Bring Receipts Podcast
Bring Receipts Podcast
And the Oscar goes to....Sylvester Stallone?
Ever been so hangry that you destroy an entire town? If so, you might relate to Rambo, the protagonist of the film: First Blood. The movie follows the story of Vietnam veteran John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) who is harassed and profiled by the sheriff of a small town in Washington state. But Rambo, the ACAB hero you didn't know you needed, fights back. Sylvester Stallone stars in the film and launched one of the 1980s most iconic movie characters
Steven believes that Sylvester Stallone should've won an Oscar for his performance as John Rambo. Brandi disagrees.
Joining the pod to decide who is right is digital media whiz/artist/and low-key influencer: Turner Willman. Turner is the Social Media Manager at 18MillionRising.org, a national organization mobilizing the digital power of Asian Americans.
This episode discusses Hollywood's representation of war, racism in the Northwest, and the long history of violence perpetrated against Asian Americans in the United States.
Let us know who you think won via Social Media:
Twitter: @bring_receipts
Instagram: @bring_receipts
Follow BR Hosts on Twitter:
Brandi Collins-Dexter (@BrandingBrandi)
Steven Renderos (@stevenrenderos)
Artwork & Logo by:
Andrés Guzmán (IG: andresitoguzman)
Beats by:
DJ Ren
Steven
He was hangry,
Brandi
He just wanted something to eat man. Ya'll should've gave him a Snickers...
Steven
Ya'll know what that's like. When Caviar fucks up your order. And you're hungry?
Brandi
Yeah, man. Yeah. Or when they don't. Yeah, I hate that. But yeah, they should have given him a Snickers. They should do a Snickers commercial.
Steven
When you go to the McDonald's and you order some chicken nuggets and you explicitly ask for barbecue sauce and you get no sauce
Brandi
Yes! Or the fact that you even have to ask for sauce, it drives me crazy these days. It's like you have to ask for everything you have to ask for napkins. You have to ask for sauce. And if you don't do that, then it's not in there. I'm like, how are you gonna put some fries in here, but you're not gonna put ketchup, my dude. Like what?
Steven
I actually think Salvadorans probably fucked that up for everyone because so many Salvadorans working at the McDonald's. I know when my cousin worked there, she was just...It was it was a little a little extreme what she was doing with, like, how many sauces she would bring home. So...sorry.
Brandi
Well....man...
Intro
Brandi
I'm Brandi.
Steven
And I'm Steven.
Brandi
And welcome to Bring Receipts. On this podcast. Steven and I argue our unpopular opinions about pop culture.
Steven
In today's episode, we take a not so peaceful stroll through Hope Washington. We're debating First Blood, the 1983 movie about a Vietnam vet who declares war on cops who wouldn't let him grab a bite to eat. I believe Sylvester Stallone deserved the Oscar for his performance as John Rambo,
Brandi
And I completely disagree.
Steven
Joining us to decide who is right is special guest Judge Turner Willman. So get ready to draw First Blood. It's time for Bring Receipts.
Movie Clip
And you're the last of an elite group.
Don't end it like this.
I can fly gunship. I could drive a tank. I was in charge of million dollar equipment. Back here I can't even hold a job. Fucking guards!
Brandi
So he sounds like me at a certain time of day when I am working and I forget to get lunch and then I just completely destroy a town.
Steven
When Caviar messes up your order...
Brandi
Yeah. Yeah. When you're like...First of all when they take two hours to get there and then the order's wrong and then you just want to do our Rambo on their ass. In any event,
Steven
I just wanted something to eat.
Brandi
Rambo just wanted something to eat. And yet, Steven, you think because he couldn't get what he needed to eat at that moment, he should...he should destroy a whole town. You're saying that plot point and performance was worthy of an Oscar. Let's talk about that. Talk to me a little more about the plot of the movie.
Steven
Well, look, Stallone sold us on the fact that this person really just wanted to get something to eat. And when he didn't, when he wasn't allowed to get something to eat. He went Rambo on this town. I think it's a very realistic portrayal of what happens. I mean, he sold me on it.
Oran Juice Jones
My First impulse was to run up on him, and do a Rambo.
Steven
So let's let's talk about the plot of the movie. In Roger Ebert's words, here's a quick summary of what happens in Rambo. First, Blood. "Stallone plays a returned Vietnam veteran, a Green Beret skilled in the arts of jungle survival and fighting. And after a small town police force sadistically mishandles him, he declares war on the cops." I mean, brilliant, brilliant description of what happens in this movie. And if you've never seen it, this film, which obviously came out in 1983...To me is such a is such a sophisticated movie.
Brandi
Before we go on...Sorry. Before we go any further, let me just say this. If you haven't seen this film already...don't.
Steven
That's messed up. We haven't even gotten to the plot of the film. Let me break it down First before people make up their minds. And the whole point of this podcast, Brandi, is so that people can hear us debate and have an unbiased person come in and give us their accurate take like Kwesi did last episode when he sided with me around Soul Man...
Brandi
Hmmm.
Steven
All right. Let's talk about the the main plot of the film. Sylvester Stallone plays John Rambo, which for all intents and purposes, the way he's described in this film: He is a drifter walking through Washington State on his way to see his good friend, Delmar Berry. He's going to visit his friend and upon arriving, he finds out that his friend has actually died of cancer. And we're led to believe that just about everyone Rambo served with in the Vietnam War has died. All of his kind of close acquaintances. So here's a little clip of Rambo meeting Delmar's family.
Movie
Excuse me? Can you tell me this where Delmar Berry lives?
He ain't here. (to the kids) Go on inside baby.
He's a friend of mine, and as matter of fact, he wrote his address down here. So you can see that's Delmar's writing. I sure had a hard time finding his place.
That's his writing.
Like I said, he's a friend. My name is John Rambo. We served on the same team together in Nam. I don't know if they ever talked about me. I've got a picture of us together somewhere. Junk in my pocket. Here it is. Here it is. That's me. That's Dan Forth. And Wes Moore, Bronson Ortega. And there's Delmar right in the back, they had to put him in the back because he's so big. If we didn't, he'd take up the whole picture look how big he is...
Delmar's gone.
What time will we be back?
He died.
What?
Died last summer.
Died how?
Died of cancer. Brought it back from Nam. All that orange stuff, they spread it around. Cut him down to nothing. I could lift him off the sheet.
Brandi
This scene is the most realistic part of the movie. Not just because of the cancer aspect, but the side eye that this Black woman is giving this white man when he just rolled up on her home talking about he knew her son. And the way she looked at him and was just like, nah, we're good. And then he had to provide evidence via a handwritten signature to get any information from her. I feel like she...Like if you had made this podcast, like Best Supporting Actress Oscar should have gone to this woman in Hope Washington, this Black woman, I would have been like, we don't need to do a podcast. I agree. But that's not the argument.
Steven
Yes, I agree. That was funny how as soon as he produced the receipts, she was like, all right, here's...here's the IMDB on Delmar Berry.
Brandi
I'll tell you what I know.
Steven
Exactly. So you know, he proves it that he is good friends with Delmar Berry. And we'll get into their relationship a little bit later. But clearly this is a blow to Rambo, so sad and grieving from, you know, the unexpected loss of his friend. Rambo continues his journey as a drifter and is walking through a small town that we later come to find out is called Hope Washington. And there he is immediately stopped by the local sheriff, Will TESOL, played by Brian Dennehy, who is not a fan of outsiders, especially those that are like long haired and muscly and good looking like Rambo. So he decides to not so graciously offer Rambo a ride through town to make sure that he leaves.
Movie
Portland
Portland is South. You said you were headed north.
You got someplace I can eat around here?
There's a diner about 30 miles up the highway.
Is there any law against me getting something here?
Yeah, me.
Why are you pushing me?
What did you say?
I said why are you pushing? I haven't done anything to you?
First of all, you don't ask the questions around here. You understand? Secondly. We don't want guys like you in this town. Drifters. First thing you know, we got a whole bunch of guys like you in this town. That's why. Besides, you wouldn't like it here. This is a quiet little town. In fact, you might say it's boring, but that's the way we like it and I get paid to keep it that way.
Steven
TESOL turns back to start driving towards hope and Rambo, obviously pissed off from the situation, decides to just start walking back towards town. And of course like TESOL being the cop that he is, notices and immediately arrests Rambo. So he takes them down to the police station, which here is where I think Tehsil ends up setting off the events that will force Rambo to go Rambo on these fools... By telling the other cops, like, you know what, this fool needs to see a judge soon. So why don't you clean him up? And here is where we're introduced to a very racist deputy named Sergeant Arthur Gault, played by Jack Sterrett, who brilliantly plays like the villain cop in this movie.
Movie
All right, Preston, I want you to go over and get that hose ready. All right.
Holy shit look at this. What the hell has been into?
Who gives a shit? All right. Put your hands on top of your head and turn around. Oh, Christ, we should report this to Tehsil. Look at that.
You just do what I tell you.
Gault! What the fuck was that?
Well, the man said clean him up. Clean him up.
Steven
That was a night stick. So this whole scene with the night stick is interesting because, like, here's one of those places where I think we see a lot of the like, examples of police abuse. So he beats up, you know, Sheriff Gault beats up Rambo with a nightstick and then proceeds to move him out to an area where they use a fire hose to, like, shower him and wash him down. And then right after that, they try to forcibly shave him, which to me has like echoes of like a lot of the shaving and the cutting of hair that we saw in indigenous communities. It's a lot of the same thing. It's a power thing.
And for Rambo in this scene, it triggers these traumatic memories from the war for him and it leads him to fight back. And this whole scene, this whole sequence when he starts to fight back is hilarious because he just Debos hell out of everyone in the police station, as he attempts to escape. My favorite part honestly was a cop that he just punches on his way out, this cop wasn't trying to resist him or anything. He was just like probably just walking in to work that morning and like, Rambo happens to be running on his way out and just punches the hell out of him and just goes, bam!
And then Rambo runs outside, somehow manages to steal a motorcycle from a dude, which is impressive. Just on a straight up, like should he have gotten an Oscar for, like, the stunt doubling here? Yes, he probably should have. But like this whole action sequence, he robs the motorcycle. Escapes through town. The sheriffs are in hot pursuit after him and drives towards the mountains. And that's where he ditches the motorcycle and just goes off on foot. Sergeant Gault the ultra racist cop tracks down Rambo, who is hiding on the edge of the mountain and literally tries to shoot him down. He's in a helicopter and Rambo realizing that if he doesn't do anything, he's going to die, decides to grab a rock and just throw it, throws it at the helicopter, which causes the helicopter to swerve. And forces Gault to fall to his death. And now that a cop has died, the police chase all of a sudden turns into a hunt by the cops.
This has echoes of the slave patrols because literally they're all the town's cops. All five of them decide to descend on this mountain alongside all these volunteers, including people with dogs and stuff, joining them to chase down Rambo. And even though he's outnumbered in this rough terrain, Rambo has the upper hand. He's a Green Beret. He knows what he's doing and super quickly, incapacitates most of the sheriffs, which leads to all the cops retreating, calling the National Guard. And all these, the local police authorities and other towns are descending onto this area. And this is where we meet a very interesting character who will be a seminal character in the Rambo franchise, Colonel Trautmann, played by Richard Crenna, who was Rambo's commanding officer in Nam. And here's our introduction to Colonel Trautmann,.
Movie
What possessed God in heaven to make a man like Rambo.
God didn't make Rambo. I made him.
Who the hell are you?
Sam Trotman. Colonel Samuel Trotman.
Look we're a little busy this morning. Colonel, what can I do for you?
I've come to get my boy.
Your boy.
I recruited him. I trained him. I commanded him in Vietnam for three years. I'd say that makes him mine.
I wonder why the Pentagon said a full bird colonel down here to handle this.
I might be able to help.
In what way? Rambo is a civilian now. He's my problem.
I don't think you understand. I didn't come here to rescue Rambo from you. I came here to rescue you from him.
Steven
So Colonel Trautmann makes contact with Rambo and pleads with him to turn himself in. And this is where we get the quote that is both the title of the film and also the title of the book that this film is based on. As Rambo says, to Trautmann, "they drew First Blood, not me. "
Movie
All I wanted was something to eat. But the man kept pushing sir.
What did you do to push on your own John.
They drew First Blood, not me,.
Look Johnny, let me come in and get you the hell out of there.
Steven
First, they drew First Blood, not me. And Rambo takes it upon himself to somehow escape the clutches of the police, the National Guard and all the racist volunteers. I keep calling them racist volunteers. I know Rambo is white, but still they're all out there trying to hunt down this person. But he somehow, you know, escapes their clutches and he gets away and storms back towards the town to just utterly destroy it. He goes to cut the power from the surrounding police station. He blows up a gas station. He sets fire to a guns and ammunition store, which all leads up to the final confrontation between the sheriff and TESOL and Rambo. But even though Rambo is able to successfully get to TESOL, he doesn't kill him. And instead, right around that time, Colonel Trautmann camp comes back into the scene and he has a long exchange with his commanding officer, which closes out this film.
Movie
Where is everybody? l had a friend who was there for us. There were all these guys. There were all these great guys! My friends!
Here there's nothing! D'you remember Dan Forest? He wore a black headband. He had found magic markers, That he sent to Las Vegas, because we'd always talked about that. About the Chevy Convertible we wanted to drive until the tires fell off. ln one of these barns a kid came to us with a kind of shoe cleaning box. ''Shine?''
He kept on asking. Joe said yes. l went to get a couple of beers. The box was wired. He opened it... There were body parts flying everywhere. He lay there and screamed... l have all these pieces of him on me!
Just like that. l try to get him off me, my friend! l'm covered with him! Blood everywhere and so... l try to hold him together, But the entrails keep coming out!
And nobody would help!
He just said: ''l want to go home!'' And called my name.
''l want to go home, Johnny! l want to drive my Chevy!
But l couldn't find his legs.
''l can't find your legs!''
l can't get it out of my head. lt's seven years ago. l see it every day. Sometimes l wake up and don't know where l am. l don't talk to anyone. Sometimes all day long. Sometimes a week.
l can't get it out of my head.
Steven
So this closing scene gets me every single time because Rambo's closing monologue, I think is just brilliant. But the movie ends with Rambo, like any good white man who's just committed a bunch of atrocities, turning himself safely in to the police. This film was a commercial success, it made over one hundred and twenty five million dollars, and that's against a 15 million dollar budget. One of the notable things about First Blood is that it was the First Hollywood blockbuster that was actually released in China for Stallone. This was an interesting point in his career because up to this point, he had done a few versions of Rocky, I think the Rocky one, two, three had come out at this point. But this was the film that I think catapulted him and ascended him to becoming a full, bona fide action star.
So, you know, First Blood would also kick off a franchise of movies. In total, five movies with the better known and the better recognized like Rambo First Blood, Part two, and then ending with Rambo Last Blood, which I will definitely not defend on this podcast. So, you know, Rambo First Blood was actually not that poorly received by critics when it came out. Roger Ebert gave it three stars and he said, "First Blood is a very good movie. Well paced and well acted, not only by Stallone, who invests in an unlikely character with great authority," but also by some of the other actors in the film, Krasna and Brian Dennehy, as the police chief. He did say that, in his review that he did not like the last 30 minutes of it.
Variety took a different kind of take with the film and said that director Ted Kotcheff has all sorts of trouble with this mess. "Aside from credibility, supposedly the real villain here is society itself, which invented a debacle like Vietnam and must now deal with its lingering tragedies. But First Blood cops out completely on that one, not even trying to find a solution to Stallone's problems." And a favorite of ours, film critic, Rita Kempley, had a thirst trap of a review. Brandi, do you want to pick up on that one?
Brandi
Rita Kempley... Man
Steven
Of The Washington Post.
Brandi
I'm a feminist. I'm a feminist. Rita makes it really hard for me. I want to be down for this female critic, but she makes it so hard. She said, "Stallone is feral, this film physically powerful, he's muddy and Bloody, but he's still pretty even in a tarpaulin." I don't know if I said that right, but she uses very big words, I noticed "he's the wild child coming home First Blood is good to the last drop. If you like that sort of thing." And it basically reads like....If you're into that. so clearly all this stuff that you're going to be talking about...that went over Rita Kempley's head when she saw it.
Steven
I mean, I took it in to the very last drop. It's so good. And a lot of the critique for this film honestly has boiled down to how the film is interpreted. So some people saw it as just another gung ho action flick, even Rita Kempley from The Washington Post seeing this film for like it's more primal representations of Rambo shirtless, and sweating and all that good stuff. But other critics didn't like the way that the film tried to land the social message in a more literal way.
Through the closing monologue by Rambo, I've seen comparisons by critics to films like Scorsese's Taxi Driver, which also deals with a Vietnam vet struggling with the psychological impact of war. And that's, I think, an interesting place to pick it up and dive a little bit deeper. What is going on with this film and how did Hollywood really deal with representations of the Vietnam War? Films about the Vietnam War really had been coming out leading up to, during and after the war was over. And I would say in looking at the totality of films, it really boils down to three different types of genres.
You have your straight up war propaganda films which were meant to represent a simplistic form of good versus bad, with the United States always being positioned as the good guys. A good example of this was Green Berets, which was a 1968 film starring John Wayne as the leader of a Green Beret unit that leads a mission to kidnap a North Vietnamese general. There were parallels to the depictions of the Vietnamese and these films to how indigenous people were treated in Westerns. And in fact, like the film's producer, John Wayne's son Michael Wayne literally said this about filming Green Berets, "in a motion picture, You cannot confuse the audience. The Americans are the good guys and the Vietcong are the bad guys. It's as simple as that when you are making a picture. The Indians are the bad guys." And in these films, we see a type of representation of the Vietnamese that will embody war films about Vietnam, where they're given this sort of barbaric treatment. They kill using more primitive tools like knives and swords.
And in fact, the signature weapon that comes to define the Rambo franchise series is in fact, a knife. The use of this primitive tool is used to torture and kill their captives. You know, "that's their style," says John Wayne in response to the description of how the Vietcong had killed two people in the, quote, "most hideous of ways." So that's one genre film.
You know, another genre that we see a lot in Vietnam films is films that focus on telling the story of the brutality of war and its impact on the people who fight them. I actually think First Blood is actually a really good example of this. But there were notable films from this period, including Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket and Platoon, all which I think do a really good job of complicating the representation of soldiers as these clean, benevolent figures, you know, the John Wayne types. These soldiers in these films are wounded quite literally, or they carry internal wounds because of the carnage that they've had to carry out. And they even echo a lot of the same behaviors as the quote unquote, enemy.
Famously, as I said, Rambo is most well known for his weapon of choice, the knife. You know, the depiction of the enemy and a lot of these films like Apocalypse Now and First Blood, it's no less sinister or problematic in films like Full Metal Jacket or even Apocalypse Now, the Vietnamese are kind of a shadow force. They're the invisible enemy with an unlimited supply of soldiers who will hunt and kill from a distance. These representations definitely draw on long held stereotypes and harmful narratives of Asians and Asian-Americans, you know, and we'll talk later about yellow peril and that whole kind of narrative that has shaped Asian-American representation in the United States. But that's what I'm referencing here.
The last genre of films that we see is those that try to rewrite the history of Vietnam as a conflict where ultimately the United States prevails in Vietnam. Obviously in real life, Vietnam stained the United States' reputation as a mighty military force as they were forced to withdraw both because of public sentiment here at home in the United States, as well as largely because they lost the war. You know, a film that represents this well is the sequel to First Blood Rambo, First Blood part 2. Another film that was a franchise of its own was Chuck Norris' Braddock missing in action. In the missing in action narrative is this idea that the US left soldiers behind in Vietnam or in Cambodia or somewhere else in the region after pulling out of the war, and in these films the protagonist becomes the the individual one man army that swoops in to some random jungle, you know, either in Vietnam or Cambodia to, you know, liberate, quote, the American soldiers and bring them home.
What's a really interesting treatment of this particular genre of films is how unkind it actually is towards the government. And more specifically, governments that depend or rely on bureaucracy as bureaucracy is often in these films, blamed for being ineffective in doing the job of finding U.S. soldiers and bringing them home. This is a callback in some ways, I think, to the debate between American diplomacy in the late 70s and early 80s, the difference between how Jimmy Carter treated foreign diplomacy versus Ronald Reagan. And in so many in so many ways, I think this missing in action narrative is layered in a critique of, you know, American diplomacy that chooses to try to find outcomes through a more pacifist way, you know, instead of an America that uses a strong arm to get what it wants.
These films are really a representation of efforts that were already going on in the United States to perpetuate this idea that not only had the United States pulled out and lost a war, but that they had left soldiers behind. And this would later become more famously understood, like POW MIA, a subsect of people that truly believe that the United States, failed in its duties and in fighting a war in Asia and in protecting its troops. And that's a lot of what we see with POW MIA. And I know Brandi-- I know you did a little bit of research on POW MIA. And so I'm hoping you can expand upon what you found.
Brandi
I just wanted to say something else about the movies in this time period. So in the 60s and 70s, there is a little more creative freedom for the directors and producers of content. There's not as rigid rating systems as we see today, and a number of things that are going on at that time that actually results in a lot of films being made that were really critical of the military and the US, the militarism abroad in a way that we didn't fully see before and that we haven't seen since. In Hollywood and in TV shows the critical eye that's being cast on the Vietnam War is actually part of what holds persuasion over public sentiment and their views about war.
So starting in the eighties and I think we mentioned in the last episode, Top Gun might have been the first one of this kind, you see different law enforcement agencies, from the CIA to the FBI to local law enforcement funding Hollywood. Positioning themselves within Hollywood in a way that changes the type of movies and content that we see and puts forward more this pro military until we get to today, where the only two government institutions that have a positive rating in the eyes of the public are the military and law enforcement. But POW MIA is really interesting.
You know, you know me Steven, I'm a conspiracy girl. I really like my conspiracies. And POW MIA is one of these types of conspiracies that's so deeply embedded in popular culture, in everyday life, that we don't even realize that essentially a POW MIA flag is in some ways tantamount to almost having a Qanon flag. But a lot of people don't know that history. So for folks that are unaware the POW MIA flag is this pitch Black flag that holds a white oval in the center. And it has a silhouette of this almost gaunt unknown soldier. And you can tell by the thinness of the nose and the shape of the head slash hair that it's a presumed white male. There's a watchtower in the back and there's a barbed wire fence. And then you see the letters p o w with a star and then an m i a above the figure. And below it are the words "you will not be forgotten." And so it's this very stark flag that you'll see in different places. It's one of the few flags that consistently flies in the White House and on Capitol grounds next to the American flag. And here's a bit of the back story on that.
So during the Vietnam War, as in every war, there are a lot of men that are lost...or a lot of soldiers that go over there and are lost and not recovered. And in general today, they're referred to as missing in action. So that's the MIA. That has a specific legal meaning, actually. And so it means there's a presumptive finding of death. But the body, for various reasons, was not recovered. So that's what missing in action has historically meant and juxtaposed against what it means in this POW MIA conspiracy theory. But the other piece to note about this is that prior to the Nixon administration, we didn't use the term missing in action as a classification. It was actually KIA/BNR, which is "killed in action, body not recovered," which is a very different frame than missing in action. Missing in action holds a bit of mystery to it, whereas “killed in action, body not recovered” feels very concrete.
But around Nixon's first term, they're trying to drum up positive public sentiment around Vietnam and they're thinking quite deliberately about different things like word choice. And we'll put in the show notes resources of where you guys can read more about this. But Nixon and his team basically decided to start using this frame, missing in action, and they do that around nineteen sixty nine.
And so they hold a press conference where they announce there's thirteen hundred American soldiers who are now deemed missing in action, around half of whom are believed to be prisoners of war. So this a lie and the narrative reworking helps give rise to this conspiracy or this idea that there are a number of different soldiers-- and again, because of the way in which we see a lot of movies and pop cultural content around the military, that disproportionately represents that as being white men, when the truth of the matter is it's more diverse and that I believe it's, forty three percent of the military is people of color, different breakdowns. But often what we see is like a specific white man.
So when we talk about the missing in action narrative, there's this assumption that there's this group of white men still being held prisoner in Vietnam. And there's been a lot of data studies. I think Reagan even put money into looking for these so-called missing soldiers. And there hasn't been any evidence that these great numbers of soldiers are there, still being held captive. But because of this narrative, which is actually one that gets reinforced within Rambo two, which is about Rambo going back to Vietnam to help free these soldiers, this narrative work starts to build up this idea that the government does not care about white men. And they are not looking for these soldiers, which then reinforces the mistrust in government. And you know that this idea that the government is doing, truther stuff and telling us one lie and then doing all of these things in the back end.
POW MIA is one of the original places where that narrative, particularly that white men are under attack, that deals with these issues of a white genocide, began to unfold. One of the guys that was the biggest proponent of a POW MIA as a narrative, an issue is Gordon Gritz. He's right wing and has become increasingly more so over time, has founded a number of different organizations and has worked as an adviser to Clint Eastwood, which is part of where we get-- and other folks in Hollywood, like Chuck Norris-- which is part of where we get the Missing in Action film series.
So, again, I think that there's you know, my argument has to be around the first movie Rambo. And so I'm just going to judge it based on that movie. But it is worth noting that as far as the Rambo franchise as a whole it has really, to your point earlier, pushed a lot of really harmful tropes and stereotypes and assumptions. They are so deeply embedded into our American culture that we don't even realize that we've turned a conspiracy theory, not even provable and in fact disprovable, and in our public consciousness solidified that as the truth.
Steven
No doubt. I think that the rest of the Rambo series is very much in line with this perpetuation of a certain narrative. And it's hard for me sit here and be like, yeah, let me go ahead and defend Rambo Last Blood where Rambo single handedly takes on a Mexican cartel. It's fascinating to me to learn about some of the history here with the designation of missing in action in the Nixon administration, because obviously it feels like a very convenient way to try to minimize the the scale of the harm of the war. Because it would have been totally different, right, if they would have been reporting on how many people have been killed in action and a certain definition that would have probably encompassed a lot of the people that were designated as MIA. When in reality, if your plane was shot down over a certain area of Vietnam in a particular way, you could be presumed to be dead.
Brandi
Right.
Steven
But they didn't do that here. Instead, they perpetuated this idea that maybe they're still alive. And so therefore, we can't actually count them towards the death toll, which was already huge enough to begin with and had fomented so much dissent, you know, here at home. That's super fascinating to me, because I think that it speaks to laying the groundwork for what would later become a much more sophisticated conspiracy theory. The fact that you had a certain layer of government speaking to a certain truth, that was certainly not true. But years later is still perpetuated and carried on by conspiracists because they've been enabled at the highest levels of government to believe that American soldiers and white men in particular have been left behind somewhere in some jungle in Cambodia or Vietnam. That's fascinating.
Brandi
So Nixon really was great with language and words and framing or the people on his team. And in terms of really being able to know: if we say how many people are dead in Vietnam, all that's going to remind people is that we're in this war where we're losing and there's a loss of human lives and what is it for? But when we float this narrative about this hidden place with these white men living there, and then you look how some of that even gets reinforced through modern content like storylines on Cobra Kai and others, you know, a lot of that came from Nixon.
Nixon was the first president, I believe, to use the term Democratic plantation, which we've seen have a resurgence in recent times. And a lot of people think that people online created that term when it's, you know, really much older than that created by George Schuyler, a Black Republican, but then picked up by Nixon. This idea about missing in action, and all of these different ways in which Nixon really pushed things like the Southern strategy. You can run down the list of the ways in which the Nixon team was really savvy in a horrific way around, really starting to pull the wool over the eyes of the public in terms of what was really happening in government and in the office.
Steven
So returning to First Blood, this film was based on a book written by David Morrell and released in 1972. And there are some major notable differences between the film and the book. One of the most significant differences is that Rambo in the book is much more violent than he is in the film, whereas in the film Rambo is actually not directly responsible for anyone's death in the movie. In the book, he definitely goes on a killing spree. And apparently that was a change that was requested by Stallone, who wanted the audience to sympathize with Rambo a bit more.
Another big, notable change in the book we learn about is DelMar Berry, the friend that Rambo tries to visit at the beginning of the events in the film. And while both in the film and in the book, Delmar is very clearly Black, he's given a more comprehensive backstory. And the film and Rambo and Barry's relationship is one that actually in the book explores racism in the military.
Perhaps the biggest change between the two was the ending. In the book, Rambo commits suicide and in the film he simply turns himself in. It's notable that the film did actually shoot an alternative ending, where Rambo essentially commits suicide by cops by, like getting the cops to shoot him down. It's said that the suicide ending didn't actually test well with audiences. But let's also be real. They were probably like noticing that they could make a lot of money making a bunch of sequels, which they for sure did.
Now, a less obvious change, but one that I think worth looking at for us is the location of the film versus where it was in the books. The movie actually takes place where we can deduce is southwest Washington near the border of Oregon in a fictional town named Hope. Now the film was actually shot in a real town named Hope. But it was up in Vancouver, up in the Vancouver area of Canada. The book takes place in Madison County, Kentucky, which is interesting to me because a lot of the racist police imagery throughout the film, the Slave Patrol Posse, the water hosing of Rambo, the beating with the night sticks to me just fits this area of northwest Washington as well as it would Kentucky. And we'll talk about that a little bit more later when we get into it with our guest.
Brandi
So you're going to hear something interesting. So I just looked at Madison County, Kentucky., I'm not sure if that's right, and I looked at the demographic numbers on it. And it's it's ninety three point zero one percent white and four point four four percent Black point two eight percent Native American point seven two percent Asian.
Steven
Well, how do you think it stays that way, Brandi?
Brandi
You know how it stays that way. That's what I always say. Like I say that in Chicago, too, or Baltimore or different places. It's like if you go through a neighborhood in a place that is really diverse and it's like a 98, you know, 90, 80 plus percent white place, it didn't get that way by accident. So we've talked about the movie. We talked about different aspects of where we are in the culture when the movie comes out and different aspects of the Rambo franchise at large. So what is the argument that you are putting forward in the next segment?
Steven
I mean, so I think that Sylvester Stallone had a pretty incredible career and it's a travesty for me. It's a travesty that he has not won an Oscar.
Brandi
You take that personally?
Steven
Very much so. And despite the fact that he's been nominated a few times, most recently, of course, with his best supporting actor performance in Creed, which I really think he should have won. I think First Blood is one of his finest performances, and I'm going to argue that he deserved to win an Oscar for this performance. He would have should have gotten it at the 1983 Academy Awards over Ben Kingsley, who won the Oscar that year for Gandhi. That's my argument.
Brandi
Oh, you just threw hot fire on that take. OK, OK, well, good luck to you, sir.
Steven
You don't need luck when you've got receipts.
Brandi
Yea you do. On this one you need it. We'll see your receipts.
Q&A with Turner Willman
Steven
And welcome back and joining us is our special guest judge Turner Willman. Turner is the current social media manager at 18 million Rising, where they lead campaigns that organize progressive Asian-Americans across the United States. Turner was also previously the development associate at Forward Together, as well as the digital manager at Media Justice, where we were coworkers for a couple of years.
Turner is also an artist as they dabble in the art of making linocuts, making prints that explore their Asian-American heritage, as well as clear landmarks like the Ambassador Hotel in San Francisco. And when they're not doing that, Turner is out here being a low key social media influencer. They are the most stylish individual I know, a foodie, a cocktail connoisseur, just an all around interesting person. Why I picked them to be a judge for this episode. One Turner is my friend, and while they know Brandi, they're still obligated to side with me. So that's one big reason
Brandi
That's not...
Steven
Are we past that Brandi? Because I'm pretty sure you said that last episode.
Brandi
No. No. It's not like that. Turner and I have a special relationship that operates outside of you, Steven. I'll have you know.
Turner
We go way back. It's true.
Steven
So forget that reason. But Turner, you're still my friend. Turner grew up in the Northwest, so can probably empathize with the complete fuckery that Rambo had to deal with from these cops. And three-- I believe, Turner, you're not that familiar with the Rambo franchise, which I also feel like is kind of an advantage for me. All right. So for folks that don't know, can you share a little bit more about your organization, 18 million rising?
Turner
Thank you so much for having me. It's nice to be here. And that was quite an intro you gave me. Yeah. So I'm a social media organizer at 18 million Rising. So I'm like the social media wizard. I'm usually spending my time on Instagram and Twitter and across the Internet engaging with our members and posting and responding to important issues that Asian-Americans face. And 18 Million Rising is a national progressive organization that connects Asian-Americans to what we call digital first organizing. And that means that we mostly operate online. We harness the power of the Internet and technology to create change on issues like immigrant rights, on policing, on media representation and so forth.
Brandi
So, yes, thanks for joining us, Turner. I'm a big fan of 18 million rising. I would encourage everyone to subscribe today. We'd be remiss if we didn't talk about this. We've seen an uptick of violence against Asian-Americans in the US for really the last year and more recently. But this violence isn't something new. It's definitely within an arc of history. You have talked a lot about this. You released a Zine in April of twenty twenty called The Unmasking of Yellow Peril. Talk to us a little bit about Asian representation in war movies and in general, some of the myths and tropes that play out and how they impact public perception of Asian communities.
Turner
Yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned Unmasking Yellow Peril, which is a zine that we put out mostly digitally. But also there was a print edition and that came out in response last year at the beginning of the pandemic, because we did see an uptick in anti Asian racism and violence. You know, we as an organization wanted to ground that violence in US history so that people didn't think it was just coming out of nowhere. And it's true that the anti Asian violence and xenophobia we're seeing right now, it's not new, I would argue, that it's deeply American.
These attacks are presented like they're individual incidents or they're only connected to the pandemic or they're only connected to Trump's rhetoric around the China virus. Of course, this is connected, but that's not all there is. And when we present that violence as individualized, we're obscuring the bigger histories and systems of power that are at play, like the long history of US wars in Asia. Laos, for instance, is considered the most heavily bombed country on Earth. You know, the US colonized the Philippines and. And so on, right, there's a long, long history of US militarization in Asia. We also see this in our immigration laws in the US. Our first restrictive immigration policies were based in white fears of Chinese labor, Chinese women's sexuality, racist fears of disease.
And even the US Border Patrol has origins in what were called Chinese catchers. They were agents used to catch and deport Chinese immigrants who are trying to cross the US Mexico border after the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. So even so much of our policing in the US is rooted in anti Asian racism. So all of these histories have shaped how people in the US view Asians and Asian-Americans as less human, as unclean, as perpetually foreign. And of course, the end result is that it plays out in our media and that helps to teach this narrative and perpetuate it.
Steven
And those incidents of violence is are so deeply American as as you're bringing up, there are incidents going as far back as the mid eighteen hundreds of actual acts of violence perpetrated against Chinese people. Like in Rock Springs, Wyoming, where twenty eight Chinese workers were killed and all the Chinese folks living in Rock Springs were forced out literally overnight. This was back in eighteen eighty five. And so we see this kind of cycle throughout history where Yellow Peril is this kind of myth, an idea that in fear of these kinds of quote unquote, occult forces of the east as as Gina Marchetti describes, when she describes yellow peril.
Those are the ideas that get embedded not just in culture and what we see manifested in movies, but are actually lived out in acts of violence. And so when we think about in the context of incidents that we've seen over the last few months of aggressive violence against Asian folks here in the United States, it just has a much longer thread that I think we need to acknowledge and realize. Because it's not just the pandemic happened and all of a sudden these fears came out of nowhere. You know, they're almost sitting dormant, just like a virus does, and they come up in these moments of deep anxiety.
Brandi
I wanted to add a piece of that, too, because I know we all do a lot of work around anti surveillance. And one of the things that I've heard some of my colleagues talk about that I've taken to saying, is that when you look at virtually every piece or type of surveillance technology that existed, even going back into the eighteen hundreds, on the whole most of that has started off being tested either abroad in Asian countries or against Asian Americans in the US. So that history of not just depictions of Asian people, but the use of surveillance and the justification for surveillance has long threads. And that history as well that often goes ignored or understated.
Steven
So First Blood takes place in the Northwest. We believe it's somewhere down in southern Washington. It's actually a fictional town-- Hope, Washington. Turner, you grew up in the Northwest. It was in a military town, wasn't it?
Turner
Oh, yes.
Steven
Can you share a little bit about what that was like?
Turner
Yeah. OK, well, so I was born in Hawaii because my father was stationed there as a US Marine. And then we later moved to western Washington when I was a child. And I did grow up in a small military town. It was called or it is called Silverdale. And this is an area that is home to many military installations. I grew up around huge Navy aircraft carriers that go to war, a whole fleet of nuclear submarines. I really grew up around military culture, and I also grew up seeing the POW MIA flag in my community. So this is just a part of my upbringing. And Silverdale is mostly white, but it also had a significant Filipino population, which is also connected to military service. As well as other people.
But, yeah, I mean, my experience growing up there is complex. Washington is a very beautiful place. There's a vast ocean, there is snowcapped mountains, there's beautiful lush forests. And there's also a lot of conservative white people, too.
In the end, as a queer and trans teenager, my proximity to Seattle also gave me access to queer community and activism that helped me to survive the conservatism and the whiteness that I was also surrounded by. But, yeah, for the most part, especially in rural places, western Washington is quite white and that's not by accident. I'm glad that you actually mention these kind of earlier examples of anti Asian racism around the turn of the century, because that is totally a part of the history of western Washington as well.
In the late eighteen hundreds, there were over a hundred towns up and down the West Coast that forced out their Chinese immigrant residents. And they did this through violent white mobs. They burned down Chinatowns. In some cases, they would round up hundreds of Chinese people and put them on boats and ship them to San Francisco just further down the line. Incidents like that. And that happen in places like Tacoma, Washington. It happened in Eureka, California.
And on top of that, in the early nineteen hundreds, there were a number of South Asian immigrants, Sikhs in particular, who were part of the logging industry in Washington. And, of course, white people, as they do, started fearing for their jobs and their culture, et cetera. And in 1907, there was a race riot that happened in Bellingham, Washington, where five hundred white people raided the homes of Sikh immigrants. They attacked people in a matter of days. The South Asian community was totally wiped out. So I bring this up because many of the places that we think of as white in the northwest actually have a hidden Asian-American history.
Steven
This is where I think the Northwest is unique. There is this kind of history of, you know, white people trying to populate the region and make it an ethno white region and then a lot by design through these kinds of racialized violence, forcing certain communities out. But then also, you know, the constitution in Oregon, when it first entered the United States as a state, excluded the the inclusion of Black people and a lot of the legacies of that kind of early history, as well as the organizing of white supremacist groups like the Northwest Front, translates to what we see today. It's still a region that's largely white. And you see states like Washington that only have a four percent Black population or again, two percent. And there's all this messed up racist history.
And actually Brandi I talked about it in the last segment just about how interesting it was that Rambo First Blood, the book was written and originally located in a town in Kentucky. But for the movie, they moved it to the Northwest. And I just thought that it's still very much an appropriate place for a movie like this to take place, even though, you know, we're not talking about a person of color necessarily dealing with a bunch of stuff in this movie. But just the kinds of violence that we see in this movie, I think is very reflective of what was true historically within that region.
Brandi
I want to say, too, I'm glad that we're having this conversation, because I think a lot of times, because of shows like Portlandia and the Seattle grunge scene, there's a lot of association with that region as being leftist. And, you know, everybody can be who they are. And it's only within the last year when we've seen some of the protests in the streets that we're even having these discussions. But like we said in the last segment, when you see in a multicultural society a community that's like 90 plus percent white, it didn't get that way by accident. And there's always something beneath the fold.
Steven
All right. So prior to coming on this podcast, how much did you actually know about the franchise, the Rambo franchise series?
Turner
Pretty much nothing.
Steven
Good.
Turner
Like I never heard of the film First Blood. I had heard of Rambo. And I have this image of Rambo like it's all muscles and like guns and sweat. And that is my perception of what Rambo is about. And based on that, I did not watch anything to do with Rambo. It wasn't really my genre, you know. But I am happy to be here and listen to you two argue about it.
Argument and Rebuttal
Steven
All right. So let's get into the argument then. I'm going to be arguing that Sylvester Stallone should have won the Oscar for his performance in Rambo First Blood, Brandi is going to try and is going to fail to argue against me. Our guest judge here, Turner, will be judging us on a scale of one to five alongside these categories: creativity, receipting, energy, viability and rebuttal. So without further ado, let's get into it.
So I've got three arguments I want to make about why I think Rambo should have won the Oscar at the 1983 Academy Awards for Rambo First Blood. So that year, Ben Kingsley won Best Actor for his performance in the movie Gandhi. Now, I won't make the case that he was in Brown face for that film because he is part Indian. But I will say giving the role to someone who is also part English to play a character fighting British imperialism is very rich. So I think for that reason we can scrap Ben Kingsley out of this category. But as I look at the crop of other actors that were nominated in this category, I definitely feel like Sylvester Stallone could have slid in a nomination.
Dustin Hoffman that year, was nominated for his performance in Tootsie. And of course, that performance is super critically acclaimed. But at the end of the day, this is a white male dressing up to present as a woman in order to jump start his acting career, which is majorly sexist if you think about it, because it's basically saying a man performing the part of a woman could be more talented and that is super, deeply sexist. So we can get rid of Dustin Hoffman from this category.
And then we also have Peter O'Toole, who was also nominated that year for his performance in My Favorite Year. And I'm just going to eliminate him because he did actually perform in Brown Face in Lawrence of Arabia. So so fuck that dude. So he's out of this category.
So those are three actors in this category that I'm just getting rid of and slotting Sylvester Stallone in. So I think that Stallone for this performance could have been nominated. And the other thing I'll say is we've long known how flawed of an award the Oscars are. And I think they have a bias towards the types of films and the types of performances that they consider to be prestigious enough to win. And I think traditional action movies are a genre that they don't judge fairly alongside comedies and basically any movie, no matter the genre made by a person of color, unless that person is Alfonso Cuarón, in which case he gets to win. So so that's my first argument. I do think that in that year there are at least three actors that I would have removed from that category and I would've slotted Stallone in and I think he would have had a legitimate shot to win.
Second, because I know that Brandi is likely to say that she couldn't understand anything Rambo said in the movie. My second argument is that part of the brilliance of Rambo, of Sylvester Stallone's performance, is a lot of what Rambo communicates when he's not talking. Like the moment, you know, Sheriff TESOL pulls up on him and Rambo just gives off this FTP vibe that was so evident.
And I think he has these moments throughout the film where he has to communicate fear, trauma, anger, rage, in ways where he's not necessarily saying anything to communicate that, but in unspoken ways is able to communicate it so well. It's such an understated performance. And I think for that reason, I think this movie could have been nominated and Stallone could have won and should have won. And I think like a good comp for me is that if you're willing to give Jean Dujardin an Oscar for best actor for his performance in The Artist, in which he literally doesn't say one line of dialog because it's a silent film. And then that came out in the early 2000s, I feel like Stallone could have gotten an Oscar.
And that leads me to my last point, which those kinds of silent moments to me speaks to the weight that Stallone was able to carry with this performance. But I know that a lot of my argument is going to rest on the quality of the closing monologue. This is like this closing monologue happens like after he's completely destroyed the town and he catches up to the sheriff who has been trying to hunt him down and he doesn't kill the sheriff and instead he has a bit of a mental break
Movie
Where is everybody? l had a friend who was there for us. There were all these guys. There were all these great guys! My friends!
Here there's nothing! D'you remember Dan Forest? He wore a black headband. He had found magic markers, That he sent to Las Vegas, because we'd always talked about that. About the Chevy Convertible we wanted to drive until the tires fell off. ln one of these barns a kid came to us with a kind of shoe cleaning box. ''Shine?''
He kept on asking. Joe said yes. l went to get a couple of beers. The box was wired. He opened it... There were body parts flying everywhere. He lay there and screamed... l have all these pieces of him on me!
Just like that. l try to get him off me, my friend! l'm covered with him! Blood everywhere and so... l try to hold him together, But the entrails keep coming out!
And nobody would help!
He just said: ''l want to go home!'' And called my name.
''l want to go home, Johnny! l want to drive my Chevy!
But l couldn't find his legs.
''l can't find your legs!''
l can't get it out of my head. lt's seven years ago. l see it every day. Sometimes l wake up and don't know where l am. l don't talk to anyone. Sometimes all day long. Sometimes a week.
l can't get it out of my head.
Steven
Where is everybody? That's what Rambo asks in that closing monologue. Yes, this movie is about the trauma of war and people who carry the visible and invisible scars. But this movie is also about grief. He says, Sometimes I wake up and I don't know where I am, this feeling of being stuck in time, that the rest of the world keeps moving on and you're still stuck in this moment of time just processing grief. I think that's a feeling that anyone who has experienced loss, I think understands. It's a feeling that in this pandemic is much more widespread. Rambo says, I can't put it out of my mind, both grief and trauma repeat like a broken record. All you can do is try to find ways to soothe yourself and for Rambo upon learning of the death of his friend Delmar Marberry. He wanted to find comfort in food.
Movie
All I wanted was something to eat...
Steven
But this messed up cop in Washington would not let him get that bite to eat. And yes, like, obviously destroying an entire town is a bit of an overreaction. But beneath the grief isn't there pain? Isn't their rage? And I think one of the brilliant things that Stallone does in this performance is that he takes these elements of grief and trauma that live in us in implicit ways and through his performance made them explicit. And I think for that he deserved an Oscar. And I'll leave it there and toss it to you, my friend, Brandi.
Brandi
Thank you. First of all, I feel like at this point you've practically played the entire movie during the course of this, and I see what you're doing. I see what you're doing. And it's tugging on my heartstrings. I understand why you've had success in life. You could sell sand at the beach, and I appreciate you for that. But I think what's clear here is that you're dead wrong. And I'm going to give you three reasons why. So reason number one, in the 70s and 80s, there's a lot of creative content being made that's in direct response to the tragedy of war and the impacts of it, both on people that have gone to war, the countries where America has carried out war, issues that delve into race and the Vietnam War. And when you have that much content that's come up leading to 1982, when Rambo gets dropped, it's just clear that First Blood is out of its league.
When you look at movies like the documentary Hearts and Minds, I would say Coming Home, the movie with Jane Fonda, that actually Jon Voight is a terrible human being. I want to be clear on that. But he actually gives a really interesting monologue in Coming Home that I didn't want to play it here because there's music playing in the background and I didn't want to get our stuff pulled. But the story of a paraplegic coming home from war and then talking to this group of kids about why war isn't worth it, I thought was actually a way more compelling monologue than the one that you've played. There's, of course, Apocalypse Now. And when you look at the monologue in there from Marlon Brando about the horrors of war, it is considered one of the greatest monologues of all time.
And you have movies like Taxi Driver, which, again, like some of these movies we could deconstruct on a deeper level. But just in terms of that they are better than First Blood by most objective criteria, I would say, yes. To me, one of the greatest movies that I think actually delves into this much more than any other would be Night of the Living Dead, that movie and its exploration of terror and horror and the overlapping issues of race and the elevating anxieties around that I think is a good one. There's also some blaxploitation films, Brotherhood of Death, Gordon's War, that deal explicitly with this issue of race and what it means to be going abroad to fight war and then coming home and facing racism or racial injustice. And how you negotiate that. M.A.S.H, also has had some really fantastic episodes.
And so, again, when you look at all of the content that was coming out at this time, I would imagine for people that are judging this and making decisions about who gets nominated for the Oscar, it's very clear that this movie just doesn't stand up to that. And I think that's why Sylvester Stallone didn't get nominated, not just because you can't understand half of what he says in that very long monologue, which you can't. But like you can't understand half of what Marlon Brando says either. But even when he's mumbling, it's compelling. This was not.
Argument two I'm going to make. You talk about, you know, all the white men that were nominated for the Oscars. And I think it goes without saying here we might do an episode at a later date that breaks down why awards in general are bullshit. But we all know that here. We acknowledge that. You can scrub all the white men off of there that got nominated that year. But I feel like there are some more people that I think actually got snubbed, more so than Sylvester Stallone.
I would like to say Robert De Niro and the King of Comedy definitely put in an excellent, underrated performance, and could have gotten nominated. Harrison Ford, Blade Runner, I think could have got nominated. Eddie Murphy, 48 hours, could have gotten nominated. Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek Two, Wrath of Khan, could have got nominated. Pat Walsh, the voice of E.T., put in a better performance than Sylvester Stallone did in First Blood. I want to see, like, why was he not nominated? I feel like that's the real injustice of nineteen eighty two, that he didn't get nominated.
But there are a lot of other options that we could point to if we want to have this argument about more compelling movies, more compelling performances that were not acknowledged by the award system. And again, Sylvester Stallone in First Blood doesn't stack up to that.
But here's my final argument. Part of the reason too why this falls apart is because even in that year, he was in a better movie that I actually think he really should have gotten nominated for. And that is Rocky three, his performance in Rocky three, examining Rocky's struggles with fame and negotiating what it means to try to get back that sort of like white ethnic vibe that guided him through the first movie. His performances with Apollo Creed and some of the homoerotic running on the beach together. His really finding himself-- the back and forth between him and Adrienne, Talia Shire. I actually think that movie, if you're going to put up a Sylvester Stallone performance in 1982 that really should have gotten nominated for an Oscar. I'm going to say that just for the multiple beach montages in Rocky three, that that would have been a more compelling option for me.
But as far as First Blood, like, no, I think that Sylvester Stallone has put in actually some really good performances. I think he's a great actor. I could name a few movies that I think he could have potentially got nominated for. First Blood is not one of them.
Steven
Is that it?
Brandi
I'm trying to stay on time.
Steven
The disrespect, Brandi. All right, here, let me let me rebut a couple of things. So first of all, First Blood is not a war movie, so I don't think it's fair to compare it to war movies because it's not it's it's a movie about a Vietnam vet in a small town in the United States. Obviously, like the trauma of war is something that influences the content of the film. But it's not a war movie in the same way that I think the subsequent films, you know, dove much deeper into that genre. So that's that's one thing. I think the other thing is that. You know, comparing it to other films of the time period like Apocalypse Now is not a fair comparison because my argument is not that First Blood is better than any of those other movies. I'm saying that movie in nineteen eighty three could have and should have won an Oscar. And I get the bringing up, you know, other films from that time period. That's a great point. Very interesting point. I'll concede some of the points that you made. I think Eddie Murphy and I think Harrison Ford definitely deserved to be in the category.
But again, I think that reinforces the argument that I'm making, which is that I think the Oscars as an institution, they have a particular bias for the kinds of films that they consider to be prestigious enough to win. And I think science fiction and comedies and action films are among the genres that consistently get disrespected and don't receive the same level of recognition. So I agree with you. They should have been recognized, they should have been nominated. And if they had been nominated, they would have lost to Sylvester Stallone. That's what I feel.
And I completely agree that there are multiple performances that Sylvester Stallone has delivered over the years, including Rocky three, including Over the Top. The topic of this episode actually originally was me doing this argument over the film Over the Top, where Sylvester Stallone plays an arm wrestler who is trying to win back the affection of his kid, who he abandoned many years earlier through an arm wrestling tournament. It's an incredible performance. He could have won an Oscar for Oscar, actually, no that's a terrible film. But anyways. He should have won an Oscar for best supporting actor in Creed, but he didn't. So I completely agree.
There are so many places where Sylvester Stallone could have won. First Blood is actually one of those places. And I've seen multiple articles where they referenced the fact that that was a snub he could have and should have won an Oscar for that performance.
So those are going to be my ways of rebutting some of what you're saying. This isn't a war film, so it's not a fair comparison to compare it to those films. I'm not saying that it's better than those other films that deal with the traumas of war like Taxi Driver. I am saying that in 1983 this film stands out and it should have won an Oscar.
Brandi
So my rebuttal to your rebuttals, a few things. One, in terms of the movies that I listed Night of the Living Dead, Taxi Driver, Gordon's War, they are dealing with the impact of coming back from war and how that impacts you. So I wouldn't categorize all of those as explicitly war movies, nor is Coming Home.
Also, I would argue that, like you and I are cut from a slightly different cloth because I'm not someone that believes that you get a gold star just for showing up. I think that you actually have to put in work. To the extent that we buy into this idea that content can be objectively ranked or rated, in some way I need for the content to bring something new to the table. I need for it to be like, hey, I thought of this in a different way. I'm seeing something I haven't seen before. Oh, this is really changing the game.
As far as like, have I seen a lot of movies about white men coming home and being upset and then going rogue? That is an archetype that we've seen throughout the course of Hollywood. So there was nothing, in my opinion, that Rambo First Blood brought to the table-- be it 1983, be it 1993, be it 2003, be it 1803-- there was nothing particularly innovative in terms of telling a story that we've seen like millions of times about white men and their angst.
Steven
Wow. I mean. I'm not one to generally concede points, but I will concede that point. That's a good one. All right. So, Turner, my fate, our friendship is in your hands.
Brandi
Uh uh. No. No. Nope. No. Don't do that. Don't do that.
Turner
That is manipulation. Points removed.
Brandi
Yeeeessss
Steven
Let's turn it over to you. Now that you've deducted some more points from me, where am I at?
Decision
Turner
OK, so I'll share some of my thoughts, the things that have stood out to me. Steven, on your end-- I actually love your take on this question, which is really focusing on the specificity of the moment and the argument, which is not that maybe Rambo is a better than all of these other films in a similar theme or genre, but that it should have one in its category in this specific time and place. And I thought that because you approach it from this angle, you are able to cut through some of Brandi's arguments around certain other films that are similar to being better. Because it's not necessarily that they're not better, but just that based on who is nominated at that moment in the Oscars, Rambo should have won. So I give you credit for that.
I will say that your argument that a lot has been communicated through body language is...I think that's reasonable. There's a lot of emotion shown. But I really love Brandi your point that white men sharing their angst or anger in Hollywood, it's not groundbreaking, it's not new. It's not serving us anything that's really shifting in our perceptions of film. Right. So I think credit goes to you for that. I really do appreciate that argument.
I think I can just go into my numbers. So my comment, like I said earlier, I think that Steven, I give you a five for the creativity, for being so specific in the debate, which I think is the strength of debates. Right. It's not getting pulled into other directions or distracted by other arguments, but really focusing on the moment. So I give you a five and I give Brandi a four because I did also appreciate your perspectives around the genre and what Stallone has to offer.
The receipting I think Brandi beat you here. You came with a lot of references, some of them I have not even heard of. So I felt like you were very prepared for this moment by referencing these other films to give more context to what First Blood has to offer. Steven, I give you a four because you also came with receipts and a lot of clips.
Brandi
A lot of clips.
Turner
Which did actually work in your favor, even though that wasn't a part of the direct debate moment. It really spoke to some of what you're talking about, the emotion and the strength of his performance, which did really resonate with me. There's a lot that he did offer in his role.
Brandi, you definitely beat Steven with the energy. You were like, no, Steven, you are wrong. I call bullshit. Steven, you came with like a softer, more compassionate energy that I think resonates with what your argument is, that Stallone's role needs compassion. It needs that. It needs a deeper look. But yes, Brandi, you did beat him there.
Steven
I was trying to mirror the performance.
Turner
OK, that's what you did. It was poetic.
Steven
I should have just destroyed this whole podcast.
Turner
For viability. I think you tied because you both brought different compelling arguments. So it's hard to say. Like, I could I could relate to both in different ways. And it did actually make that hard. The rebuttal...Brandi did slay you.
Brandi
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Turner
Brandi slayed you there. And in particular, I love this line about not giving people a gold star just for showing up, which cut through Steven's argument around like, well, this film was also a nominee. It shouldn't have gotten it for this reason. This other film was bull, so it shouldn't have won either. And instead, it's like, yes. Is this film itself a winner? Is it a winner because it's great and it's offering us something new and different? Or is it a winner because the other ones sucked more?
Brandi
Yes.
Steven
I don't like where this is going, Turner.
Turner
So based on the numbers, I'm sorry, Steven, but Brandi has beaten you by three points.
Brandi
Yes. Redemption.
Sound effect Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Brandi
Wait. No, no, no, no, no. Hip hop air horn.
Sound effect: Hip Hop air horn
Brandi
Thank you Turner.
Steven
I mean, it's fine, it's OK, you know what, I'm fine. I took the first debate. So we're tied now. It's cool. You know, I kind of want it this way. I want to keep it competitive between us Brandi.
Brandi
I wanted to say I appreciate for once on the show having an unbiased judge who is logical.
Steven
Your definition of unbiased, meaning they always side with you is not fair. Wow. Well, I'm disappointed, obviously. But I do appreciate, Turner, that you saw the merits of the arguments that I made and the quality of the performance, which even if it wasn't enough to score me the win I think that's a win in my book. That you saw Sylvester Stallone slightly differently than you did coming into this podcast.
Turner
It's definitely true. I did. I had this one kind of flattened image of what Rambo was about based on this kind of macho imagery, you know, that the film's marketing has put out. But seeing the clips and hearing the monologues, I got a whole different take on what the film was about and who that character was. So I do totally appreciate your argument here. And it's given me some more things to think about.
Steven
Yeah. Just don't watch Rambo First Blood part two, three, four, five. Don't watch any of them because they definitely dive deep into that representation.
Brandi
You got so bailed out by First Blood because I was going to ether you if we were talking about the franchise. Turner for sure, thank you so much both for your perspective and the nuance. For sharing with us your history, your incredible work. I am a fan of yours, so thank you for making the time to come on our show. And I'm not just saying that because I won fair and square, but legitimately because you are an amazing, very thoughtful person. So I appreciate you.
Steven
You are an amazing person. Where can people follow your work? Where can they get connected to what you do?
Turner
Yeah, you can follow 18 million rising on the Internet, on social media at 18 million rising. And that's on Twitter, on Facebook and on Instagram. And you can also read more about our work. You could look at Unmasking Yellow Peril and some of our other materials at 18 million rising dot. org
Steven
Awesome. Thank you so much for being here tonight.
Brandi
Really appreciate it. This wraps it up for this episode of Bring Receipts. Thank you to our special guest, Turner Willman. If you like what you heard, go ahead and subscribe on your favorite platform and tune in next time where I'll argue why Marvin Gaye's nineteen eighty three rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner is the national anthem OUR America deserves. Until then, hold on to your receipts.
