The Theatricals' Hasty Choice

GET DOWN!

We dive to the sidewalk as the plate glass windows of One Potato, Two Potato shatter into a thousand tiny bits.

A muffled explosion rumbles across the street and smoke starts to pour out of Wigglesworth H.

Rambo's here.

On a cool, crisp February morning Sylvester Stallone's travelling carnival of destruction has come to Harvard. If you don't like it, blow it up. A major university, a center of learning, culture and, most important, of reason, seems a natural target for America's avenging archangel.

Naturally, then, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals have invited Stallone to Cambridge to pay him homage as their 1986 Man of the Year. Stallone has "strengthened the bond between himself and the American public," the Theatricals press release reads, "introducing yet another solid and unforgettable character to American cinema." Unforgettable or unforgiveable, Stallone's Rambo flashes across our big screen culture--a modern-day excuse for a Hercules.

Predictably, even the Theatricals seem to have been infected with Rambomania, squeezing the word "America" into its sentence twice. Jingo, jingo.

And why not? Isn't America what Rambo's all about anyway? Strong-armed (not strong-minded) men (no women please) showing foreigners (dark-skinned commies to the head of the line) what this nation stands for. Truth, justice, fairness?

Theatricals President Leonard W. Dick '86 called Stallone "the biggest name in entertainment this year." Stallone is the biggest--about that there can be no question. Rambo and Rocky were blockbusters. But biggest isn't best. Stallone's latest two films, while they may have drawn droves, offend with their blood-simple solutions.

The Pudding Theatricals is not a political organization, and, outwardly at least, may not have to take responsibility for the politics of the artists it chooses to honor. But one would expect the group to be responsible as human beings. And if the person they select to honor, like Stallone, preaches a liturgy of violence, they ought to realize that his presence will attract some attention from concerned citizens.

Rambo delivers the conclusive cultural death blow, once more reducing to cliche the well-worn notion that violence on TV and in the movie theatre is bad for kids. Sly's Rambo is a bull in the china shop of a young child's mind. Naturally, toy stores are packed with Rambo toys. In the spring, Coleco will release its Rambo product line, coinciding nicely with the premiere of the Rambo Saturday morning cartoon series. The big screen, it seems, is only the beginning.

Rambo at Harvard. In the arts at Harvard. Harvard as a cultural sanction for Rambo mercilessly outdoes anything that Stallone's Hollywood imagination could have come up with. Rambo, and whatever he/it means for America could never be bigger than he is now--projected on the Veritas screen.

But imagine if Rambo really came to Harvard. No doubt the prospect may be appealing in the psychotic haze of repeated all nighters, but take a deep breath and consider it:

Your roommate's computer eats a 20-page paper at six a.m., three hours before it is due. Kick the screen in; throw the wreckage out the window. If your roomate complains, throw him out the window, too. Then go find your professor and finish the job; after all, he assigned you the paper in the first place. That's a Rambo solution.

Faced with a complicated problem, kill whoever disagrees with you. Kill 'em for America, kill 'em to defend our system of peace and justice.

Flex your muscles, reload your M-16.