RojoPredator is Gay
Now it is long known that action films display trace amounts of homo-erotic suggestion. I was took a paper on Authorship at University and part of our module was John Woo, one of the essay questions up for critique was homo-eroticism in his films.
I don’t want to talk about Woo although homo-eroticism is rife throughout his films, what I have chosen to discuss is Predator. Long a favourite action film of mine, I by chance happened to catch it this morning (oh a day off work in the middle of the week). If there is a bigger display of homo-eroticism in film you will be hard pressed to find it.
From the get go we are introduced to sweaty muscle soldiers talking tough and spitting tobacco. Schwarzenegger and Weathers air arm wrestling just a sniff of what is to come.
What really had me going “dude that is sooo gay” is when Billy (the Indian tracker) is searching for a trail and comes across a vine, he whips out his machete and cuts it in two and begins to drink its sap. Something draws his attention and he turns away, the vine continues to bleed white sap down Billy’s mouth and chest, say no more.
There is no love story. Ok yes, they are a bunch of special op kick ass killing machines on a mission, they have no time for love just as they “had no time to bleed”. I accept that love had no place in the movie, though I did find it interesting that the only female character was loathed by the soldiers, she was the enemy.
Then there’s the unloading of the weapons. The all in shoot-em up at nothing. All these guys wanking off hard at nothing, cuming and then loading and clip to unload more. Again a bunch of masculine guys unloading their tools all in a line at something they have no idea about. To be honest this reminded me of some practically full on porn I once downloaded.
Now, please don’t think I’m writing this putting down Predator, I love this film, it hurts me to find these things about it, but when presented with the glaringly obvious you have to recognise. I don’t think this blatant homosexuality within this movie detracts from it, when really, time detracts from it. It’s a great action film but it’s dated in a way, but a good way. Like the other day I watched Shaft’s Big Score and then Shaft in Africa and I got to tell you I loved them both. Totally dated totally shit but so enjoyable, even my girlfriend who doesn’t have the tolerance for crap movies like I do loved them, they were just so shit.
This is how Predator, Commando, Raw Deal, etc are going to head but this doesn’t mean we can’t love them; we can love them more because of these “flaws” which really aren’t flaws. Like the Princess Bride is still amazing and funny and beautiful; and a representation of everything that movies are made of (we lose ourselves within them), so are these movies. They are trite but when they were made they weren’t. They are cheesy but we love them because we know they were forging this kind of cheese. They’re a base of a type of film that should be studied, that can be criticised, but should most of all be enjoyed.
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I submit that Rocky III has the strongest undertones in an action film ever, ironically with Carl Weathers too. That scene on the beach is so romantic it makes say Anything look violent.