Carl Weathers and the Problem of Black Masculinity

Most famous for his roles as Apollo Creed in the Rocky films and as Dillon in Predator, Carl Weathers had a moment in the 1980s. He even starred in his own action film that was so filled with action it had action in the title. That would be Action Jackson for those not in the know. Weathers was muscular and handsome. Really, his appearance was almost unreal. In his day, he looked something like a black Ken doll; which, I think, invites some closer consideration. He had the right look of an action star but he was the wrong color for the time. For the most part, black actors were sidekicks in action films, they were part of a duo as in the many buddy cop films of the 80s. Or, if they did star in their own action films, it was made evident that they weren't real action stars. Eddie Murphy's role in Beverly Hills Cop was more comedic than tough, thereby preserving the norm of the white action hero. It wasn't until the early 90s that black actors such as Wesley Snipes and, to some extent, Samuel L. Jackson got to carry an action film. Now, of course, Will Smith's action movies make millions, but again, there is the humor aspect that changes the whole tone of his image.

But to return to Weathers-- in the 80s, he never played a stereotype and was always a good guy (in his role as Creed, he went from being Rocky's opponent to being a friend)-- playing either boxers, cops or military men. Yet he was never able to be in the league of the major action stars of the day. He just didn't catch on. It could be argued that some action stars just didn't reach the pinnacle that others did. Certainly, Chuck Norris or Dolph Lundgren, who are famous in their own right, aren't in the same category as Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Maybe the same set of circumstances kept Carl Weathers out of the top tier of action stars. Except he wasn't in the same set of circumstances. He starred in two of the blockbuster hits of the 80s. (Lundgren did play the villain Ivan Drago in Rocky V but that is precisely why I think his situation is different than Carl Weathers. Few action stars of this era rose to the top playing villains. The only actor who did that was Arnold Schwarzenegger with James Cameron's Terminator. However, it must be acknowledged that Schwarzenegger promptly reversed that performance by playing the reconditioned and no longer villainous terminator in Terminator II).

What likely kept Carl Weathers out of the mainstream was an unease surrounding black masculinity. It also didn't help that Action Jackson wasn't a very good film. In some ways, he made a career out of a stereotypical idea of blackness, in that black men are often considered only in terms of their bodies, their physicality. Yet he made a point of subverting that by playing stereotypically white roles- that of brave soldiers and cops. Though Weathers got his start playing criminals and thugs in blaxploitation films of the 70s (Bucktown and Friday Foster) he avoided those types of roles later in his career.

Predator Might be the Most Masculine Film Ever...

One of the earliest sequences of the 1987 John McTiernan film, Predator, is probably the most testosterone filled of any 80s action movie. Curiously, the intensity of this moment is ramped up through the use of the music of one of the most effete of the 50s rock-n-roll musicians: Little Richard. Long Tall Sally plays throughout the three-minute scene, the entirety of which is red lit - a kind of lighting which is often used in strip bars. There aren't any lingering shots of male bodies here, however, but rather close ups of the men's faces as they prepare to be dropped into the jungle. The camera rests on strong jaws, thick necks, square heads and cleft chins. The men cover their faces with camouflaging war paint. Jesse Ventura's Blaine dips snuff and offers it to his fellow soldiers. They all refuse which prompts him to insult their manhood, calling them "slack jaw faggots." He insists that the tobacco will make them "sexual Tyrannosaurs...like [him]" causing one of the men to suggest that Blaine perform a sexual act on the end of his rifle. After which, Blaine ejects tobacco juice on Dillon's (Carl Weathers) shoe. There is so much tension in this scene....the anxiety of men about to be dropped into a battlefield in which "they are on their own." They are leaving civilization behind and entering a world in which they are alone and are responsible for their own defense. They must protect themselves. So they are getting themselves psyched up for battle and much of that excitement seems to veer toward the sexual. There is a tinge of the homoerotic here, though it is not purposeful. Or rather, a misreading of the sexual energy in this scene could label it as such. Yet I perceive this moment in the film as something unabashedly male and more in the spirit of serious competition as to whom is the most masculine.

This film also focuses on men's spaces--the helicopters, the military offices and all the arenas of war. There are almost no women in it until much later when a Central American woman named Anna (Elpidia Carrillo) is rescued by the soldiers. As much as the film is about men's spaces it is also concerned with men's bodies as these are on full display throughout later scenes. Predator features some of the most immense of the 80s actions stars- Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers,  Jesse Ventura and Sonny Landham. Early on in the movie, Dutch (Schwarzenegger) and Dillon lock sweaty fists and arm wrestle in greeting. Later, in the jungle, these are the men who lead the smaller and weaker men; they are the true alphas. Finally, Dutch is shown to be the ultimate alpha. The only one to survive (along with Anna whom he rescues and protects) after the film transforms from action film to sci-fi/horror when the alien that kills everyone off in spectacular and gruesome fashion is introduced.

Interestingly, it is the return of the music of Little Richard in the latter part of the movie that is used to showcase the spectacular failure of the mission and also the failure of almost all of the men. Mac (Bill Duke) has been seemingly driven mad by the deaths of his fellow soldiers and attempts to kill the predator on his own. While pursuing it, he sings a part of the chorus of Long Tall Sally over and over until it is a chant, as if in an attempt to psych himself up just as the soldiers used the song in the beginning of the film. It is a compelling moment, not just because Duke is a remarkable actor, but because it is the moment that establishes that the destruction of the group that was once so united in strength is real.

It seems that the final message of this film is that only the biggest and manliest man is capable of defeating both worldly and otherworldly menaces. In all, this is a film that celebrates maleness at the same time that it almost eroticizes it. The sexual charge here isn't between men and woman but rather in the competition amongst men. The suggestion isn't that they are attracted to each other but must, at all costs, be bigger and better and tougher and stronger than each other and must at every turn prove that strength.