Category: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger recently gave an interesting interview to the Times of London. It was less about promoting his Netflix show and more about promoting his environmental work, but he spoke about a variety of topics, including his pride in his son Patrick, the collapse of his marriage to Maria Shriver, how he’s living his American dream, and the so-called “crisis in masculinity.” I found his comments about masculinity the most notable – Arnold has always been pure machismo, profiting from the performance of his masculinity for decades. In his view, the crisis in masculinity is simple: every kid needs a father or father figure. Some highlights from the Times:

He’s totally fine when people interrupt his day to talk to him: “What people miss the most is to get attention. That someone knows them, is aware of them, that they’re somebody. And so they go to a shrink. They lie on the couch and someone is listening to them. But I go out anywhere to a crowd and they all listen. And they love to listen to my sh-t, right? I’m having fifty thousand shrinks sitting out there, and I don’t pay a f***ing penny. I get paid! So how can I complain about that?… OK, yes, there are times when you go to a restaurant and someone comes up and says, can I take a picture of you? But I can walk into this restaurant at any time, I can sit at any table I want, I make no reservation. For that I take a picture with someone. It takes three minutes. So why would I complain?”

On the second Trump era: “This country’s going through a difficult moment but it’s not the end of the world.”

Whether he thinks masculinity is in crisis: He claims to have never even heard of Andrew Tate, but reflects, “The majority of people have a problem. They feel down, depressed, not in a good mood. People come up to me in the gym and ask, ‘How can I get up in the morning and feel good?’ Well, I’m not an expert in psychology and all this stuff. But I tell them, what works for me is not to think. So therefore, don’t think. Just work out and struggle and fight. This will make you feel good mentally.”

What do young men need? “I don’t know if I have the solution or not. But when I think about my kids, none of them have that problem. And the reason is because there was a strong father there. I gave them discipline and didn’t let them get away with anything. And they were taught how to make their beds, they were taught how to wash their clothes. Because it’s like the way I grew up.” Then he gets out his iPad to show me videos of him painting Mother’s Day cards with his two young granddaughters and his expression melts as he points out their rapt gaze. “So I think that kids need a father and a mother. It’s always the key. And if they don’t have a father, some other male has to come in.”

He believes most young men lack father figures: Arnold’s only brother died in a car crash in Austria at the age of 24, leaving a three-year-old son, Patrick. Schwarzenegger brought his nephew to the US at 19, put him through college, got him a job at Gold’s Gym and he is now a successful entertainment lawyer in LA. “Of course he missed his father but that we couldn’t do anything about. He was dead. So now it was just surrounding him with the support and with male reinforcement, to say this is what you should do. The male dominance, that’s what they idolise.”

His son Patrick, who was just on The White Lotus: “Patrick never asked me a question about acting. But he came many times to me and said, ‘I just did an interview with this magazine and two thirds of the questions were about you.’ But I was just in New York and a journalist comes up and says, ‘What’s it like being the father of Patrick Schwarzenegger?’ All of a sudden, everything has changed around. I walk into the gym now and it used to be the girls would come up and give me their contact. And then after White Lotus comes out, the girl comes up and says, ‘Here’s my contact, give it to Patrick.’ So it’s wonderful. If I go to my grave and know that my son has outdone me, I’m in heaven.”

[From The Times]

Yeah, he’s speaking from his own experience, it’s not like he’s claiming to be an expert on families. I’m not surprised that Arnold has retro, if not completely regressive, views on parenting, families and father figures. It is strange though, because… Arnold had a sh-tty father who was an abusive alcoholic Nazi, and Arnold turned into a much better man IN SPITE of his father. Arnold also denied fathering his son Joseph for years, although Arnold is a father to Joseph now and they’re in each other’s lives. There are plenty of toxic jackholes who had great fathers, and there are plenty of amazing people who grew up without strong, loving fathers or father figures. Arnold does edge up on one of my theories about the alleged “crisis of masculinity” though – the lack of quality role models for boys and young men, and in that vacuum, pieces of sh-t like Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan are celebrated.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was once a popular figure in the Republican Party, and he definitely helped the GOP retain their idiotic “we’re big strong men” branding. But then something weird happened – the Republican Party went off the f–king deep end with racism, white supremacy, terrorism, lies and anti-science. Modern Republicans are truly a death cult. And Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn’t want any part of it. He’s been consistently critical of Republicans for their white supremacy and terrorism, and he’s been appalled by their death-cult attitude to the pandemic. Schwarzenegger gave an interview this week to support Alex Vindman’s new book. You can see the full video here (Vindman is on the link-up), but Arnold went off in a great way about vaccines and masks:

“A year and a half later, we are still in a mess and there are still people living in denial, there are still people that don’t believe in masks, there are still people out there who say, ‘Well, we don’t have to do social distancing,‘ and all this kind of stuff. And I just think that people ought to be reminded over and over that the experts are saying that we have to wear masks, especially when you go indoors, the experts are saying that you should still wash your hands regularly, you should still do social distancing, especially now with this new comeback of the virus, which is the fourth round now, that we have to really go and work together.”

“Look, I am an expert on how to build a bicep…there’s no one who knows more about a bicep than I do because I studied this issue for 50 years. And the same is also with the virus. There are people out there who are experts that studied this year after year after year…Dr. [Anthony] Fauci [has studied viruses] for his entire life, why would you not believe someone like that?”

“I think people should know there is a virus here, it kills people. And the only way we prevent it is we get vaccinated, we wear masks, we do social distancing, washing your hands all of the time, and not just to think about, ‘Well, my freedom is being kind of disturbed here.’ No, screw your freedom. Because with freedom comes obligations and responsibilities. You cannot just say, ‘I have the right to do x, y, and z,’ when you affect other people. That is when it gets serious. It’s like, no different than a traffic light. They put the traffic light in the intersection so someone doesn’t kill someone else by accident. You cannot say, ‘No one is going to tell me that I’m going to stop here, I’m going to go right through it.’ Yeah, then you kill someone else. It is the same thing with the virus.”

“You cannot go and not put the mask on because when you breathe you can infect someone else, and you can infect someone that then gets sick and may die. So this is why I think we all have to work together on this.… We have to come together rather than fighting and always just saying, ‘According to my principles this is a free country and I have the freedom to wear no mask.’ Yeah, you have the freedom to wear no mask, but you know something? You’re a schmuck for not wearing a mask.”

[From Vanity Fair]

Yeah. Exactly. I’m tired of playing patty-cake with these a–holes. It’s been 18 months of this sh-t. Get a vaccine. Don’t be a schmuck. Wear a mask. Stop whining about “muh freedums.” It might sound like jeez, of course, all of this is perfectly obvious. Did you know that here in America, there are people PROTESTING outside of hospitals? Protesting masks. Protesting the vaccine. Protesting the delta variant. They’re screaming at overworked healthcare workers for doing their jobs. Yes, we need more high-profile people like Arnold and like Republican g–damn leadership telling people to get f–king vaccinated. Enough of this bullsh-t.

The parking lot after a school board meeting last night in Franklin, the wealthiest place in Tennessee. Parents harassed medical professionals who had spoken in favor of masks in schools. “We know who you are. You can leave freely, but we will find you.” pic.twitter.com/SzR0uvMeE7

— Natalie Allison (@natalie_allison) August 11, 2021

Yesterday while I was talking with @AVindman and @biannagolodryga about Alex’s new book, I was asked about my comment about COVID misinformation that all of you are sharing. Here was my answer: pic.twitter.com/8LKhPIJ1Eu

— Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) August 11, 2021

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.