America's Promise

Back in the '80s and early '90s we used to have awesome neighborhood video rental places. You'd find all sorts of crap to view, much of the time based on how awesomely bad or badly awesome the cover was. These were the sorts of places where I discovered Robot Jox and Deepstar Six. It's also where I got stuff like Rambo, and Die Hard, though I saw Die Hard 2 on laserdisc. Ah laserdisc, those were the days.

Anyway, back in the day we did have guys like Schwarzenegger and Jet Li, but we also had Stallone and Bruce Willis. We had Seagal and Chuck "The Beard" Norris. In other word, men's men. American men starring in the greatest action movies ever. Seriously, Invasion USA will put hair on your chest.

So what the fuck happened? Now all the heir apparents to the manly men of American action movies are coming from other places that aren't America. Sure, I got a lot of love for Tony "I will break your face on my knee" Jaa and Jason "Crank 2" Statham. But where's the next big American action star? Christian Bale? Not American. Sam Worthington? Not American.

Shia "Fucking" Labeouf. Seriously, he was just in what I imagine was the top grossing action movie of the year, and he's the guy that gets killed in movies so you know that the shit just got real. I mean seriously. Remember Orlando Bloom? Remember how much of a travesty it was that Eric Bana's character in Troy got killed for his ass?

What happened to real American action heroes? GI Joe doesn't count, because it looks moronically stupid. Sorry Tatum.

It's like America has developed a generation of pussies. Where kids no longer get into fist fights at school. Bullies have free reign as long as they don't get caught. The kids that should just get fed up and throw a punch now just fester until they bring guns to school. When alcoholism and beating on your kids is no longer acceptable behavior, you develop a generation of pussies instead of men. If we're supposed to be the world's cowboys, then why the hell are our leading men all a bunch of little bitches?

















And that's why we have Shia "Fucking" Labeouf as the "action hero." And why the girls all dig Zack Efron.