The Running Man, a 1987 sci-fi action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is having a brief resurgence of relevance this year—though not in the way its stars and writers ever really envisioned.The film is replete with all the cheesy 80s music and smug, action-hero one liners that one might expect from a Schwarzenegger flick (yes, he even drops an "I'll be back"). But the movie about a dystopian America pacified by a deadly reality show in the then-futuristic year of 2017 is still incredibly unsettling to watch on the eve of President Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017.
In this post-apocalyptic future, a huge class divide is maintained by military rule—the elite live in fancy, militarized high rises in Los Angeles while the poor are relegated to massive slums on the outskirts of the city, where they are slaughtered indiscriminately by the military. It's tough not to see some parallels here to the real-life economic disparities, gentrification, and near-record high income gap in the United States today."Everyday this year, I turn around there's another example of how stuff in the movie is coming true. I just want to say, it's not my fault."
Wow, the ratings are in and Arnold Schwarzenegger got
Donald J. TrumpJanuary 6, 2017
being a movie star-and that was season 1 compared to season 14. Now compare him to my season 1. But who cares, he supported Kasich & Hillary
Donald J. TrumpJanuary 6, 2017
There's nothing more important than the people's work, ArnoldJanuary 6, 2017
In the film, Killian controls the destitute masses of America by concocting lies that suit his narrative, twisting reality to fit the demands of television ratings. In a particularly telling scene, Killian admits that it was all about the money, justifying himself by saying he was only giving the American people what they wanted—violence, action, spectacle.Endless lies were something we'd all become familiar with over the course of the most recent election cycle, but ultimately the winning candidate was the one that knew how to turn American politics into a high stakes reality show in its own right. And so Americans are left with a situation that, at least on the surface, resembles the future as seen through The Running Man a little too closely for comfort: a populace enraptured by the mass media spectacles orchestrated by a game show host that has the power to decide between life and death.I wish you the best of luck and I hope you'll work for ALL of the American people as aggressively as you worked for your ratings.
ArnoldJanuary 6, 2017
For all its bleakness, The Running Man ultimately ends on a relatively positive note. Although America remains in tatters economically, if Schwarzenegger teaches us anything over the course of an hour and a half of gratuitous violence, it's that the dogged pursuit of truth in the face of tyranny is worth it.Yet for screenwriter de Souza, that doesn't necessarily mean a happy ending in real life. "The biggest downer of this movie is the idea that when the video tape surfaces showing that Killian has lied, everyone is instantly outraged and rises up," de Souza said. "Apparently, it doesn't work that way. We've heard the tapes and seen the tapes, and it's had no effect. In real life, everyone goes right back to Facebook."Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day by signing up for our newsletter."In real life, everyone goes right back to Facebook."