On occasion I find myself in some kind of superficial sense of malaise. I look around and see nothing that catches my interest. Modern popular music may as well not exist, and if Hollywood stopped producing movies and TV shows, I could not care less. On a similar note, I have hardly read any novels that were released within the last twenty years, and the few I read, I thoroughly regretted picking up. My view on modern video games is not much better. Their graphics may be the best they have ever been, but games also have never been as faggy and repulsive as they are nowadays. Today’s AAA publishers work overtime to outdo themselves in cramming the ugliest chicks possible into your vidya. Whenever I catch myself having such negative thoughts, which is not that often, I manage to quickly snap out of it, even without the help of meditation. All I need to do is remind myself that the problem is indeed that today’s culture is genuinely rotten to the core. It seems that the ideal consumer is some soy-addled male who dreams about getting cucked by his fat wife. Yet, there was a better time, and it is even within living memory.

I was a wee-little boy in the 1980s, but there was evidence floating around me that there are great movies out there that the adults keep all for themselves. As I entered my teens, I was able to watch some of those movies secretly on VHS. Of course, you can now say that the appeal was that I was watching movies that were made for adults, and that the forbidden had a fascination on me, but I do not think that this is true at all.

One of my favorite movies from the 1980s is Bloodsport. I have probably watched it four our five times. The last time was just a few days ago, as part of my research for this article. Quite frankly, this is still a great movie. Sure, the structure is simple, and within minutes you can probably deduce how the story will unfold. You know right away who the good and bad guys are, because the bad guys are shown to be comically evil, and there are no morally grey areas in this movie. Yet, there is also something very comforting about a movie with a clear structure, just like it is comforting to listen to a symphony or watch classic theater. You take a tried-and-true structure, add a few tropes, and perhaps an element of surprise. Even if the audience does not know the piece, their basic knowledge of the art form allows them to understand it and follow along. Yes, there will be a conflict; yes, the hero needs some kind of motivation, and, yes, there will be a resolution. Oh, and here is a nice piece of ass to look at as you watch the story unfold! This is a basic template for an entertaining action movie. It does not need to be a cerebral exercise. In fact, I use my brain enough all day long, so I am totally fine with watching some roided up meathead blow shit up for 90 minutes.

Below is the intro of Bloodsport, sadly with bad sound quality. It is just two minutes long but it gets you pumped right away. You immediately know what the movie is about, and because you are a man, the athleticism and sense of competition immediately appeal to you. See for yourself:

When I finally began watching 1980s action movies, in the 1990s, I thought that movies were this fantastic medium that was only going to get better and better. In fact, I wondered what the future would hold. What I instead got, was more and more crap. Masculinity disappeared already in the early 1990s because Hollywood thought that you had seen enough athletic males on screen. The first Terminator movie, for instance, is one of the best depictions of raw aggression. You feel a genuine sense of threat when the T-800, played by Schwarzenegger, ruthlessly goes after Sarah Connor. The 1990s sequel, in contrast, was made for a teenage audience, toned down the violence, and amped up the special effects. It was a commercially much more successful movie, but it is a pretty weak sequel.

In the 1980s, the male physique was glorified in movies. Think of Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Van Damme, or Dolph Lundgren! They all had their own style, too. My favorite is Van Damme due to his athleticism but I certainly also appreciate a good Schwarzenegger movie with copious amounts of violence. I think that the 1980s were also the peak of American soft power, which happened because Hollywood gave the people what they wanted instead of trying to brainwash them. The impact those movies had cannot be underestimated. I think that they exerted tremendous influence on the video game industry, for instance. Bloodsport did not just inspire the US-made Mortal Kombat. There are also clear parallels to Street Fighter II and the King of Fighters series, all of which have a story that is quite similar to that movie. More generally, the entire “belt-scrolling” genre, with games like Final Fight being its most well-known example, appears to be the Japanese videogame version of a US 1980s action movie.

The Schwarzenegger movie Conan the Barbarian was even more influential. I did a cursory search on games with a similar aesthetic, and came across Golden Axe (multiple titles), Rastan (multiple titles), Blade Master, The Astyanax, Dungeon and Dragons: Tower of Doom/Shadow over Mystaria. One of those games even allows you to select a character called “Arnold”, making it completely obvious what its inspiration was. This was genuine soft power: release domestic movies people enjoy tremendously, and watch the Japanese copy it in their prime art. Probably Kentarō Miura’s fantastic manga Berserk was inspired by Conan, too.

Physicality and athleticism are innately appealing to healthy men, which is probably why we can no longer have it. In the 1990s, this was all over. In The Last Action Hero, Schwarzenegger is more or less fully clothed, in stark contrast to movies he made just two or three years prior. The title of this movie was probably also a hint by Hollywood to the general public, telling us that Schwarzenegger was the last action hero and that the age of glorifying violence and masculinity on screen is over. I also find it quite peculiar that his sidekick is a pretty unattractive and dumb-looking white boy, but this is probably just a total coincidence.

Probably the most masculine movies of the late 1990s were The Matrix and Fight Club, but in terms of visual impact, they fall far short of the raw masculinity on display when, for instance, Van Damme does a flying roundhouse kick, no matter how revolutionary the special effects in those movies may have been. Neo in The Matrix is not particularly impressive in terms of his physique, and Brad Pitt’s body does not leave you in awe either. Sure, he is thin and sinewy, but he does not look imposing at all. In the 2000s, things really went to shit. We got superhero movies full of special effects that may provide a visual spectacle, but otherwise don’t really move you. This is genuinely shallow entertainment, but it is still better than the mass-promotion of homosexuality. You were supposed to flock to the cinema to watch gay cowboys on screen in Brokeback Mountain, and you had to pretend that you were deeply moved by it. I did not watch this movie, but I had virtue-signally friends back then who were a bit taken aback when I told them I had no interest in watching it.

My interest in movies is very low these days. It is incredibly rare that I find any movie even remotely interesting, and even the better ones leave a bad taste in my mouth, like the lauded Top Gun: Maverick, which is chock-full of diversity and has Tom Cruise’s character go after a chick in her late 50s. This is bullshit at a level you cannot believe. In contrast, in a good 1980s movie you get a buff male lead and a prime-caliber slut as eye-candy who may say only a few lines, e.g. Brigitte Nielsen in Cobra, that super-hot gym thot in Total Recall, the sexy female reporter in Bloodsport, or Linda Hamilton in The Terminator.

There are also societal consequences of the constant degradation of men, as opposed to the glorification of yesteryear. Surely, we would have a lot fewer boys who are unsure about their “gender” if they were exposed to examples of paramount athleticism or could compete in something. Instead, they get a golden star for attendance, like everybody else, and pumped full of Ritalin if they cannot sit still for eight hours a day.

Do you recall Zyzz? This guy had an absolutely spectacular physique, but his roiding also led to his early death. If the 1980s cultural mindset had lived on, this guy would likely have been made into a Hollywood star. Just like Schwarzenegger boned Brigitte Nielsen on the set, in this parallel universe Zyzz would have been given some prime-caliber Instagram thots for his personal entertainment. Instead, the most he achieved with his physique was banging random sluts at rave parties and dying of a heart attack. I am completely serious when I say that Zyzz could have been a movie star in the 1980s, by the way. Dolph Lundgren had essentially the same career: He used to be a high-flying student, going to the US on a selective scholarship. Then he started working as a bouncer to make some extra money, ended up banging some actress, and before he knew it, he was hanging out with Hollywood stars and getting starring roles in action movies.

I am not sure whether it is much a stretch to say that Zyzz died because modern society hates masculinity. Probably not. In any case, countless men die spiritual deaths as all they know are horrible present-day Hollywood movies and video games full of degenerates. If this has also been your diet, go watch some great 1980s movies instead! Conan the Barbarian probably undoes half a year of mainstream indoctrination. These movies will make you feel better.