Rambo gets his AARP card
By Mark Bailey on Feb. 06, 2008
Jim Cook
Media General News Service
I saw my first “Rambo” movie when I was eight.
My folks, like most parents in the 80s, subscribed to the theory that R ratings didn’t count unless boobies were involved. Machine guns, explosions, decapitation, okay. Mammaries, that’s a no-no.
Considering that mammaries have gotten me into more trouble in my later life than machine guns, they were probably right.
Because no one in Hollywood has had an original idea since 1998, a new “Rambo” sequel recently hit theaters. Critics have panned the movie, donning sackcloth and ashes to wail and gnash their teeth about the gratuitous violence in the movie. This means the movie’s actually pretty good, because people who complain about violence in movies generally tend to be the ones who got pegged a lot at dodgeball back in grade school.
Little Bobby: Hey, Billy, did you see “Rambo: First Blood?“
Little Billy: No, my folks wouldn’t let me see it because they said it glorified violence and could lead me to engage in antisocial behavior. After I saw “Predator,“ I had bad dreams for a week and the only way my folks could get me to sleep was to load me up on cough…
THUNK
Little Bobby: Damn, I wonder if Rambo could do that with a dodgeball.
Aside from teaching us new and interesting ways to break things and blow up stuff, the new Rambo film is an interesting examination of the aging baby boomer generation.
Rambo is about 61, which means if I start working out today, in about 20 years I might be able to outrun him if he decides to beat me up. When the movie begins he’s living out in the jungles of Thailand, retired from his career of gruesomely dispatching hordes of foreign people.
Like many retired boomers, Rambo keeps active with a second career. For many retirees this involves checking receipts at Wal-Mart to make sure folks like me using the self-check out didn’t accidentally on purpose forget to scan something. For Rambo, a second career involves catching cobras in Thailand.
A group of missionaries comes to Rambo, seeking his assistance in getting into the war-torn neighboring country of Burma. Rambo reluctantly accepts the job and takes the missionaries into the war-zone, where they are later captured by Burmese soldiers.
Rambo, like many boomers, eventually takes up his old career and rejoins the active workforce. For most boomers, this would mean putting on a tie and filling in for a few days at the office. For Rambo, this means putting an arrow through a guy’s head and rescuing the missionaries. Rambo also illustrates boomers dedication to staying fit into their golden years by outrunning the blast radius of an unexploded WWII bomb he detonates with a land mine.
In decades past, your 60s were regarded as an age to slow down and start doing old people things, like spending time with the grandkids and doing Suduko puzzles. Our ideas of aging are changing however, and our popular culture is reflecting it.
So, for everyone with a touch of gray who’s considering a late career change or taking up a new activity, take heart, or if your name is John Rambo, take someone else’s.
Recruit Jim Cook for an assignment in a war-torn country at .
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