The Intertextual Terminator: The Role of Film in Branding “Arnold Schwarzenegger”

Abstract

Film has clearly been Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most powerful promotional tool. Given how he wielded his action hero personas during the 2003 recall election from which he emerged Governor of California, an examination of his construction in film is both warranted and necessary. In this paper, I trace the development of his celebrity through a selection of his films between 1970 and 2003 and show that his image went through three major transitions from: a) initially being depicted as a foreigner and alien “other” in the 1970s to b) an American and icon of muscular masculinity in Hollywood action films of the mid to later 1980s and c) to a “New Age Guy” and family man through his movement into comedy and family themed films in the 1990s and 200s. My analysis highlights the powerful role that discourses about masculinity, whiteness and American nationhood played in supporting Schwarzenegger's constructions as a “body of governance” and in particular, his construction as a leader.