Obituary: Arnold Schwarzenegger 1984---2001

It is with deep regret that we announce the passing of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career as a major movie star. He succumbed after a lengthy and apparently congenital illness that also killed many close relatives. Schwarzenegger was predeceased by his fraternal twin Sylvester Stallone, cousin Chuck Norris and nephew Jean-Claude Van Damme. (His cousin Steven Seagal is still in a coma but apparently reviving.)
Arnold will be sadly missed and lovingly remembered by his agent.
The most immediate symptom of his impending career-failure was the decision of Warner Bros. to release Collateral Damage in October, thus abandoning any pretense of it being a potential big-money earner for them. At the peak of his health, Schwarzenegger dominated the traditional blockbuster month of June like a colossus, when often no rival studio would dare release a movie against him. Observers have since noted ominously that he hasn’t had a lead role in a summer blockbuster since 1996.
Long-term cause of death was likely Hollywood’s tendency of late to star real actors in big-ticket action movies (see: Face Off, The Matrix, Mission Impossible et al); the passing from fashion of the Mr. Olympia physique and the emergence of the Brad Pitt look; and viewers noticing that as a 50+ survivor of bypass surgery Schwarzenegger lacked credibility as an action hero. Some journals have floated the unkind theory that later in his career people were finally able to understand his dialogue, which hastened his decline. (This has yet to be confirmed in a peer-reviewed publication.)
A consensus appears to be emerging that it was simply bound to happen sooner or later: The birth of his career as a superstar was largely a biological accident; a tendency at beginning of the 80’s for filmmakers to cast kickboxers and athletes as action stars. Being an abnormality, this cinematic plague tends to be self-limiting: it comes in cycles, builds momentum and then kills off its food supply---in this case audiences composed of cement-headed grunts and people losing date-movie coin-tosses.
Beginning in 1970’s Hercules Goes Bananas (as ‘Arnold Strong’), Schwarzenegger’s career moved in fits and false starts until career physician James Cameron’s epochal decision to cast him as a machine in 1984’s The Terminator. Finding the persona most within his reach launched him into superstardom, where for many years he was Hollywood’s highest-paid performer, whose movie budgets regularly set records.
Yet, rumors of cinematic ill-health had been spreading for several years and the broadening of his taste in roles has hurt his appeal, once stated succinctly by the late Jay Scott: “He can do nothing. Therefore he can do anything.” Cinematic infibrilation is planned to attempt a career restart (Terminator 3) but the absence of Dr. Cameron from the project will limit its effectiveness. Resuscitation seems unlikely.
Funeral arrangements are by Planet Hollywood. Pallbearers will be Bruce Willis, John Travolta, Chow Yun-Fat, Sigourney Weaver, Keanau Reeves and Nicolas Cage. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the 2002 Governor’s Campaign of the Republican Party of California.

-Published in Flare, 2001