“What Mean Expendable?”: Myth, Ideology, and Meaning in First Blood and Rambo

The year 1982 introduced to moviegoers a character that would eventually become a major popular culture icon, John Rambo. This is the year First Blood was released, which features Sylvester Stallone as an alienated and neglected Vietnam veteran who seems to roam the country until he enters the wrong town. Three years later, Rambo was back in full force with Rambo: First Blood, Part II (from this point on referred to as Rambo or Part II). This time, Rambo gets released from a prison camp he is sent to after the first film to return to Vietnam in search of POWs. The first film was a success, making approximately 13 million dollars, a respectable amount for the time. However, its sequel was a phenomenal success, pulling in over 150 million dollars, and planting the image and persona of Rambo into cultural history. Rambo's popularity was so immense that it spawned a Saturday morning cartoon, "Rambo-grams," candy bars, and a water gun based on his rifle-an ironic development because for much of these films he is without it (Goldman 60). President Reagan even referred to him in a press conference concerning the hijacking of TWA Flight #847, saying, "Boy, I'm glad I saw Rambo last night. Now I know what to do next time" (qtd. in Budra 189, 192). Why was Rambo so successful in both economic and cultural arenas? The first two Rambo movies are filled with ideology, American myth, and character representations that, consciously or not, appealed to a wide range of people. Carol Fry and Christopher Kemp put it aptly: "They give us a modern champion... who in his agony provides a fantasy victory over cultural and historical forces which are beyond the power of the audience to control" (368). In other words, the films tap into and incorporate different tenets and issues that, together or alone, feed a cultural desire that has resulted in the immense notoriety of their hero. Vengeance and Allegory First Blood is obviously a revenge fantasy with an unjustifiably abused victim giving his persecutors what they rightfully deserve. Rambo is arrested and mistreated by intolerant sheriffs, but he escapes into the forest. It is there that his revenge is obtainable, for Rambo is a master of guerrilla warfare. As John Hellmann points out, his revenge is realized through both Sylvester Stallone's "superhuman masculine power" and his violence drawn out as a cathartic response to the wrongs committed against Rambo (140). In this sense, the film appeals to anyone who has ever been a victim or oppressed even in the slightest situation. First Blood taps the natural desire people have for vengeance when their liberties or dignity are compromised. And Rambo certainly gets his revenge on the parochial sheriff's department of a town called Hope. Although only one man actually dies, and this essentially by accident (he falls out of a helicopter while trying to shoot Rambo), Rambo's utter destruction of the town at the film's climax and the serious injuries inflicted on most of the deputies, especially his nemesis, Sheriff Will Teasle, create enough satisfaction to appease the viewer and even Rambo. However, First Blood is more than just a revenge fantasy, because John Rambo is not just another underdog. He is a Vietnam vet, and an ex-Green Beret at that. This status brings another dimension into the film. Everyone knows about the stories of soldiers returning from Vietnam only to be looked at scornfully by an ungrateful nation. In fact, Rambo complains of this himself in his climactic monologue: "Then I come back to the world and I see all these maggots at the airport, protestin' me, spittin', calling me baby killer and all types of vile crap!" Because Rambo and the vets he symbolizes carry this grudge, his revenge is also payback for such treatment. Hellmann calls the film "a transparent, and disturbing, strategy of compensation for postdefeat feelings of frustration and inadequacy" (140). First Blood can also be viewed as an allegory of the Vietnam war itself. …