Schwarzenegger and the Sci-Fi Flick

The 1990 movie Total Recall starring Arnold Schwarzenegger is ridiculously and hilariously awesome. In reading Judith Hess Wright's "Genre Films and the Status Quo," I noticed that almost every aspect of the typical Sci-Fi genre film fits Total Recall. The movie, in it's ridiculousness, includes a woman with three breasts, deformed midgets, and a human colony on Mars enclosed with--you guessed it--the inevitable glass dome. The "governator" of fame certainly upholds his reputation in this film: the unmistakable accent, the constant fighting, and the brawn are all manifested in Total Recall.

Wright explains that three characteristics always surface in the typical genre film. According to Wright, "these films never deal directly with present social and political problems; second, all of them are set in the nonpresent" (41-42). Total Recall certainly does not address any societal issues--except the 1990s-ish fear of the "outsider" (i.e. Communists) which probably spurred the production of the film. The movie also takes place far in the future, during a time in which automated taxis and (freight box sized?) computers dominate the cities. Wright continues: "Third, the society in which the action takes place is very simple and does not function as a dramatic force in the films--it exists as a backdrop against which the few actors work out the central problem the film presents" (42). Although the film takes place in a modern US city and a supposed human colony on Mars, most of the film concentrates on the battle between good and evil and the subsequent fight scenes--not on a complex "new world."

Wright begins to conclude the article with another important aspect of the Sci-Fi flick: "The science fiction film...may be seen as a dramatization of those fears and desires aroused by the cold war...Confronted by 'the other,' according to these films, there is only one possible response. We must use every scientific means at our disposal to destroy the invader" (46). In the film, Schwarzenegger certainly uses any means of scientific technology to destroy his nemesis. From blowing up the glass domed Mars colony to miraculously supplying Mars with oxygen with a monstrous and metal fan-type device, Schwarzenegger runs wild in Total Recall. Instead of the endless and ridiculously unrealistic fight scenes that dominate the movie, it's really too bad we don't see the woman with multiple breasts longer than two minutes.