By the way, Arnold was far from the first to introduce our sport to a multimillion-dollar global film audience. Before him, Steve Reeves starred in films a lot. Arnold’s success is, rather, the success of the action genre, which was just gaining momentum and, as a novelty, attracted everyone’s attention.
At the same time, Hollywood became stronger and became a transnational concern. If previously Hollywood showed its films only in America and rather unsuccessfully tried to sell its products to other countries, now it has acquired its own global cinema network. American films were shown abroad without asking anyone. This was called a triumph of free competition, but in reality it was about the expansion of big money. European national film studios were poor and therefore lost.
As a result, American cinema began to dominate, and its actors acquired worldwide fame and corresponding fees. Why am I saying this? The action genre has firmly linked muscle with violence. And this became the tragedy of bodybuilding. Strangers flocked to us, often with a sick psyche. They dreamed of dominating and humiliating, and did not care about the high philosophy of our sport. What happened to us is what has already happened in karate. It was turned into a primitive technology of massacre, completely expelling the original spirituality and all ideological ideas. The worship of the masters is over. From now on, the craftsmen were paid, and they gratefully accepted handouts.
We received our first alarming call from England. The ugly spirit of violence promoted by cinema attracted new spectators to the tournaments. Well, the judges followed his lead. British athletes, built in the spirit of Hellenic proportions, left the sport one by one. The public demanded something else: masses! She wanted to see a new hero on the podium, or rather, a revived idol from action films. A kind of all-destroying cyborg, towering above ordinary people and morality. Huge, pumped-up athletes aroused great admiration, even at the expense of aesthetic standards. Steroid use has become rampant. Bodybuilding was gripped by an epidemic of madness, provoked by the fall of film morals.
The transformation of Hollywood into a transnational corporation finally turned cinema into a business. The vast empire could only be managed by managers, and they began to direct the filmmaking process according to the principle of profitability. From now on, films were made about what occupied the subconscious of millions: sex, violence and death.
Bodybuilding was suffocating in this pernicious atmosphere. Tournaments have turned into fights between monsters of the masses.
The larger the athlete, the greater his chance of winning. Great athletes of striking beauty but small size, Frank Benfato , Rich Caspary , Shawn Ray , Robbie Robinson and others, immediately slipped to the bottom of the standings. They came to me to seek the truth, but what could I oppose to a world gone mad?
And now I received shocking news from Russia: the Russians have proven THAT bodybuilding is a type of mental disorder. The arguments are serious. Bodybuilders are as poor as church mice because they are unable to get an education or a decent profession. Their income consists of selling steroids to each other. They don’t think about any aesthetics of proportions.
They dream of a mass that will make them bigger, and that’s all. They are bad husbands and fathers, and more often they are lonely, because they are painfully fixated on training. They are slaves to training, just like drug addicts are slaves to drugs, and alcoholics are slaves to alcohol.
So be it. I don’t dare argue with science. However, I think that the melon diagnosis should rather be given to the world. Bodybuilding is just part of it.
Joe Weider
