I got the sense, from my small group discussion after the film, that everyone was really rooting for Bev and didn’t like Rachel. In fact, we discussed whether or not she was vapid. A number of other people in the group felt that she was, but (as I said at the time) I really didn’t see it. Partly it could be that I really don’t feel that it’s appropriate for me to call a woman vapid. But also, I’m not sure why this woman was considered vapid.

Honestly, I want people to tell me why Rachel is vapid, or, more generally, unlikable. Is it because she paid so much attention to her appearance? Because, as a matter of fact, she’s performing in a competition entirely about her physical appearance. For example, people in the class (including me) laughed when she said, “I think half of it is just about your hair” as she was getting ready for the competition. But, at that point, she had won more female bodybuilding competitions than anyone else. I’d imagine that she knows as well as anyone, probably better, what it’s about. I feel that the editing of the film was aimed toward making her look shallow. For example, we only saw anything about her religion two times when she told people how religious she was. It comes across as a non sequitur, and not particularly genuine. But isn’t it possible that there was plenty of footage of her praying or having thoughtful conversations about her faith? Would such footage have fit the film’s storyline?

I want to be really clear that, in this post, I’m talking about the film, not the competition. I think it’s very important to separate the two. To me, Pumping Iron II is a sexist film. By this, I mean that it’s a film directed and written (yes, it’s a documentary, but it has a “written by” credit) a man about an event created by the same man for the sole purpose of this movie, and it objectifies women’s bodies (think about the scene in the shower). I also think that Bev was set up to be the hero of the film and Rachel was set up to be the villain. (Indeed, Wikipedia states that Rachel is the villain of the film, for whatever that’s worth.) To me, these two things mean that I need to look at who benefits from Bev being the hero and Rachel being the villain.

Bev reminded me of Dyer’s article about the inherent fascism of male bodybuilding. She even said that she wanted to look like a statue. I didn’t find Bev unlikable at all, but I can’t really root for her. She models herself after male bodybuilders. Throughout the film, we’re told that female bodybuilding should be judged by the standards of male bodybuilding. But I think male bodybuilding is a problem in a lot of ways. Why should female bodybuilding emulate that? I’m not trying to defend the judges, but I feel like the movie is forcing me to root for someone who emulates a fascist male sport and to make fun of the “feminine” competitors. It sets up the problematic viewpoint that male bodybuilding is real sport while female bodybuilding could be a real sport, if only it were judged by the same standards as male bodybuilding. I don’t mean to say that female bodybuilding was judged correctly – obviously the idea of femininity the judges were going by was really restrictive. But I really felt that the film’s promotion of Bev was a reaffirmation of male bodybuilding.