
teipld and symptomatic about this notion, Neither the clandestine sffore of Tee
ie beginning of the Carter administration succeeded in Anding een me of ice 2,500
Mids. Nor have any shown up since. Instead, the idea that there are Anette POWs
“til alive in Vietnam must be understood asa popular fiction, only slightly less fantastic
than belief in UFOs. This fiction expresses a will to helicve thee fee Ao betrayed,
faeee can soldiers sill alive, sill sufering, avaicng rescue, To refuse to belive vdeo
lost American souls is to become complicit inthe theft of American strength. In Rambo,
Ile Rambo provides the resolve and fre power for escape, hey provide the unam-
biguous moral vindication for the mission of their rescuet, Together agent and alibis
of the rescue, they provide the mysterious supplements needed te complete the puzzle
we inerican strengeh. By film's end, the hisory of American failure in Viewsat
to be overwriteen by a fable of America's restored greamess,
By the sime Rambo was released in June of 1985, reconsiderations of che Vietnam
Thay had become entangled with a debate about America’s proper posture in che ant
The vehement critical condemnation of Rambo made the film's coal wale character
rae Rene Condensation points for the struggle of interpretations around che Vanes
Wat, Reaganism, and the question of American sttength. Some ernice disputed the
uslandish reversals of fact necessary to fabricate Rambo's story. Tom O'R be poines
crchnology aie Vietcong, not Americans, who fought like Rambo, using “privive
technology and expertise in jungle warfare" “American methodology was hi-tech and
high altitude” (Commonwed June 21, 1985), But lor liberal enti’ che distortion of
history was moce pervasive: Rambo converted what shoule be she, object of regret and
(sons leaened inco the sie for a certain nosalgic evisionaty heen. memory of
the band of brothers now gonc. What Rambo contests is 2 sevled lib interpretation
of the war as “tragic and “unjust.” By glorifying bate in Viewsam: Rea renews the RAMBO AND THE POPULAR PLEASURES OF PAIN 675
‘old debate about the war, but on a puzzling new ground of popular culture, where it
is not exactly the war, but “Rambo,” as figure of the Vietnam vet, who is vindicated.
Prospectively, Rambo's popularity, as it seems to justify Reagan's aggressive policy in
Central America in the early eighties, may be a menacing harbinger of new foreign
military adventures. Marxist and feminist criticism has focused upon the pathology of
Rambo's aggressive individualism, his compensatory masculinity, and the fascist reso-
nnances of the film's association of Rambo with nature.*
For the broad spectrum of critics to the left of Reagan, the phenomenon of Rambo's
popularity evidences the profound gulf which had opened between them and audiences
ready for blatantly heroic fare with a strong Reaganite cast. The films seemed to construct
a subject position—one which is Western, white, and male—which hails spectators to
an ethos for being in the world which, echoing Stuart Hall's description of Thatcherism,
might be called “Reaganism”: it values isolated self-assertion, competitive zeal, chau-
vinist Americanism, and the use of force.’ By reading Rambo as a filmic expression of
Reaganism, an approach used repeatedly by film critics and cultural and political com-
mencators and even at moments by Ronald Reagan and Sylvester Stallone themselves,
film hero and President become each other's latent cultural truth. This reading uses the
popularity of Reaganism to gloss, explain, and (for many commentators) discredit the
popularicy of Rambo. In a complementary fashion, Rambo becomes the dream-fantasy
in film, the “truch" of Reaganism, now blatantly exposed asin various ways mendacious.
This double critique of Rambo and Reagan had a paradoxical effect within the political
culture of the mid-1980s: it helped Rambo become a generally recognized cultural icon.
It is this critical condemnation of Rambo, almost as much as the film itself, as both
unfold around certain contested cultural terms (Vietnam, the vet, patriotism, America’s
proper role in the world), which allows Rambo to emerge as a cultural icon in the mid-
1980s. Thus Rambo as a cultural icon includes the idealized filmic projection, and its
scathing critique, condensed in one image. Even for those who refused to become con-
sumers of these films, Rambo, as an icon of the masculine, che primitive, and the heroic,
‘becomes the site of a (bad) truth about American culture in the eighties. The political-
allegorical reading of Rambo not only filters the film's audience of left intellectuals and
academics, it also obscures, by pathologizing, the sources of the film's popularity. The
Rambo films—organized as they are around the experience of American failure—produce
their pleasures... chrough pain.
The Pleasures of Pains; or
Unsutured Scars on a White Male Body
Rambo is one of a series of films of the late seventies and carly cighties which took up
an old theme of American film and culture—the individual's struggle against an unjust
system—and gave that scenario a distinct new turn, The protagonist did not challenge
the system by teaming up with an ambiguous woman ¢o solve a crime (as in film noir),
or organizing the good ranchers against the Boss who owns the whole town (as in some
Westerns). Now the System—sometimes a state, sometimes a corporations given ex-
traordinry new powers of surveillance and control of the individual. The protagonist,
almost entirely cut off from others, endures the most insidious forms of manipulation
and pain, reaches into the primordial levels of the self, and emerges as a hero with
powers sufficient to fight the System to the point of its catastrophe. In Rollerball (1975),
“Alien (1979), Bladerunner (1982), Aliens (1986), and Robocop (1987) the hero becomes
the culture's last chance to save the personal and the human from engulfment in a 676 WILLIAM WARNER
perverse system of manipulative consumer gratification and corporis control. The hero
eiaives to cleanse this dystopic system by destroying it-
es ike many hero Films of the early eighties, develops 2 version of the fable
of elf and system which dichotomizes ferional space into two postions: The self, often
ot seyared with mature and the erotic becomes the locus for che expres of every
positive human value, mos especially “feedom.” Opposte. the self is che System, which
Pose rles, mechanical operations, is asathematized as a faccless monsie™ WOE Tf
insidious powers to bend all human effort sits own service. 1p their consideration of
Rillerball (1975), Ryan and Kellner (1988) find this dichocomizing so bbe the film's
Roleriatideologieal gesture, by which “no middle ground is allowed anyching that
Gleparts from the ideal of pure individual freedom (corporations but also socialism) is
by implication lumped under domination” (p. 256). But ‘before we dub this narrative
ao iny ideological,” and chus in some sense simply false, it is worth attempting &
ee tke gopular appeal of his fable of self and system in Blims and political
ance the lve seventies and cary eightics. Such a ficuion no douby has deep roots
caeerican populist paranoia about global conspiracy. But the popular appeal of chis
fable may also express legitimate disenchantment with an aspect ‘of the modern world
Fe roacaults work has exhaustively detiled—the diffuseness of power as inheres in
aa ececeracies and discursive formations of modern systems for shapes PEAT and
leowrledge* Rambo becomes the populist warrior fighting) those, sysen ‘Thus his
aa eese sce in Rembo is the machine-ganaing of che “wolf-den" compet SHE
Gised to guide his eeconnaissance operation. By destroying, 0 inserting, the operation
we he sistem, the audience is left at che end of a film wich » eens frame image of
Mtnko fea nuclear subject, a self etched against a landscape where no supporting social
network seems necessary.
i seemtambo films the exchanges of self and system are given, the insistently
Cedipal configuration of a struggle between overbearing fathers and a defiant son. Bue
easirne father’s” authority is inked to che state, and even the “son's” rebellion finds
vuays co reassert US maiiary pre-eminence ja Asia, Thus ‘when Col, Traurman encers
wa te load bis frst words to Teasle ae, "God didn’t make Rambo: +t ‘made him
ee aeeed him, | rained hina, {commanded him for eheee years in Views say
“fue makes hint mine.” Rambo's public dimension means that chose film tropes thae are
chat fod fromm Wescerns-both the rugged individualism of the cowboy: the stealth and
Iie im nature of the Indian—are now articulared with the most centralized activity of
the modern state, the fighting of war.
ae herve restaging of Arrcrica’s Vietnam involvemencs, the plo sense
cof Rambo pivots upon a personal drama, meant co allegorize the struggle of every modern
ecion wo would remember cheie freedom: a contest beeween the system's agenda for
Pera ad he sels attempt co manipulate the system co is owe ends ‘Upon arrival
ar ge camp in Thailand, Rambo is insercted co avoid “the blood and guts soutine,”
2 oan cethpology do. most of ehe work,” and “ery co forges che war Ip these ways
Rambo is programmed by Murdock anc Trautman 2s an insenamens the sophisticated
vracghting apparatus. But chs process is complicated by o¥0 countermovements (©
Hee eerie ceible mission. Rambo hs a personal agenda: che will re remember—"IE
I'm alive, [che war's still alive isn'c i?" he assumes responsibility for America’s “missing
maton” and anvites che heroic cest in hopes that this time “we get [9 win” But 0
ae acrner che system have another agenda than the announced one Murdock has secretly
planned the mission so Rambo will aot ind and rescues bbur instead will confirm the
absence of living MIAS. RAMBO AND THE POPULAR PLEASURES OF PAIN 677
While che explicit ideological address of the Rambo films helps win their “reality
effect." the moral alibi for their consuming violence comes from che display of the hero's
Suffering. Within the films, ewo ideas are developed about loss in Vietnam. Both em-
phasize the cruel sadistic sources of this pain and loss: “we were unfairly beaten in
Vietnam, and experienced loss"; “others were responsible for that loss, and they should
now be punished.” Berween these two ideas—one about the past and one about the
furure, but each emphasizing that blame and punishment lies elsewhere—there isa third
idea which is never allowed to reach consciousness in the Rambo films, but nonetheless
motivates and informs the narrative diegesis: “I am cesponsible for the losses (im Vier~
nam), and I should be beaten.” Rambo's unconscious guilt leads him to accept masochistic
positions which bring pain and humiliation as punishmene for failure, ‘Thus Rambo's
Taventures start in both films with an act which invites pain. After he is given a ride
‘out of town from Sheriff Teasle, Rambo turns back into town, where he is arrested,
tortured, escapes, etc. In Rambo, after weighing the advantages of prison ("{I've] seen
worse” “In here f know where I stand”), Rambo accepts the mission although Traueman_
hhas warned him that the “risk factor is very high.” Rambo's unconscious guilt for failing
in Vietnam is deflected away from consciousness, but it morivates that defiant and risky
behavior which repeatedly throws Rambo into the position co receive punishment for
failing. The Rambo films also enccurage audience guilt for American failure to cemain
‘unconscious; in place of guilt, Rambo models an alternative posture for Americans—
that of being wronged and righteous.
‘How might one explain Rambo's rage against the self? Because of the discrepancy
between a valued ideal of himself (I'm a winner, the best, on cop ...) and what “the
swat" made him (.. .a loser, no longer che best, in decline), Rambo suffers anxiety, and
2 withering self-judgment, Within the theoretical framework of psychoanalysis, Freud
(19636) poseulaces thatthe self's judgment against the self develops when the ego comes
under the attack of the superego. The superego confronts che self with ego-ideals—
monuments to that epoch when the father and mother were objects of libidinal areach-
jment_which now transmit certain qualities of the early parents: “their power, their
feverity, cheir tendency to watch over and to punish. ... The superego ... can become
harsh, cruel and inexorable against the ego which is in its charge” (pp. 197-98). In
Fint Blood and Rambo, pain becomes the occasion for pleasure through an encounter
with figures of “the father""-but not the mother (more on this below). In each film
thae facher is bifurcated into “good” and “bad” fathers, 50 each becomes emblematic of
public aspects of America. In both films Colonel Trautman is that “good faher," who
Rnows, loves, and believes in Rambo. He not only claims the role as Rambo's “maker,”
he also insists he’s “the closest thing to family" Rambo has. Traurman embodies chose
old-fashioned American qualities of selfless loyalty and service expressed in the Special
Forces “Baker Troop” Trautman led. Crisp and noble in his appearance and manner,
Colonel Trautman’s formalicy and precision of address articulaces the military with an
expression of moral authority.
Opposite Colone, Trautman in both films ace he bad fathers—each a symptomatic
embodiment of what America has become after the catastrophe of Vieuram. Rambo's
opponent in Fist Blood is Sheriff Teasle, a descendant of the corrupt redneck sheriffs of
Sixties film and culture. Sloppy and imprecise in his swagger, Teasle wears a genial
Smirk as he surveys “his tows,” guarding its peace with patriarchal presumption. After
giving Rambo an unrequested ride out of town ("we don’t want people like you around
here"), he offers “friendly advice” (“get a hair cut,” “take a bath,” “get rid of that army
jacket"), and then drives off wich a final, ironic, “Have a nice day.” When Rambo, here
positioned rather paradoxicaly 2s both vet and longhaired hippy, disoteys, Teasle be~ 678 WILLIAM WARNER
comes livid. Teasle's persecution of Rambo is intensely personal, even demonic: “I wanted
to kill char kid... so much I could taste it." By contrast Murdock, who runs Rambo’s
mission into Viernam from Thailand, and then orders the extraction helicopter to desert
him, has none of Teasle's animus toward Rambo. As the calculating, and entirely cynical
bureaucrat, he has no military discipline: he sweats like a pig, constantly complains of
the heat, and even drinks out of 2 glass. As the duplicitous organization man, Murdock
combines an absence of moral principle with a streak of sadism. To Murdock the lost
POWs are described not as “men” but “ghosts,” and when Rambo violates his orders
by rescuing a POW, he becomes expendable.
‘Although both films stage a struggle between “good” and “bad” fathers on how
to “handle” John Rambo, there is enough evidence of the complicity between these
rival fathers to suggest that they are in fact two sides of one father. In First Blood,
‘Trautman is willing to ealk to Rambo by radio, chough he knows this will kelp Teasle
get a “fix” on Rambo's forest hideaway. After Rambo's apparent “death,” they share a
drink and some tough manly talk at che country western bar in town, In Rambo, Murdock
deflects Traueman’s indignation a¢ the betrayal of Rambo at the pickup point ky accusing
him of suspecting che mission's secret goal all along: “Don't act so innocent, Colonel.
You had your suspicions, and if you suspected chen, you're sort of 3” accessory, arcn’t
you”
Both fathers provide a rich vein of pain to gratify che hero's masochism. Traueman's
demand that “Johnny” be good allows Rambo to be “bad,” co cransgress Trautman’s
injanctions to “give yourself in” and “forget the war.” When Rambo is tortured in
‘Teasle’s prison, when Murdock aborts the pickup, and so leaves Rambo to suffer Oriental
and Russian cortures, Teasle and Murdock have provided the occasions for the most
literal bodily pain. These physical tortures are explicitly presented as a repetition of
‘wounds still unsucured from his prison camp tortures during the war. Thus, at four
points in Rambo's brutal processing at the police station in First Blood, there are crosscut
flashbacks to scenes of Rambo's torture in Vietnam: slop is thrown down into his cage/
cell, he is hoisted up and hung crucifix-style, then cut in the side with an enormous
kniée. Suspended before the spectator's eye, the vulnerability and sensitivity of Rambo's
body gees added emphasis from a soundtrack which allows us to hear every ugh, grunt,
‘moan, and scream that comes from Rambo. Rambo magnifies the senes cf Ramha’s
torture so they become outlandish in their extremity—Rambo deserted by his own rescue
helicopter, Rambo suspended in a pool of leech-infested slime, Rambo upon an electric
rack, Rambo being tortured with his own knife (Figure 1). In these scenes, every possible
filmic device—vivid colors, extreme close-up, abrupt sounds, caricatured villains—is used
to overcome the distance beeween Rambo's body and those who administer his suffering.
The torture scenes produce the effect of a perfect complementarity of positions, with
the relay of gazes closing the S and M circuit.
The hallucinatory vividness of Rambo's torcure results from the elabcration of a
social and political allegory which is always also intrapsychic and fancasmatic. The
persecuting other emerges as much from within as outside the self; che other is always
fan agent of the father. Because they are shaped by the remorseless demands of an
(imcrojected) father, Rambo’s denuding, humiliation, and repeated “‘castration"” become
the occasions for a masochistic pleasure that “leans up against,” and is nourished by the
other's sadistic pleasure. Later in the action, when Rambo controls the instruments of
power, the other's pain will augment Rambo's pleasure.
What is che rhetoric of this spectacle—and its intended effect upon the audience—
as shaped by Rambo’s masochistic role, and the film's representation of thar role? The
narrative interpolates the audience on the “side” of Rambo—the masochist/victim/ RAMBO AND THE POPULAR PLEASURES OF PAIN 679.
Fours 1. Rambo being tortured with his own knife,
hero—but the camera also implicates us in the sadistic position, watching Rambo from
the position of his tormenters. Compelled to oscillate between these two postions, the
display of Rambo's sufferings seems calculated to produce in its audichee conan
disturbing proximiey and fascinated unease. In an essay entitled “Masochism and Male
Subjectivity,” Kaja Silverman (1988) speculates upon the power of the “male masoch.
ist" “self-exposure” co unsette, by laying bare, che violence which undergirds che
social contract. The passage helps us explicate several registers of Rambo's “complaint”
to the audience:
(The male masochist} acts our in an insistent and exaggerated way the basic conditions
of cultural subjectivity, conditions that are normally disavowed: he loudly proclaims
‘hat his meaning comes to him from the Other, prostrates himself before the Gaze
even as he solicits it, exhibits his castration for alto see, and revels in the sacrificial
basis of the social contract, The male masochist magnifies the losses and division upon
which cultural identity is based, refusing co be sutured or recompensed. In short, he
‘adiates a negativity inimical co che social aeder. (p. 51)
By assuming the position of the male masochist, by assenting to his own torture, Rambo
Provokes the social judgmenc that he is somehow “‘crszy."” Crippled with this “mad.
nesi—an anger and insanity that seandalizes the social order—the toreured hero escapes
*e the forest alone and comparatively weak; but he returns with astonishing strength
What allows this reversal in Rambo's position? In reflecting upon his chances to
survive his mission, Rambo intones to his goide Co Bao, “To survive wat, you've got
to become war." For the masochist hero “becoming wat” means bringing the war chat
rages inside out, and changing the direction and object of his aggression from self to
other, so he can assume the sadistic position. “Becoming war,” Rambo can prevail in
THF 680 WILLIAM WARNER
the chase (which guarantees the hero's feedom), the hunt (wheze buneet becomes the
hhanted), and in those duels with a demonized other (which certifies the her
viunue) but "becoming war” meais more: i means Rambo becomes a kind of eros
eerae ptvely cataclyemic co the whole established order a a cerrorst might dream of
being, In Fit Blood Rambo spreads castrophe from rown members 19 the ‘whole town:
ae ie nicer as he escapes the prison; his victory over the police in the forest results
ces ishing of 2 "base camp” on the Forest's edge with che familia elements of
ane eareibulateecs and newsmen, helicopters and the national guard. Finally, after he
blows up huge gasoline depot upon his erurn co cown, we watch he blaze reflected
oon ea hed faces of the police station personne. Sheriff Tease announces a “police
Cmergency” of the sort reminiscent of the disaster films of the 19506, Jn Rambo there
eae ore relentless, and sill more implausible, expansion of disister: from the
Sicthamese soldiers he immolates in che brush, to those he blows up on the bridge: so
the prisoner camp le destroys and liberates, and finally, im Rambo'sresura base camp
aoe err ommnputer center Every bactle generates larger and larger explosions, and each
explosion is shor in such a way that Rambo seems to curn bis enemics, as iby magic,
se sothing, These explosions fguie che catastrophe Rambo would control and deliver
dan ceeente quiet end. Just as the scenes of rorcure demonstrated 2 fantasmatic x,
spurerason of slf-punishment, so these scenes of destruction realize a chil's fantasy of
ae on ol of cforcless mastery of every conceivable impediment ro the self
oat lms the final eascade of spectaculat ~ction achieves its “liberation effect”
by oscillating from a passive, “feminine” masochistic position co an active, “masculine”
oy ng ow Rambo can channel ail his righteous, vengeful fury ia an amack
Spon the enemy. Rambo's triumph climaxes with Rambo's symioli) “killing” of the
peor thee ‘Ar ifthe spel of the S and M double-bind were suddenly broken, Rarsbo
goes from being 2 murderous destroyer to a tearful confessor of sors In First Blood
Beet tone hero suddenly speaks—of his memories of the war, of his sense of beitg
ceronged. of his present failures. In this intensificasion of the subject position of the
Hrenere salience is positioned with Trautman as the Feceiver of the hero's dsect addees
we foal therapeutic exchange attempts co surare a certain ideological meaning
Fehrs actions, Rambo's violence is motivated by America’s betrayal of she memory
aa on of Baker Troop. now gone, of the demand for love founded in pariorsm
Sener” amber "We just wane our country to love us, as much as we love it” Bat
cae eee cesiveness, an unresereed expenditure about these final spectacles of vi-
rere hich cannot be contained o¢ alibied by the hero's final speech.
