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March 1993

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Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 12 Mar 1993 16:40:32 -0400
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Sorry, not even Arnold movies are always <just> Arnold movies (eg. "Kinder-
garten Cop")  They usually/often have subtexts that are socially interesting,
and insofar as they instance a popular <genre> there is a level of meaning
beyond that of the individual film at play.  Take "Terminator" 1 and 2.  A
subtext here is the nuclear family and "family values", and much of the
plot of T1 and T2 is spent with constituting and reconstituting these
relationships under adverse (but paradigmatically contemporary??) conditions.
The fate and salvation of the nuclear family is a prominent theme in 1950's
SF and it reappears, eg., in "Alien 2", which literally ends with the
constitution of a new nuclear family (complete with pet, if you count androids
in this category).
 
Jesse Kalin

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