LONDON, 26 August 2004 — So physical is the image of Arnold Schwarzenegger that it’s easy to forget how inextricably the Schwarzenegger phenomenon is bound up with dreams. From the earliest age, Schwarzenegger dreamed of transcending his humdrum Austrian background and bestriding the world. There was nothing accidental about his emergence as the prince of body-builders, a prodigy of musculature who subsequently became a Hollywood mega-star. Nor is there anything accidental about his latest incarnation as a leading US Republican.
Thanks to the Terminator movies, Schwarzenegger occupies a special niche in the contemporary imagination. The congenital fantasist has become an object of mass fantasy. Self-consciously embodying the American Dream, Schwarzenegger has projected himself not just as the man who can accomplish anything but also as the personification of a nation that can accomplish anything. But is he capable of realizing what is plainly his ultimate dream and becoming president of the United States? Can he overcome the seemingly insuperable problem that the American Constitution bars the foreign-born from standing for the presidency?
Governor of California he may now be, but Arnold Schwarzenegger is as much an anthropological as a political phenomenon: The line separating man and myth has practically vanished. Michael Blitz and Louise Krasniewicz are a pair of American anthropologists who have been paying critical attention to Schwarzenegger for many years. Their book, Why Arnold Matters: The Rise of a Cultural Icon, might equally well have been entitled Dreaming of Arnold Schwarzenegger, for both authors confess to having often dreamed about their subject. Blitz and Kransniewicz believe that to ponder the significance of Schwarzenegger is also to probe the significance of present-day America. With an encyclopedic database at their disposal, they are in no doubt that Schwarzenegger has become the most instantly and universally recognizable of all American icons. Yet if what he stands for inspires fascination with American culture, it inspires fear of it too. In his guise as an unstoppable cyborg, Schwarzenegger can seem like the epitome of all that is most menacing about the US. The German newspaper Der Spiegel dubbed America the “Schwarzenegger of international politics: Showing off muscles, intrusive, intimidating”.
Why Arnold Matters portrays Schwarzenegger as a constellation of “activity, philosophy and influence”, as an idea that can be used both to sell products and to sell and re-sell Schwarzenegger himself. The book brims with examples of how Schwarzenegger is endlessly (and innocently) invoked in American everyday speech: A Sesame Street fan calls Herry Monster the “Arnold Schwarzenegger of the Muppet world, very strong and proud of his strength but not boastful”; a Nappa Valley wine is named the “Schwarzenegger of Chardonnays, muscular yet balanced”; a llama is described as the “Arnold Schwarzenegger of llamas” with a “fantastically athletic body yet very gentle personality”. Blitz and Kransniewicz wonder who else is susceptible to so many figurative applications: Schwarzenegger himself, they joke, has become the “Arnold Schwarzenegger of metaphors”. The result of all this is that Schwarzenegger has acquired a curious kind of immunity. As a cozily domesticated American totem, he remains unscathed by what might otherwise have proved lethal criticisms. Consider how easily he lived down the revelation that his father belonged to the Nazi Party — to say nothing of the charges of abusing women he faced while campaigning for the California governorship.
Yet far from being innocuous, the cult of Schwarzenegger has helped to narrow the ways Americans see the world. It is, in short, an aspect of US narcissism, of a culture so engrossed by its own self-gratifying fantasies as to be largely blind to the impression it makes on the rest of humanity. What after all does it say about the American psyche that its richest state has chosen as leader an actor who is a byword for the exercise of brute force? The implication is of confused people desperately seeking simple — and possibly sinister — solutions. One commentator wrote that Schwarzenegger’s emergence as the “Governator” signaled that for many Californians the “chaos of a multicultural world is unacceptable and that order and safety can only be restored with the discipline that a strong hand can bring”.
Allegedly, a movie has been projected in which Schwarzenegger becomes a Christian crusader, slaughtering hordes of infidels as he carries Christ’s crucifixion cross back to Rome. It seems doubtful, though, if any such film will ever be made. If his lust for power is only too obvious, so is Schwarzenegger’s canniness. Declining to be too conspicuously associated with George Bush’s campaign for re-election, he is currently making much of his commitment to “bipartisanship” — a stance lent credibility by his marriage to a prominent member of the Kennedy Democratic dynasty, Maria Shriver. He is also demonstrating how well he has grasped the importance of mixing politics with histrionics. In Los Angeles last April, travel industry representatives waiting to be addressed by him were treated to a brief Schwarzenegger bio-pic. As it ended, a spotlight revealed a Terminator-figure astride a motorcycle at the back of the auditorium. Revving up the machine, the figure road the bike onto the stage, dismounted and intoned the famous words: “I told you. I’ll be back”. It was now, amid tumultuous applause, that the real Schwarzenegger manifested himself. Thanking the assemblage for changing the constitution of the United States of America, he said he accepted their nomination to run for president, and then paused. “Oh, sorry”, he quipped. “Wrong delegation. Sorry, wrong speech”. The late Ronald Reagan disguised the cynical realpolitik of his presidency by playing the jovial showman. His example has not been lost on Arnold Schwarzenegger.
