When the Wall fell, popular culture rose to a new level of social relevance. Wind of Change? More like a tsunami! The Nineties washed over the increasingly globalized media landscape in a tidal wave of catchy tunes, cult movies, TV series and show stars. FACES rolls up the decade – and publishes an encyclopaedia on the age of grunge, girl groups, GZSZ and action heroes in loose succession.
Grass is growing over the disgrace of Vietnam, the Soviet bloc is crumbling menacingly. It’s time to flex our muscles, says Hollywood. And breed an army of oil-smeared fighting machines in tank tops.
They symbolize Western superiority on the big screen – in all formats: Aryan (Lundgren), Asian (Chan), Afro (Snipes), slick charmers (Van Damme), American Dad (Willis), or bearded testosterone slingers (Norris). They take down vampires, communists and cyborgs, fight in space, on Scottish battlefields, in the urban jungle, in Southeast Asia or on the steep slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
Keyword “Rocky”: Of course, trends were already emerging during the Eighties. But thanks to technical possibilities, the output of gaudy blockbusters explodes with enough pyro effects to burn down a small state. Women basically take on the role of decoration material, while wrestlers (Hulk Hogan), rappers (Ice-T), basketball beasts (Rodman, Shaq O’Neal) and even Playboy bunny Pamela Anderson let the sparks fly as the token lady.
The careers of the warhorses are as varied as their backgrounds. Some fight their way into the dead end of oblivion. Remember Michael Dudikoff, Steven Segal, Nick Nolte? Bruce Willis becomes a (sort of) character actor, Schwarzenegger a governor, Mel Gibson a missionary. And in the 2010s, Stallone gathered the warhorses together for a revival of “Expendables”. As if the turn of the millennium, 9/11 and emancipation were just bad jokes.
