Thursday, May 17, 2012
Scum and Villainy I - Bennett (Commando)
Part I in an examination of filmic villains.
Bennett – Commando
(1985) directed by Mark L. Lester
Commando is the
most pared down of all 1980s action films. The plot is matchstick
thin. Bad guys have kidnapped Arnold Schwarzengger’s daughter. Arnie’s got to
get her back! Playing the preposterously named ‘John Matrix’, he stomps around
(frequently shirtless), physically living up to his description as a “condom
full of walnuts” to a bizarre synth n’ steel drum soundtrack.
Almost everyone
talks up the homoerotic subtext to this film, I refuse to do this. The homoeroticism
is blatantly part of the overt text. Arnie is depicted as the epitome of masculinity – he effortlessly dispatches most of the bad guys, variously portrayed as
sleazy yuppies or faceless Latin-American soldiers. He needs a nemesis, someone who can
match him in a mano a mano physical brawl. Enter Bennett.
 |
| "I can beat you! I don't need the girl HAHAHA! I DON'T NEED THE GIRL!" |
Bennett, played by
Vernon Wells, is a strange yet somehow appropriate nemesis for Arnie. Despite his oiled up posing and huge
phallic guns, as a character, Matrix’s sexuality is deeply, deeply repressed in the
film. We never see, or even hear mention of, his daughter’s mother, and there is zero
romantic chemistry with his spunky female sidekick.
Bennett on the
other hand, is explicitly portrayed as a twisted ball of violent, aggressive
homosexuality who wants nothing more than to stick his knife into our hero. Saying that
he’s a bit gay is like saying Niagara Falls is a bit wet. If Arnie is every red-blooded
Reaganite’s muscles and guns power fantasy, then Bennett is their 3am nightmare,
waking them to soiled sheets and panicky self-justifications.
 |
| "You want to know something? When I found out I could get my hands on you, I said I'd do it for nothing." |
Just look at the
guy! It’s like a checklist of 1980s cliché gayness – he’s got the Village People
moustache, a bizarre chain mail vest, a vaguely bondagey chain around his neck.
He sweatily inhabits every scene he’s in, frequently becoming furious, tumescent
and red – as if his podgy body is becoming one giant throbbing erection. He’s the
kind of grotesque caricature that dances lasciviously in the dreams of self-hating right-wing bigots.
 |
| "I can kill you John!!" |
Finally it comes
down to it. In the hot and humid basement of the bad guy’s lair they square off, knife
against knife. Inevitably, our Aryan superman defeats Bennett by ramming a steamy
pipe into him. No comment.
 |
| "Let off some steam, Bennett." |
The nightmare
dragon of homosexuality slain, our hero hops in his chopper to a happy new familial
future. Bennett may be dead and gone, but I like to imagine him living on in John
Matrix’s consciousness, forever taking revenge by popping into his mind during every
depressingly puritan bout of bad sex.
Tags: 1985 , Arnold Schwarzenegger , Bennett , cinema , Commando , film , gay , homoeroticism , let off some steam , sexually threatening bad guys
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