The celebrated actor John Lithgow famously said that there are distinct phases in the life of a film superstar from the perspective of movie bosses.
The first is – Who is John Lithgow?
The second is – Get me, John Lithgow, now.
The third is – Get me a John Lithgow type
The fourth is – Get me a younger John Lithgow
The final stage is – Who is John Lithgow?
Few stars have been able to survive the test of
time.
Harrison Ford whose next Indiana Jones film is eagerly awaited, Sylvester Stallone who wrote, directed, and starred in the blockbuster Expendables franchise in his mid-60s, and Tom Cruise who starred in the mega-hit Top Gun Maverick, are a few names that still remain relevant.
Clint Eastwood falls in this category not only
because of his on-screen stardom but for his directorial abilities. Eastwood at
the age of 88, starred in and directed The Mule which made grossed $173.6 million,
worldwide, including $103.8 million in the United States and Canada alone.
So what do faded stars do?
Some graduate to playing character parts
in movies, others move to TV. They quite often scale new heights of success because
they are unencumbered by the pressure of stardom or the restrictions of playing
the leading parts.
What do the rest do?
They often resort to desperate tactics to remain
relevant.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is one such former movie star who
fits this ignominious category.
It has been ages since his name alone has caused the box office cash registers to ring.
Arnold's last box office hit was the third installment
of the Terminator franchise called Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003),
that movie made over $400 million worldwide. The only hit before
Terminator 3, was True Lies which made $365 million worldwide and was released
almost a decade ago in 1994.
In recent times his attempt to revive his stardom
with rehashes of the Terminator films has failed. The rest of his films don’t find a wide theatrical release, they often are released digitally.
So how does Arnold attempt to keep himself relevant?
Through his once famous one lines.
No matter what the occasion, he always manages to mouth
his once-famous one-liners.
He does it on the late-night 'comedy' shows, yelling ‘I’ll be back' or ‘Get to the chopper’ or using the word ‘terminate’ without reason.
There are laughs, from people who are probably laughing at him and his desperation.
The one-liners enabled him a political career.
Mouthing one-liners is all he did during his
campaigns for governor and his public addresses a governor. Some people conflated it with
his ability to govern. Some experts say, Arnold's misgovernance began the decline of California.
Recently Schwarzenegger visited the camp with the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, which recently awarded him with the inaugural Award for ‘Fighting Hatred’.
On Wednesday, September 28th, Schwarzenegger visited the camp in Poland, with the museum’s official Twitter account sharing his guestbook inscription on Twitter.
He had opted to write “I’ll be back”, his famous
catchphrase from Terminator movies.
https://twitter.com/AuschwitzMuseum/status/1575078409826631681
The Auschwitz memorial officials clarified that Arnold was merely
promising to return for another and more in-depth visit.
https://twitter.com/AuschwitzMuseum/status/1575091269420085248
Schwarzenegger could have penned a line pledging a
commitment to fight antisemitism.
If he wanted to keep it terse, he could have written
‘Never Again’.
But he just couldn’t help it.
The fading star was desperate to regain some luster, it
was in very poor taste to do it at the cost of Holocaust survivors.
Arnold even chose to exploit the Capitol protests
that went overboard in January 2021.
Schwarzenegger compared the protests to
Kristallnacht, the night in
November 1938 when Nazi thugs attacked Jewish Germans and their
property, a harbinger of horrors to come.
Schwarzenegger shamelessly pushed the insurrection narrative that President Trump sought to overturn the results of an election with a coup.
He once also used the occasion to promote himself.
He also compared American democracy to a weapon he
wielded onscreen in the loincloth of Conan the Barbarian nearly 40 years ago,
saying: “Our democracy is like the steel of this sword. The more it is
tempered, the stronger it becomes.”
Schwarzenegger even picked up a sword that he wielded in the Conan movies and compared it the Democracy in America.
“The more you pound it with a hammer and then heat
it in the fire, and then thrust it into the cold water and then pound it again
… the more often you do that, the stronger it becomes.”
Schwarzenegger has previously clashed with Trump during his presidency.
When Schwarzenegger took over from Trump to host The
Apprentice, it turned out to be a rating disaster, consequently, it was
canceled in one season. Like most
liberals, Arnold didn’t take the blame for his failure, he conveniently
blamed Trump.
Despite his claims that he was doing it in defense
of Democracy in America, he was doing it because of his petty personal animosity toward President Trump and his urge for self-publicity.
If Arnold really cares for American Democracy he
would have raised his voice against Biden who is using the FBI to persecute his
political adversaries and even set up a Disinformation board to sit in judgment
of the utterances of citizens.
But he didn't because he is hoping to maintain relevance by siding with the liberal establishment.
Ironically the same liberal
establishment called him a
Nazi sympathizer when he ran for Governor in 2004 because he ran as a
Republican. Today he is their useful idiot. He craves relevance and they
want a way to hurt Trump.
Also appears on American Thinker
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