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It is worth pointing out at this point that the display of the male body in cinema is not new, with the Tarzan movies and gladiatorial epics like 'Spartacus' and 'Ben Hur' being obvious examples, but these movies did not have the huge appeal and success of the eighties action films, nor did they match their excessiveness. This then raises the question of why was it during the eighties that the male body became the object of attention (and anxiety) in a way that had previously been preserved for women?

The beginning of the eighties was a confusing time for men. On the one hand we were celebrating the power of the individual to succeed on his own through ruthless determination and initiative, and on the other hand, increasing numbers of women in the workplace - particularly in positions of power -

served to undermine man's sense of his own natural authority. In America particularly, the massive 'failure' of American men in the Vietnam war can have only confounded this problem further. More than ever before, the eighties were a time when men needed to be reassured that their masculinity was not under threat, whilst all around them were reminders of their own inherent weaknesses. What they needed was a role model whose power could not be undermined by either women or intellect. And so when a relatively small, low budget film was released in 1982, featuring a very primitive looking hunk with no social skills whatsoever, who is hunted like an animal and persecuted for being a little to macho for his own good, but gets to let out a lot of aggression before finally giving himself up, men were enthralled. 'First Blood', the first of the Rambo films, was an enormous success, and a new kind of action hero was born.

Whilst Stallone found fame playing Rambo and Rocky with a serious, surly edge, Schwarzenegger carved a niche for himself playing a more caricatured action hero, an altogether more triumphant, resilient and invincible vision of idealized man.

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