Continuing my ramblings on Predator (1987), there's an interesting choice of cinematography when the protagonists start fighting back against their titular antagonist; Once Anna explains the Predator's schtick as a chameleon, our heroes begin making new traps meant to fool the Predator. And as they do, there's some pretty choice shots emphasizing the bulging muscles of characters like Dillon and the like. Dillon is interesting especially given he's framed as the least masculine of the guys due to being a dishonest pencil-pusher; Here, it seems as if everyone, even Dillon, is reclaiming their masculinity with this chance to fight back. With this chance to turn back the odds and restore their conventional status as action heroes.....
And then we know how it all goes down; The Predator breaks free of the trap, and kills its last four victims of the film to leave only Dutch and Anna. The Predator as a dark reflection of the characters' machismo makes more sense when you consider how he can mimic the voices of the others, and the wound that puts him down is identical to that of his final victim Poncho; Both are felled by a log trap.
From the perspective of the Predator, other characters' voices become noticeable high-pitched; I wonder if this is, in a way, meant to show how even a badass like Dutch is emasculated in the eyes of the Yautja. The line between Predator and the protagonists is further blurred when Dutch achieves his own form of cloaking that is also sabotaged when he comes into contact with water; He learns to fight more like the Predator, relying on stealth, ambush, and the environment around him to hide and attack. So now the Predator becomes the hunted too. Its final words are to repeat Dutch's only lines back at him before laughing in Billy's hearty voice.
You know that one post circulating around here, where people joke about what if the Predator was more the exception to his home's culture, rather than the norm? What if he was the Yautja equivalent to bored middle-class dudes who decide to go on a hunting trip for fun, to collect trophies from lions and other animals that are otherwise harmless and victimized, to flex how 'badass' he is? And meanwhile everyone else back home is rolling their eyes because what a loser. What if that's really just what the Predator is meant to symbolize, in the context of the original film at least; People who like to kill and hunt to show off how masculine they are.
But in the end, it's quite easy and cowardly, arguably, to rely on a cloaking device, whilst sniping oblivious targets from afar. Beforehand, I wonder if we could take into account how animals are treated by the human protagonists beforehand; One of the characters kicking a bird aside, Mac stabbing a scorpion. Them flexing their macho attitudes by killing an animal that for all intents and purposes is pretty helpless against the one who gets it. And then the roles are reversed where the human protagonists become the game for the Predator to make trophies out of.
I find it fascinating Dutch's reaction when Mac admits that Blain was his friend; You get the sense that this is quite uncharacteristic a thing for Mac to do. Nowadays it seems like a pretty obvious and understandable thing for any guy to do, but for someone like Mac, it IS quite the confession of emotional vulnerability here. Plus there's Poncho being a sad sopping wet cat for the rest of the film, once Hawkins is the first to die.
If Predator is a slasher film, then it subscribes to its own version of the rules, just as it has its own version of a 'final girl' in muscled badass Dutch, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know how those who have premarital sex die first? It seems Predator operates on similar rules; Hawkins makes crude jokes about female genitalia and is killed first. Blain calls everyone else the f-slur and proclaims his own sexual prowess, in addition to being your typical badass macho man who's too tough to feel pain, and then he's unceremoniously killed off pretty early too. This is despite, or rather because of, being the "big guy" who wields a giant mini-gun.
Mac and Billy are stoic, but Mac unravels psychologically and sings lyrics about objectifying a woman shortly before his death, and Billy remains rattled throughout by the Predator's presence, even openly admitting to Poncho that he's afraid. And of course there's Poncho, who is on the verge of tears 24/7 once the movie's genre shifts, voice constantly wavering.
On a final note, one could be half-joking about homoerotic undertones between Mac and Blain, at least on Mac’s end. Which could be an interesting discussion in and of itself when you also account for Blain’s use of the f-slur and how he’s the most stereotypically masculine of the group. Because I know the military is known for being a place where homosexuality was often discovered and explored. How would that factor into the larger themes of masculinity in this film, I wonder?
