So there I was, minding my own business reading The Daily Telegraph earlier this week, when suddenly it happened.
"RUDDBO," the headline boomed at me, in a commanding sans-serif typeface. "Kev tells his tales of his time on the front line." Alongside this bold proclamation, nearly as big as the article itself, stood our Photoshopped hero: a bandana-clad, combat-booted Rudd, his face twisted into a snarl, assault rifle gripped in his powerful, death-dealing hands.
I was hooked. Here was Kevin Rudd, who brought us such lah-de-dah "big-picture" ideas as the 2020 Summit, Fuel Watch, Grocery Watch, the war on obesity talking about, well, real war - boasting to troops at Lavarack Barracks in Townsville about how he'd been out "into the field" in Afghanistan. Where, the Daily Telegraph was quick to point out, Australian troops had been deployed since 2001, and Sylvester Stallone was deployed in the 1988 action movie Rambo III.
Confronted with the glistening, muscle-bound image of Ruddbo, I immediately began to ponder the existence of the picture. Clearly the selling of newspapers had something to do with it. Only recently Kevin Rudd had been likened in the same newspaper to the bumbling Nazi Colonel Klink from 'Hogan's Heros'. No doubt next week he'll be ravaged by the lasso tool and be grafted onto someone else. Perhaps Indiana Jones? Or Tony Montana? Maybe even Charles Foster Kane? We'll have to wait and see.
The first question I found myself asking was - why Rambo? Well, actually, that was the second question I found myself asking. The first was: what connection does this image of Rambo have to Afghanistan, considering it looks suspiciously like an image not from 'Rambo III', but rather 'Rambo: First Blood Part 2', which is set in Vietnam?
The first answer to that question is probably that the main concern of the Daily Telegraph's overworked creative department was simply that they needed to liken Kevin Rudd to Rambo - any picture would do - and they were happy to leave the specifics of film trivia to Thursday nights at the Aurora. That's fair enough. A second, and more interesting answer might involve the parallels of current military actions in Afghanistan have with the Vietnam War.
But I digress. Why Rambo? My brain, hardwired after years of 1980s action films, instantly reached for the archetype of the reckless, ultra-violent outsider. The renegade. A soldier, who although haunted by his past, still managed to spray bullets across the silver screen and get results. But no. This was an act of derision by the Daily Telegraph. And I felt bad. Not for Kevin Rudd - but for Rambo.
I mean, that's pop culture for you, isn't it? Decades after Rambo first busted up small-town America, the jungles of Vietnam and the deserts of Afghanistan, he has turned over his high-explosive tipped arrows and surrendered to the eddies and currents of the superficial, the sensationalist and the establishment. These days, Rambo is manipulated by politicians and the media when they feel like it, for their own purposes. It's certainly not the first time a politician has been compared to the scarred Vietnam veteran struggling to return to American society and occasionally finding work, albeit reluctantly, as a PoW wrangler and/or killing machine. Former US President Ronald Reagan was known to have been a fan of the film series. Following the release of 39 US hostages from Lebanon in 1985 he was heard joking that “after seeing 'Rambo' last night, I know what to do the next time this happens.”.
Yes, sometimes it is just time for Rambo. When it is time for Rambo I take him down off the shelf, put him in my DVD player and press play – or if I'm really busy I'll just listen to the soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith. Evidently Rambo time comes for others too, even US presidents and those reporting on election campaigns. Whether it's a hostage crisis, decreasing circulation of print media, or even if you've just had a hard day at work, Rambo can help. Like Rambo, Kevin too was once 'here to help', and turned out to be harder to dispose of than many thought.
But why stop at just Rudd and Rambo? It's evident that action cinema offers us many comparisons with recent Australian political history.
Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been open about her admiration for the films of Arnold Schwarzenegger. But I was to choose an action hero that me of the "real Julia" it wouldn't be any characters portrayed by the Austrian Oak. It would be Ellen Ripley from 'Aliens' – relentlessly pursued by faceless enemies gestated in trapped human beings and being undermined and betrayed by members of her own team, all the while trying to address pressing issues created by atmospheric processing.
Tony Abbott on the other hand is more difficult to pin down. A physical man of action in his own right, the Opposition Leader has a fitness regime reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman in 'Marathon Man', firefighting abilities that could belong in 'Backdraft' and a deep-seated fear of ocean-borne threats that wouldn't seem out of place in 'Pacific Rim'.
Those focused on Mr Abbott's less impressive moments might find his interview with Channel 7's Mark Riley - during which he stood silently shaking for almost 30 seconds - reminiscent of the scene in the science fiction movie 'Robocop', in which Robocop malfunctions, freezing up after encountering the internal shutdown code Directive 4 in his internal programming. But he surfs as well though, wouldn't that mean he's kind of like Johnny Utah in 'Point Break'?
We could go on and on like this. What about the three independents? Bob Katter, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott: are they not reminiscent of the final four members of 'The Wild Bunch' walking to their doom? Clearly we'd need a fourth person. Could that be Clive Palmer?
These are just some of the big questions we must ponder as we grind towards another election night.
Perhaps what we need is more digitally altered pictures, and bigger ones at that. A collectible series of inserts might be what our newspapers need to boost circulation. Meanwhile, members of the public looking for informed discussion of policy objectives that have the potential to affect our nation might be advised to look elsewhere.
Rambo was once asked “What mean expendable?”. His response: “It's like someone invites you to a party, and you don't show up; doesn't really matter.”
In today's politics, where even a sitting Prime Minister is expendable, I think it's a salient point.
I sometimes wonder where the Australian public fits into the whole thing.
Andrew Wright is a writer, VHS collector and film enthusiast.
