Cobra: Action Film as Conservative Propaganda

The 1986 Sylvester Stallone film, Cobra is essentially one hour and thirty minutes of pro Reagan conservative era propaganda. Reagan's photo is even featured prominently in one of the scenes.  The narrative follows thusly: L.A. has descended into a nightmarish haven for lawlessness and corruption, a place where crime goes unpunished because lawyers work to get criminals off and back on the streets. Stallone plays the titular character, a cop who has reached his limit as far as this is concerned. Though he is a police officer, he is seemingly above the law. He even states in the film's conclusion that "this is where the law stops and I start." Cobra's attitude is vital given that there is a gang terrorizing L.A. This gang is headed by a hulking man called the Night Stalker (Brian Thompson). Their primary activities are killing people and then later meeting in abandoned warehouses to beat axes and shovels together while chanting about the New World order. The members of this gang are very aware that the scales of justice are tipped in their favor. However, they make a major error when a women named Ingrid (Brigitte Nielsen) witnesses one of their murders, escapes and ends up in protective custody. Cobra is the cop who is protecting her and, as mentioned before, he gives zero fucks about the law.

Like Commando, this is a film about a modern-day knight. Ingrid, a statuesque model, is the damsel-in-distress. Cobra becomes her nurturer and protector, although in a somewhat unknightly manner, he does end up becoming sexually involved with her. The scenes preceding their introduction feature some of the most aggressively 80s moments ever captured on film. Ingrid is modeling in sparkly, spangled 80s clothing while a synth-heavy soundtrack plays. Her posing is interrupted by a montage of the gang chanting and committing criminal monstrosities. This montage is vital too, not just from a stylistic standpoint, but because it reveals a very specific vision of L.A. In this blending of imagery the glamour and corruption of the city becomes obvious. Since glamour itself is often false or illusory the suggestion is that the corruption shown represents the real L.A.

Too much man?

Cobra is one of the few 80s films in which great size and muscularity are conflated with corruption and evil. When Ingrid sees the Night Stalker standing in the street, with his arms at his side and chest heaving, she is instantly terrified. Thompson, in this role, looks almost like a Cro-Magnon man, his jaw is heavily pronounced and he seems to have a surplus of testosterone which contributes to his bestial appearance. Compared to Thompson, the well-muscled Stallone appears rather small. The suggestion might be that there is a delicate balance of masculinity. Cobra possesses the right amount which makes him courageous and nurturing, whereas the Night Stalker's is in overdrive, which leads to violence and insanity. Cobra, too, seems to represent an old-fashioned kind of masculinity. He drives a 1950 Mercury and even on his day off he keeps the neighborhood toughs in line. Specifically, he roughs up some members of an Hispanic gang who have been hassling him and encourages them to "clean up their act."

The final scene in Cobra occurs where seemingly all 80s films have their dramatic conclusion, in a warehouse that is curiously empty, but is, at the same time, active and with working machinery. The Night Stalker and Cobra battle it out, Ingrid cowers in the corner in terror at the display of aggressive and violent manliness. Cobra kills the Night Stalker by hoisting him into the air and depositing him onto a large hook which then carries him away writhing and screaming into the fire of the warehouse?, foundry?.  Impalement is used in this film, too, as a necessary method for the destruction of the villain. Once the Night Stalker is gone, Ingrid and Cobra embrace and they ride off on Cobra's motorcycle. Cobra has restored order and a normal, regular masculinity holds sway.

Cobra presents all criminals as hopelessly corrupt and unable to be rehabilitated. Cobra and other police officers must be tough and merciless to defeat all the forces working against them, specifically the law and, as presented in the film, a biased and liberal media. The early image of the photograph of Reagan presiding over the police office is telling. President Reagan was notoriously tough on crime and enacted legislation called the "Comprehensive Crime Control Act" which led to tougher sentencing of criminals. He also appointed conservative judges and created the "War on Drugs." The legislation he created made it tougher for those who broke the law to be paroled. Cobra seemingly attempts to focus on the battle between liberal and conservative values as far as controlling crime is concerned, while clearly supporting a conservative agenda. In this film, the criminals are shown as very aware of their rights under the law, often taunting the cops by asserting that an arrest is meaningless. In a way, Cobra is incredibly contradictory--it can't seem to decide if criminality and liberalism are overtaking the land or if upright and conservative values are dominant. Most likely, it is a film about the process of a conservative clean up of a corrupt world.


Source:
Slate.com "No Mercy: Ronald Reagan's Tough Legal Legacy."

Gazing at Big Men: Objectification in the 80s

The most striking change in the films of the 1980s versus the 1970s was not the wardrobe of the actors/characters, but rather their physical appearance. As if to mirror the excesses of the decade, the 80s action star was swollen, buff, massive, almost cartoonish in appearance. In films such as Predator, Commando and Rambo the camera lingers over the muscular physiques of Schwarzenegger and Stallone. The camera objectifies, regardless of whether the subject is male or female, though much has been made of female objectification in film. The difference, here, is the way men on screen get to perform their objectification.  Critic Laura Mulvey refers to a kind of "looking [that is located] solely in relation to activity/passivity," specifically, that men "look" and women are the "object of the look." This is largely true and is a legacy of the patriarchy and certainly film has been a reflection of that, but an examination of any action film of the 80s turns that point upside down.

This, too, is what makes these films so unique. While they are performing and upholding a conservative Reagan era agenda, they also seem to be playing with these ideals, poking fun at them. Schwarzenegger, despite his Austrian origin, is American might writ large. In Commando, he carries trees that he felled himself on his shoulder like a modern day Paul Bunyan; later he rips seats out of cars, phone booths out of walls. In Predator, he wins a punching match with a seven foot alien.  This sort of strength is ridiculous, it's impossible. Attached to this strength is a kind of joviality. Schwarzenegger never loses his sense of humor, even when he kills. This seems in some way to be an intentional or unintentional jab at American wholesomeness--the American belief in the over-arching goodness in all that is American, no matter what is done in the name of patriotism and to whom.

More importantly, there is something almost silly about the kind of hyper-masculinity displayed in these films, and, I'd argue, these movies are, to use a Terminator 2 term, "self-aware" of their over-the-top aspects. Manliness is being celebrated in these films, but it is also being fetishized. These bodies are being used, to beat and bludgeon, yes, but they are still performing objects. Critic Steve Neale focuses on this idea in his essay "Masculinity as Spectacle: Reflections on Men in Mainstream Cinema," he asserts that these films treat "images of men" in three ways, by "identification, voyeuristic looking and fetishistic looking." Furthermore, he perceives that there are "erotic elements involved in the relations between the spectator and the male image [that must] be constantly...repressed and disavowed...[else] mainstream cinema would have to openly come to terms with male homosexuality." With this last point, I disagree. I think that the 80s film is so concerned with showcasing the right (in the conservative sense) kind of masculinity that the point is that the male viewer is to watch and admire these bodies and to aspire to become strong and brave in the same way. The characters are presented as courageous and tough- they are the ideal male.  In most of these films, they are so busy killing there is no time for sex. If anything, they seem asexual. This isn't to deny that some viewers may watch and get aroused by the characters, but that isn't the point. The bodies on display in the films are for use solely for their strength; they are essentially big machines.

These are purely physical beings, not mental. They don't have rich interior lives- they act, they react and that's it. This seems to be very similar to the way in which women are objectified--except these male bodies are used for strength, not sex and while they aren't always portrayed as particularly bright, they are still powerful.

Sources:
Mulvey, Laura. (1975). "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" & "Afterthoughts...Inspired by Duel in the Sun." (1981).

Neale, Steve.  "Masculinity as Spectacle."