In orbit with Arnie

The Guardian, 26 June, 2004

Review: Why Arnold Matters: The Rise of a Cultural Icon by Michael Blitz and Louise Krasniewicz, Basic Books

After Arnold Schwarzenegger’s election victory in California, no one wants to be caught under-estimating the power of celebrity. But there’s a danger of over-estimating it, and of over-simplifying it, too.

Why Arnold Matters purports to explore “the constellation called Arnold Schwarzenegger – a constellation of activity, philosophy, iconography, and influence”. The authors surf through the virtual universe, awestruck by the immensity of this “constellation”, perpetually astonished at finding references to Schwarzenegger or his movies cropping up wherever they look. Though disquieted by the protean phenomenon they’re observing, they can’t stop gawping at it. “How do we talk about this without being mystical?” asks Louise Krasniewicz. “There is a kind of magic going on here,” agrees Michael Blitz.

The authors hail from academia, but in entering the palace of popular culture, they appear to have checked their analytic rigour at the door. Page after page is littered with hyperbole. “American culture has invited Arnold to reach into almost every sector of our society”; “In America today, the construction of identity has an undeniable dependence on the metaphors that we generate using Arnold Schwarzenegger”; “He lives inside each of us every day and all the time”; “Every time someone says ‘Hasta la vista, baby’ or ‘I’ll be back’ he or she is both echoing and reinforcing Arnold’s uniquely influential sculpting of the language.”

In documenting “Arnold’s remarkable omnipresence in the culture”, the authors make no attempt to weigh sources or to assess depth and resonance; all that’s done is to register “presence”. An advertising slogan, a chat-show joke, a bad pun in an academic treatise, an election result – no distinctions are drawn and no real connections are forged. Much of the book reads as though it was compiled by an undiscriminating search engine. Type in “Arnold” and see what comes up. No comparisons. No context. No history. Just the ever-expanding constellation.

After cataloguing dozens of examples of people declaring that “So-and-so is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of such-and-such” they conclude that this coinage is ubiquitous because “[Arnold] himself is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of metaphors”. They don’t consider the possibility that so many writers resort to “Arnold” as a metaphor for bigness or domination mainly because they can’t be bothered (and aren’t encouraged) to think up anything fresher. Gazing in wonder at our daily discourse, the authors routinely mistake clichés for portentous signifiers.

Although Blitz and Krasniewicz claim there’s a global fascination with Schwarzenegger, the lens through which they view him remains a narrowly American one. Arnold, they tell us, is “the American essence”, “our premier cultural prototype” and “the essence of the American dream”. They find Schwarzenegger’s version of that dream disturbing. His “model of fitness” is “consistent with the all-American view of the value of the big, strong, non-disruptive, centrist, very white, very male, very heterosexual citizen” – a view they consider a sad falling off from “the original concept of the American dream”. But as with much American criticism of American popular culture, there’s an America-shaped hole at the heart of the analysis.

For the authors, the California election was a “wrestling ring, a pseudo-drama” in which, inevitably, the bigger metaphor wins. “For that moment in history, America was Arnold and Arnold was America.” But they make little effort to examine that moment, its background or its likely consequences. “There are no politics in the sense that political scientists would recognise.” Indeed, “politics as usual was now targeted for termination”. That was certainly how Schwarzenegger and his backers wanted voters to view the contest, but in fact “politics as usual” was anything but absent from California’s extraordinary gubernatorial race.

Schwarzenegger has been a committed Republican and free marketeer since the days of Richard Nixon. It was precisely because of that political record that he proved a suitable candidate for the interests that backed his campaign to the tune of $26m – real estate developers, agri-business, corporate executives, industry associations. These interests have moulded politics in California for generations. They were behind the seminal suburban tax revolt of the 1970s, a model for the tax-cutting, government-bashing, rich man’s populism that Schwarzenegger deployed so successfully.

The authors of Why Arnold Matters paint a picture of a public culture entirely overwhelmed by the phenomenon that is Arnold, but a closer look at the election reveals division, resistance and contradiction. Only 17% of black voters backed Schwarzenegger and only 31% of Hispanics. The authors declare airily that “no one was really longing for Arnold to say anything concrete about any issue” – but 63% of voters told exit pollsters that Schwarzenegger “did not address the issues in enough detail”; 47% did not think that California could solve its budget crisis without raising taxes (which was what Schwarzenegger implied he could do); 44% had an “unfavourable opinion” of him; and while 53% of voters with household incomes of between $75,000 and $100,000 supported Schwarzenegger, he was backed by only 35% of those with household incomes between $15,000 and $30,000. His 3.7 million voters represented an impressive 49% of a relatively high turnout, but they are only 27% of the state’s registered voters, 17% of its eligible voters and 14% of its voting-age population.

As governor, Schwarzenegger has pursued precisely the policies to be expected of a big-business Republican. He’s cut back a driver’s licence tax while seeking reductions in social programmes. His answer to the state’s energy crisis is another dose of the deregulation that caused the system’s collapse in 2001. And he’s taken a stand against gay marriage.

The California election displayed a volatile mix of political and social polarisation with mass disaffection – features that now seem to characterise US politics as a whole. Yes, Schwarzenegger’s victory demonstrated the power of celebrity, but it did so in the specific context of a revolt against incumbency of global dimensions (see, for example, the recent Indian elections). This revolt takes both left and right populist forms, and sometimes both at once (which, I suspect, is why celebrities make useful lightning rods for it). It is now commonplace for wealthy and powerful individuals to seek votes as outsiders, as challengers of a corrupt political establishment. Here Schwarzenegger was following a well-beaten path.

By dissolving politics into popular culture, by treating the former as an extension of the latter, the authors of this book discard the tools necessary to illuminate their complex relationship. Worse yet, they obscure the realities of power. Schwarzenegger the human being, the actor and the politician are all rendered invisible by Arnold the free-floating metaphor. Blitz and Krasniewicz warn the literal-minded that “it may be a mistake to try to distinguish ‘real’ life from Arnold’s life ‘in the movies’”. As time passes, I suspect more Californians will come to disagree with them on that.