Plastic: Gov. Schwarzenegger Evolving Into Caricature Of A Caricature

Plastic: Gov. Schwarzenegger Evolving Into Caricature Of A Caricature

I think this is great. Saturday Night Live comes up with characters based on Arnold Shwarzenegger's public persona (a media construct). Now, more than 10 years later, Arnold uses the phrase "girlie-men," which originated in the Hans and Franz skits, in his official capacity as governor (Another public persona. You know, serious, republican Arnold). Arnold-The-Gov has now co-opted this phrase; he's subsumed this element of a parody of Arnold-The-Actor into his new self. Neither of these are Arnold himself by the way. So, what we have here is a four-fold removal from Shwarzenegger himself:

1. Arnold-the-actor. From Conan, Predator, The Running Man, &c.
2. Parody of Arnold-the-actor. They're here to pump you up.
3. Arnold-the-governor. Since he's supposed to save CA from the budget crisis, this is related to point 1.
4. Arnold-the-governor's use of parody catch phrase.

I think I need a Venn diagram instead of a list. Ouch.

And a bunch of people got offended, which isn't very interesting.