Masculinity and the Male Gaze in the Film Pumping Iron

Introduction: Fitness, Fame, and Constructed Masculinity

Long before Arnold Schwarzenegger became a symbol of California politics, he was the symbol of the ultimate in physical fitness. Early in his political career, the film star headed the President's Commission on Physical Fitness and Sports. However, Schwarzenegger was never a baseball or basketball player — he was famous for how he looked, rather than for specific athletic achievements. It was his bulging muscles that proclaimed him "fit" and masculine. The 1976 documentary Pumping Iron, directed by George Butler, chronicles the early phases of Schwarzenegger's bodybuilding career and suggests that his posture of fitness was hardly natural. Instead, it was carefully orchestrated and constructed — as deliberate as the look of any woman, despite the posturing hyper-masculinity of the competitive bodybuilding world. As one former bodybuilder observed, "After fifteen years of lifting in gyms nationwide, I've come to believe that the terms 'health and fitness' and 'hardcore bodybuilding' have little in common" (Denham 2008, p. 254).

Director Butler's implication is that the masculine posture of fitness is no guarantee that a man is fit or a true sportsman. The appearance of muscles is deemed to symbolize male strength, dominance, and aggression, much as a model's thinness ostensibly proclaims her as naturally beautiful. But Schwarzenegger and the other gym devotees of Pumping Iron craft themselves as objects designed to fascinate the viewer, rather than building muscles for any meaningful athletic activity. They lift weights to create a body that serves no useful purpose. The bodybuilder's physique is purely ornamental in nature, except for accomplishing strange feats of strength — such as blowing air into a hot water bottle until it explodes, used as proof of a competitor's ripped diaphragm. Bodybuilding is as much about spectacle as an emaciated woman teetering in stilettos on the catwalk.

In fact, one man admitted that the sport's insulation from common injuries — the shoulder problems of baseball, the pressures of playing goalkeeper in soccer — was part of its appeal, along with its almost Zen-like, self-focused rather than team-focused athletic qualities: "In the gym, I avoided the kinds of collisions, erratic movements, and awkward falls that had led to multiple injuries. Lifting weights offered a kind of solace that I had not found in other sport pursuits, and I especially liked the fatigue and tranquil state of mind that followed intense workouts" (Denham 2008, pp. 253–254).

On the surface, Pumping Iron appears to be a display and celebration of hyper-masculinity. It depicts bodybuilders preparing for the Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia competitions — the summits of the bodybuilding world. This competitive drive should theoretically heighten the sense of masculinity conveyed by the documentary. However, rather than straightforward male jockeying for power, the focus on individual physiques has a curiously feminine component: men are reduced to spectacles, to bodies, in the same way that women are traditionally reduced in beauty pageants. Just as viewers become voyeurs of the female body in mainstream cinema, in Pumping Iron the audience becomes voyeur of the male body.