The Show Must Go ON!

I know that if we were a site like others, we might spend today's posting on the mythic underpinnings of The Avengers, because is "hot shit" right now - or at least, that's what we've all been told to think is hot shit right now.

But I have this affliction. Maybe it is incurable. I can't seem to care about what I'm supposed to care about. I just care about whatever it is that has me by the - what do you call it? Balls? Nethers? It's what IT is, and until it has been worked out, the thing will keep me up nights and drive me totally mad. No matter what time of day or night it is, no matter what other tasks seem like they should be more pressing, some weird inner voice determines what the topic of the day must be, and that voice must be heeded or else everything else - and I do mean everything - be damned.

Sometimes, by some grand convergence, it so happens that the topic du jour is the same as what has me in such a way, and on those days, the traffic just rolls in. On those days, I can pretend I am some kind of SEO wizard. But the truth is that traffic is totally meaningless. None of those people stay, because none of them actually care about anything. They are, like so many people these days, just trend chasers. And they will keep trend chasing day after day, and unless if your life is spent defining and chasing trends yourself, you're nothing to them.

What has me today is actually just a continuation of the thread that has developed over the past month or so. If you recall, I mean if you are actually one of the regulars around here, you may have noticed that we first covered storytelling of the past, and why storytelling is so important. We also covered the possibilities afforded by new technologies for storytelling - and the links I'm sharing here are just a few of the many that the writers on this site let loose on those topics. We have covered how storytelling has changed over time, and how it hasn't, and this has even spread over to Odd Duck where I discuss the important topic of how storytelling is relevant to brands.

We have looked at some very painful and raw issues that arise around questions of identity, we scratched the surface of how comedy can be a vital tool in allowing us an access point to the unconscious of a culture, (as well as our own unconscious.) We have explored all these issues again in the form of a tongue-in-cheek Gonzomentary that some of us created, and we discussed many of these topics in a series of college classrooms, two of which are so far available in our podcast series.



Quite a virtual classroom to begin with, and we have only really begun! Yet at the same time, I reached a crisis point in my own life, which I have discussed only somewhat here, and I considered walking the plank and ending it all, but I came around the other side thinking that instead the answer was a re-appraisal of my identity. I thought that maybe the world would treat me differently, the way I wanted to be treated, if I came to it as someone different. (My issue has been and remains not myself but rather the world I live in.)

Early 2012, in retrospective: A personal apocalypse

*aherm*.

Given the entry immediately preceding mine, I'm not entirely quite sure how to help begin anew. Do we begin anew? Do we shift through the wreckage of our pasts, futilely scraping the pieces back together in order to reassemble the form we have voluntarily disintegrated or do we, as a good friend of mine once said, "turn a blind eye upon our past when we embrace the future?"

From my end, I find myself working through whatever channels I can to keep "us" afloat- not only due to my vested interest in preserving such clearly... professional journalistic endeavors of my own, but also out of love for the whole of the Work undergone at this point and to all of Modern Mythology's contributers. 

It is May 2012, the year of the personal apocalypse, and we may ask ourselves at this point: What have we collectively learned so far from where we have come?

From where did we start?

All Good Things...

It may have been the 120 oxycodone. It may have been being punched in the throat by a total stranger.It may have been the day I was raped by 10 15 year old boys that laughed when I shit blood. It may have been a thousand other things. But I died yesterday.

Rather... Who I was died. Go to http://www.partyattheworldend.com - go to http://www.joinmycult.org - go to http://www.citizen-y.com go to 404 Documents and start to put together the pieces before writing your own books, making your own movies, paintings -- or whatever it is that you are going to go on to do.

We kill ourselves every day and ask to be re-assembled in the pieces? Please let that life mean something ... but who i was today died today and like all deaths he is not ever coming back no matter how much you wish otherwise. there is nothing more to create here. all the pieces are for you to find in those places. and if you care you will find them there and become one of the children of the new aeon. but this, here, ends right now.

I don't know who comes next. And this flesh may be reborn in new forms. Life is amazing like that. But who I was is no more. So search for him in the pieces I've left for you.

But that's the joke!

I'd be remiss in not following up yesterdays post with a point.

muriel clayton

"But it just wasn't that funny." No?

Humor, for what it is worth, is almost impossible to fully explain (though the confusion of expectation seems a regular part of the humor - cognitive dissonance, in other words.) And so often it manages to strike a nerve. If the joke "works," it strikes the nerve and calls the object to mind without causing true offense, we may act offended for the sake of social pretense, but we aren't actually hurt.

But equally possible, it could hurt. It could bring to mind something, possibly something it didn't even aim at, and cause little more than trauma. The fact is, we don't fully know the contents, or more to the point, the history of most other people's minds, and it is almost inevitable that any joke that hits close to home will in fact not so much hit too close to home, as hit a bunker somewhere in the back, full of munitions.

There's nothing to be done, really, in such cases but state ones actual intent, and for the person to realize that you may have still paid an unintentional favor: pain, when it serves its evolutionary purpose, is there to alert us to a problem. It can say, "hey! Look, something else for you to work with your damn analyist on!"

But seriously folks, the point ultimately is not that we should stop joking. It is that we should have compassion for one another at the same time. When joking makes us lose our compassion, when it becomes a front for coldness and allows us to distance from others, then it really is just a prelude for rape, even if it is just rape of an emotional kind.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

The Story of a Transmedia Revolution: (Part 4) The Bookstore Apocalypse

Rise of the Zombie Publishers

PressPausePlay Sneak Peek #1 - Seth Godin from House of Radon on Vimeo.

At first glance, things look rather grim for storytellers—or authors, as they are commonly referred to today.  Bookstores are going bankrupt; traditional publishers are at war with their online rivals; pirated e-books are sailing the digital seas in record numbers; and of course, there are the widespread rumors of an impending reading apocalypse…

"Paper or Plastic?"
(Which side of the publishing war are you on?)
-Photo by Peter Usagi

But even more disturbing than the current conflicts in the sale and distribution of published works, is a shift in how writing is viewed as a career.  According to author Seth Godin, if you're a writer, you have no right to make money anymore.  It's a little harsh, but he does have a very good point:

“Who said you have a right to cash money from writing? Poets don’t get paid (often), but there’s no poetry shortage. The future is going to be filled with amateurs, and the truly talented and persistent will make a great living. But the days of journeyman writers who make a good living by the word — over.”

Blogs are dethroning journalists, reality TV and YouTube are turning the everyman into celebrities, and thanks to Amazon and Lulu, now anyone can publish a book.  With so much freedom, and so few gatekeepers, publishing is starting to look a lot like cable TV: thousands of choices, but nothing worth reading.

Modern Mythology Podcast #3: Pornography of Cruelty

In this class we discuss many topics raised in The Immanence of Myth:
Pornography and the theatre of cruelty
Abu Ghraib and the subconscious of the United States
School shootings and the psychology of vicariousness

Direct download

This is just the second in a series of classroom recordings from SUNY Binghamton in conjunction with this digital humanities project.
Class with St Stephen and James Curcio.

Background recording by James Curcio, P. Emerson Williams, and Scott Landes. Interlude track is from Bradley the Buyer's Used Using People.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

Fairy Tale Journeys: Storytelling, Media & Framing

 By Mr. VI

Do me a favour and think about beginnings, would you?

Specifically, think about that moment, that gap before you start something new - the moment; that breath you take before you begin to speak, when you're moving thought into speech.or idea into movement.

Think about reaching out to grasp something, maybe picking up that mug of tea or coffee, or perhaps closing your hand around something and lifting it. Moving it from one place to another. Most of us us don't think about such things, which is why I ask it of you as a favour.

After all, there's a lot that you do without thinking, and I don't know if for you, the reader, it's simply habit or muscle memory that carries you through life. I don't know how you move when you walk, how the weight of your body feels as you plant one foot in  front of the other, how it shifts as you're increasing speed, as you're avoiding obstacles.

I don't know what kind of joy you take in getting to where you want to go, and I certainly couldn't guess how you'll feel after a day on your feet, doing all that you need to, day after day, minute after minute, hour after hour.

More to the point, I don't know what it's like to begin to walk, while your mind is on other things - to just blithely amble along. You probably didn't know either, until I asked you to think about it, as a beginning.

I asked you this favour because I don't know any of that, and nor will I ever do so. I can't go for a stroll, for a jog, for a run - there's no sidling, no sashaying; no hopping, skipping and jumping. No hopscotch, no tag, no home runs, no tries, no touchdowns.

I'm curious, you see. So do me a favour and think about beginnings, about the transition between not walking, and walking. Between silence and speech, and thought and action.

I can't walk.

No sympathy for the creative class

I don't usually post article stubs on Modern Mythology - normally this site features originally written content, which is why posts tend to come in flurries and then dry up for a while - but this article is really worth reading. I have little to add other than my agreement, as an independent artist living and working (sometimes with any pay) in the US.


It is worth reading, in its entirety.

Of course, those who continue to work in the creative class are the lucky ones. Employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show just how badly the press and media have missed the story. For some fields, the damage tracks, in an extreme way, along with the Great Recession. Jobs in graphic design, photographic services, architectural services – the bureau’s phrasing indicates that it is looking at all of the jobs within a field, including the people who, say, answer the phone at a design studio – all peaked before the market crash and and fell, 19.8 percent over four years for graphic design, 25.6 percent over seven years for photography and a brutal 29.8 percent, for architecture, over just three years. “Theater, dance and other performing arts companies” – this includes everything from Celine Dion’s Vegas shows to groups that put on Pinter plays – down 21.9 percent over five years.
Other fields show how the recession aggravated existing trends, but reveal that an implosion arrived before the market crash and has continued through our supposed recovery. “Musical groups and artists” plummeted by 45.3 percent between August 2002 and August of 2011. “Newspaper, book and directory publishers” are down 35.9 percent between January 2002 and a decade later; jobs among “periodical publishers” fell by 31.6 percent during the same period.
So why aren’t we talking about it?
Creative types, we suspect, are supposed to struggle. Artists themselves often romanticize their fraught early years: Patti Smith’smemoir “Just Kids” and the various versions of the busker’s tale “Once” show how powerful this can be. But these stories often stop before the reality that follows artistic inspiration begins: Smith was ultimately able to commit her life to music because of a network of clubs, music labels and publishers. And however romantic life on the edge seems when viewed from a distance, “Once’s” Guy can’t keep busking forever.
Yes, the Internet makes it possible to connect artists directly to fans and patrons. There are stories of fans funding the next album by a favorite musician — but those musicians, as well, acquired that audience in part through the now-melted creative-class infrastructure that boosted Smith. And yes, there have been success stories on Kickstarter, as well — but even Kickstarter accepts just 60 percent of all proposals, and only about 43 percent of those end up being crowd-funded.
Our image of the creative class comes from a strange mix of sources, among them faux-populist politics, changing values, technological rewiring, and the media’s relationship to culture – as well as good old-fashioned American anti-intellectualism.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

Bully and the Computer that Knows Your Feelings

By James Curcio

The movie Bully is hitting theaters on Friday, and it is making quite a stir.



The issue of bullying in schools has taken a surprisingly long time to reach a mainstream tipping point, considering its link to many of the school shootings that have destroyed countless people's lives, not to mention its presence in many of psychological makeups as adults. Some people are challenging its narrative as being too simplistic, overlooking all of the other ways in which bullying occurs in our society.

Be that as it may, it is here now. However, the public discussion on the topic has just begun.

Bullying is not just an issue facing schoolchildren, although in many cases the problem starts there. It is in our homes, our work-places. It is in our language.

That may come as a surprise to some. We all think we can recognize bullying, and certainly sometimes it is obvious: "I'm going to beat you until you can't walk."

Few would question that is an instance of bullying. But what about "I'm against abortion 100% . . but I hate to tell you what I think about these people ever being born"?

Or, "I'm not homophobic but I don't think being gay is right. But I know some of the SWEETEST gay people. Dang."

So much of our understanding of the sentiment behind language comes from inflection, context, and a variety of other cues that are stripped out of communication when it is just text.

source

Or are they? Plenty of bullying, harassment, or outright hate-speech occurs on Facebook, on Twitter, or in text messages. The sheer shrill volume of hate on the internet makes it seem that early detection of the sentiment behind such statements would be a valuable tool in the public discussion of bullying that is finally underway, if not a method to combat it directly.

There is, in fact, such a tool. There is a great deal of research being done in this direction in many domains, but the Beacon Initiative is putting it to use to track down bullying. What is amazing is that in their on-going beta testing, Beacon's software has detected all of the previous statements as instances of bullying. To do so, the software had to learn, and to go a great deal beyond simple keyword analysis.

It does this through sentiment analysis. Without getting too technical, your feelings can be “read” through the language that you use.

Philosophy Begins in Terror: Reflections on Loving and Living

Fragments & Notes 

(26, September 2011 - 14, March 2012)

1.  Countless times I've heard it said: love yourself if you wish to be loved by another. Now, as the essence and apotheosis of love is the ecstatic loss of self – in which the two are no longer one, without thereby creating any unity but co-mmunity – countless times I denounced this dictum as a diversion, or as naught but an incitement to narcissism.

As the fault of Narcissus lay not in self-adoration but in the neglectful self-abnegation arising of attachment to misrecognition, so I failed to detect that destructive, self-negating nature that lay  concealed – and was revealed – in my denunciation.

Self-loss without self-love is only death. Self-love is laughter of complicity with oneself.

Only this complicity can prepare you to let your heart be consumed in love.

Doing it for the Lulz – The Trickster Gods of the Modern Age

Trickster gods such as Anansi, Coyote and Loki are a universal archetype. They weave their mischievous magic throughout countless narratives, always ready to turn preconceived notions of right and wrong upside down. They challenge authority and cause us to question the rules of society. They are the anarchists, the creators of chaos and they cause the unaware masses to shake off their shackles and see what is really going on around them.
Tricksters live life to the extreme. They are seductive, unreliable and usually fond of drinking to excess but the Trickster gods never need to redeem themselves by changing their ways or participating in alcoholism treatments. It is precisely their ability to think outside the box and to challenge the societal norms that (usually) leaves the world a better place. They want to create fun and havoc for their own delights but it is precisely this ethos that pushes the boundaries and leads us laughing through times of great change.

The Trickster archetype in popular culture

The trickster archetype calls to that innate sense of fun within everyone and is constantly revisited throughout modern storytelling. Some of popular cultures most cherished characters such as Bart Simpson, Captain Jack Sparrow, Han Solo and the Cat in the Hat are all tricksters in their own ways, although modern rules of narrative dictate that they must eventually reign in their mischievous natures and find redemption through love and stability. Tricksters are more than a work of fiction, however. At this point in history there is a new generation of tricksters who are not only entirely real, they are creating their own unique narratives that are helping to restructure the world that we live in.

Hacktivist groups such as Anonymous are arguably the modern day equivalent of the ancient trickster archetypes. They are purely in it for the lulz, but their techniques have become an awesome weapon in the changing of political ideologies and the awakening of the sheeple. They are a real force to be reckoned with and have repeatedly made headlines with their off the wall approach and commitment to humor which creates maximum chaos for the ruling elite.


The Trickster as Hacktivist

The first known act of political hacktivism was the infamous WANK worm in 1989. The message “Worms Against Nuclear Killers” was proudly emblazoned across the login screens of HEPNET, DOE and NASA. Defined as the “non-violent use of legal and / or illegal digital tools in pursuit of political ends”, Hacktivism has been around for as long as the internet. There are a huge number of groups and individuals who are coming up with increasingly hilarious ways to ruffle the feathers of government agencies and big corporations.
Anonymous is probably the most well known of these hacktivist groups. In 2010 they attacked MasterCard and Visa as a protest against the company’s refusing payments to Wikileaks. They hacked the computers of the Tunisian government in January 2011 as a response to censorship issues and supported the opposition to the Egyptian government by hacking their systems too. In July 2011 they managed to breach the database of GMO giant, Monsanto and pledged vengeance for the company’s crimes against humanity which include supplying Agent Orange to the US government and their reckless introduction of pesticides and GM products into the environment.

October 2011 saw the takedown of over 40 child pornography sites and the naming and shaming of over 1500 individuals, something which the so-called authorities have long claimed was out of their ability to enforce. Most recently in January 2012 they took down the sites of both the FBI and the Department of Justice, in response to the controversial SOPA piracy legislation and the shutting down of file sharing site, Megaupload.


The age of the Hacktivist is only just beginning

Anonymous is more than a group or a movement. It is not simply a collection of activists or an internet terrorist cell as the authorities would have you believe. Anonymous, for the thousands of hackers who operate under the pseudonym, is a total way of life. It is a culture which is filled with works of art, music, values and aesthetics. It is about schadenfreude, the joy that comes about from the misfortunes of others.
The lulz are the essential key to the movement. It makes you laugh when otherwise you’d scream with despair at the wrongs that are everywhere you look. Throughout history the trickster is only found during times of trouble. When things were going well the trickster will look for mischief elsewhere. There’s little wonder, then, that at this point in time instances of hacktivism are steadily increasing. Whether you perceive their actions as immoral or for the greater good, the age of the Hacktivist trickster is only just beginning.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

On the Anxiety of Everything and of Nothing: Learning to let go

"Whoever believes in reason has to be able to excuse it as a believer excuses his god. After all, because not everyone believes in reason." 

Hans Blumenberg, Care Crosses The River

Is there such a thing as “anxiety?” Or do you transform an experience of your existence in a world, a life – neither entirely your own – into something to be possessed (by), grasped (by) – that you can at least perceive and know as an object. It is by turns a burden, an affliction, an essential part of your self, and finally, a threat: anxiety, does it not sometimes appear as a menacing, overwhelming force, from which there is no escape, that threatens the integrity of the “I” and the self you know?

And yet, it seems that anxiety has been so close and continual a companion to you – virtually ever-present – that it escapes you at the moment you wish to write. Anxiety, in other words, could just as well have been the object of Augustine's meditation on Time in the Confessions: “What this is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I want to explain it to a questioner, I do not know...” Perhaps "anguish is the horror of time” (Bataille) precisely the fact that “if the present is only time, because it flows away into the past... For it is, only because it will cease to be.... [and] that time is only in that it tend toward not-being.” [1] Like our existence in time, anxiety accompanies experience so closely that you know it without knowing precisely for what you take it.

Musings on the Full Moon: Venusian Binds

April 6th, 2012/ 17 degrees Libra

“Daughter of Eve from the far land of Spare Oom where eternal summer reigns around the bright city of War Drobe, how would it be if you came and had tea with me?”

― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

It is no longer luxurious to be found amidst the thralls of destiny and purpose, as they demand lifetimes of sacrifice to be understood. Venus rules the fulfillment of our upcoming lunar wishes, and she demands focus for the brightest flowers to bloom this Spring.

Charge and clarify your dreams with permeating action. Mars, the eternal aggressor, makes you watch as he organizes your room with muddled distemper. You want to help, but you can’t—he wants you to feel the humiliation as he resolves your scattered values.

Staying inspired, your inner-Aphrodite cleanses herself in a nearby spring. She de-clothes near a waterfall, allowing the bitter stunning waters to fall close around her curves, nearing sudden ecstasy.

“Take charge of your wildest dreams and experience the finality of your answers,” Mars reminds us. Asking for clarification—the answer comes within profound commitment.

Though the waters remain cold, she cannot draw herself from it’s invigorating touch, locking her self within the dreams of an inspired singularity.

Jupiter offers wisdom, asking for your transformation to be steady and well thought out. His blessings are extended to the slow-moving Plutonian transformer, praying that the inevitable release happen with perceived grace.

Though Mercury is finally allowed to speak, he chooses to remain adrift. Gather around him, lest he make the slightest utterance, for his words will no doubt be filled with a rare and mediated wisdom. As he remains within the cosmic womb, he will continue to uncover deeper secrets. See what treasures he brings back from the Void.

Unexpected ideas may arise to support your divining inspirations. The value of your answers comes from within, and though they speak loudly, the god’s greatest intention is that you know yourself.

The lady removes herself from the waters, still emanating vibrations of the messages contained within them. She lay on the grass, in the sun, and remaining droplets begin to evaporate upon her skin.

“There is only room for perfection,” Mars reminds us again. “We are crafting the bodies and minds of the future.”

You will be gifted a vision—supportive of the propelling transformation taking place within the collective energies. You will recognize the importance of clarity, passion, and truth, and commit yourself to take pleasure in such pristine blessings.

Allow the beauty to manifest before you, and trust that the beloved Moon desires to grant us our wishes, turn our dreams into more dreams, and enliven the goddess within us. She has an infinite wellspring to support us with—it is her gift this month.

The light of our inner Sun is reflected in the sky, shining back down to us, so that we might experience the trueness of the all.

[Check out some of the books, albums, and soon movies produced by Mythos Media and our various media partners.]

The Myth of Masculinity: A Bloodied Nose Is Not Just Horseplay

By James Curcio

Your son may come home crying every day with a bloody nose, and with bruises, he may be trying to hide bursting into tears at the dinner table, or maybe he wet himself in terror after having rocks thrown at his head and his life threatened for the third day in a row. But boys will be boys, right? Certainly the worst thing a mother can do is jump in and help brand the poor child as a "Mommy's boy."

The fact is that yes, it is how they are. But no, it isn't OK. However, the underlying issue is not about a few rotten eggs or even bad parenting. It isn't about rough and tumble. Certainly boys and girls both will do plenty of that, and sometimes a bloody nose is just a bloody nose. It can be hard to tell, from the perspective of the parent.

The underlying issue is not the bruises. It is what they sometimes represent. It is about the society that we live in, top to bottom.

Alright, so this is a first attempt at an issue that is incredibly important not only to me but in fact to all men, across the world. It is highly underreported, and owing to its importance, I kind of fear that anything I write in a blog post will be horribly insufficient. I still have to start somewhere, so please bear with me. I am going to begin with what I know best, in other words, my personal experience, and talk about some pretty raw issues for me. I am speaking from my experience, and from my heart.

I have read a great deal of research about this issue, which I may share in a later post. But this post is about anecdotal evidence. It is about my life. 

Before I get into this... Some of you have noticed that I have some affiliation with an ongoing project of the Beacon Initiative, pertaining both to bullying and hate-speech. This is not a censorship tool. It is something very different. This post isn't about that, but this will explain my non-business reasons for being passionate about the issue of bullying, "drama," and hate-speech. We have some things in motion to bring this initiative to thousands if not tens of thousands of students in the near future, but I can't speak about that now, and, like I said. This post isn't about that.

The fact of the matter is, for all of the writing that gets done about the raw deal women can get in our society, and the gender policing that women are subject to, as well as the narratives provided for gay men, cross-dressers, transexuals, and so on, there is a huge piece of this puzzle that is left unspoken. It is quite noticeably absent to such an extent that I wondered for years if my personal experience was some huge aberration, and that added to the shame that I was trying to mask or play off.

I'll paint it fine: men, all men, are subject to extreme gender policing which can lead to bullying, mental and physical abuse of heinous levels, even rape and sexual abuse, if they don't fall in line with the gender identity narrative provided by the status quo.

Muscles, Fire, Guns, the New Frontier and Inner City Savages! - the Right Wing Mythology of Eighties' Action Films

By Jimi Thaule

"We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!"

Colonel Walter E. Kurtz - Apocalypse Now

The eighties was the last decade of the Cold War, a decade dominated by the presidency of Ronald Reagan and his second term vice president George Bush – elected as Reagan's successor in 1988. Another significant feature of the decade was the American action film, which had its golden age in the eighties and nearly died out once the Cold War ended. As the nineties and the Clinton years progressed action films were reduced to action comedies, and only recently have we seen a resurgence of the type of action films we saw in the eighties – in particular with Stallones' tribute film the Expendables and its anticipated sequel.

There have been rumors that Expendables 2 would be rated PG13 to ensure Chuck Norris' involvement. Chuck Norris of course is known for his right wing conservative christian politics as well as his involvement in several classic action films – notably the Missing in Action series. While wholesale slaughter seems to be fine with conservatives, blasphemy is not.

Before turning to politics Reagan was an actor, and while he mostly starred in b-comedies it seems fitting that the decade dominated by his policies would also see a great number of films espousing conservative ideals and myths. Some of them far to the right of even the most conservative Republican.

Let's take a look at the action films of the eighties, to which Expendables plays loving tribute. While the action film is as old as the Tinsel Town itself eighties action was unique in its portrayal of steroid enhanced muscle men fighting small wars single handedly, and espousing conservative values. We're talking Sylvester Stallone, Charles Bronson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris of course -as well as Jean Claude VanDamme, Dolph Lundgren and many others. In order to understand the action film of the eighties we have to start about a decade earlier, with Clint Eastwood and his lauded interpretation of the role "Dirty" Harry Callahan in 1971 - a movie that spawned a handful of sequels and changed the face of action films forever.