The Hidden Insecurities of He-Man

I’ve been watching a lot of the 1983 television series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe lately. Despite the sound writing, cool music, and graphic homoerotic overtones, I have a problem with the show.

The series is set on a faraway planet called Eternia. In nearly every episode, the evil Skelator and his minions plot to conquer the Castle Grayskull, because it contains “the secrets of the universe.” Skelator’s evil plots would succeed were it not for Prince Adam, who, the opening tells us: “holds aloft his magic sword, says the magic words and becomes He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe!”

He-Man is a separate being from Prince Adam, who takes possession of the young man whenever Eternia is threatened. Then He-Man’s personality recedes back to whence it came, be it the halls of Grayskull or Adam’s psyche. None of this really matters though. What you need to know is that without the emergency aid of He-Man, Eternia would fall to the forces of darkness.

As I said before, Skelator hatches a new scheme to defeat He-Man each episode, and falls just short. Of course, if he were any kind of mastermind, he wouldn’t use one evil scheme at a time. He’d find one super-weapon such as the Diamond Ray of Disappearance, hold off for a while, then combine its power with another magic tool, such as the Shape Shifting Staff. He-Man and the MOTU would be overwhelmed.

Even more disturbing, however, is that He-Man simply allows Skelator and his minions to escape back to their Snake Mountain fortress at the end of each episode. Then, apparently, the forces of good wait to be attacked again.

If any planet was in need of the Bush Doctrine, it’s Eternia. Imagine if He-Man, instead of waiting till the last minute to arrive stop the bad guys, were to launch a pre-emptive strike against Snake Mountain and catch Skelator off guard. If the good forces of Eternia had any sort of strength at all, they would have taken this action after Skelator’s first attack on the castle.

Therefore, I can only arrive at one conclusion: the forces of King Randor and the other “good guys” are inherently weaker than those of Skelator. Skelator has a robot army, super-powered acolytes (such as Beast Man, who controls all animals!), and is a master sorcerer. Yet, the king’s forces are aided by the magic of the Sorceress, whose powers weaken when she leaves Castle Grayskull. So there exists a sort of stalemate between these two great armies. The one person who can always strike this balance is He-Man, the “Most Powerful Man in the Universe.”

But I submit to you that He-Man’s worth extends no further than his raw strength. He is no grand strategist, only a gun to be fired at the enemy. When he fights, he leads no troops into combat: he just picks up the villains by their feet, swings them around, and throws them into a river. Or he punches a rock.

But still, he is capable of great feats, such as lifting a boulder to cap a volcano, or deflecting the magic bolts of Skelator with his enchanted sword. Then why does he not end the destructive conflict between the rival forces of Eternia?

Remember that when He-Man is not He-Man, he is Prince Adam, son of the king and heir to the throne. Adam, according to any episode of the show, is lazy, a poor warrior, and is always late for official functions. In the episode “Teela’s Quest” he even skirts guard training to go fishing. Yet, when he “holds aloft his magic sword” he becomes endowed with the “powers of Grayskull,” the entire might of the universe runs through his veins, and he is the hero of millions. And he has a great tan.

This train of thought can only arrive at one conclusion: Prince Adam is prolonging the conflict with Skelator to feed his own ego, thereby endangering trillions of lives all over the galaxy. Should he one day fail and Grayskull falls to Skelator, the madman will conquer us all.

I question the wisdom of the Sorceress, who claims that Adam is “destined” to become He-Man and save Eternia. I question the tactical sense of Duncan, the “Man-At-Arms” of the Eternian castle, for not urging Adam/He-Man to finish the fight. Most of all, I question myself, for having looked up to such a flawed man all through my childhood and adult life.

Slumber Party Massacre 2

Tonight I watched Slumber Party Massacre 2, a 1987 film starring a young Crystal Bernard (better known as Helen Chapel from the TV show "Wings").

First off, let me say that while I did not see the original Slumber party film, I followed this one with ease. The main character, Courtney (Bernard) is a minor character in the first film, but this is understood easily enough through flashbacks.

It should also be noted that the film series was successful to spin off a number of knocks offs, including (I'm not making this up) Lingerie Party Massacre, Bikini Party Massacre, and Alien Beach Party Massacre.

With those pleasantries aside, I'll tell you that I didn't like the film. Courtney and her friends are a hot teenage rock band that hopes to make it rich. They fool their parents into allowing them a weekend getaway to a condo, where they plan to practice their music, write songs, and, oh yeah, hook up with boys.

We do not see much of the aforementioned hooking up. Oh, there is a fun scene where they dance and splash champagne on each other amidst a shower of feathers, while the one actress without a titty clause in her contract (the one with the smallest breasts, I should note) dances topless. A couple of horny teenage boys (oxymoron) watching her from the window echoed my thoughts when they said, "I didn't know girls really did this stuff at slumber parties." He's right. Boys just play video games and fart.

And so the first night we hear sex through the walls of Courtney's bedroom, while she has extremely hilarious dream sequence fantasies about a topless football player.

Sounds normal, right? It is, except Courtney is having recurring visions from her previous Slumber Party experiences. A leather clad Andrew Dice Clay lookalike visits her and asks her to "go all the way" with him. When he finally appears, he chases them with an enormous badass guitar, tricked out with flames and a ginormous drill where the head stock should be. Therefore his victims get screwed, but not the "screwing" they intended. Get it, gang? Screw?

Anyways, so all of this is fun. Villain kills dumb teenagers, yay! Villain stops to do a few dance moves, quote a Fifties rock song, then screws another teenager, yay!

Except this wasn't just an ordinary horror movie. Remember that Courtney and her friends were in a rock band (actually a fairly good one), and that their boyfriends were coming to watch them perform. They can dress it up as a B horror flick all they want, but what this movie was really about was the role of women in asserting themselves in the rock and roll pantheon alongside rockabilly superstars like Elvis.

Because women were asserting their independance by being sexually aggressive, playing rock music, and manipulating phallic instruments (guitars, bass), they were penetrated by a leather-pants throwback from yesteryear. But not just penetrated: drilled, like a piece of machinery in a man's workshop.

Of course it comes down to Courtney, having to face this monster that's been living inside her head for so long (actually, I think he only haunted her this one weekend, but you get the idea). Does she turn his phallic instrument of doom against him? Use her own guitar to electrocute him? Hell, does she have a rock off and defeat him at his own game?

Nah. She sets him on fire and throws him off a building.

Then she wakes up next to the football player, and it was all a dream. And she kisses the football player, and yay happy ending, but then...the dream man turns into the nightmare guitar player, and she's suddenly in the very insane asylum her sister is confined to. Then we watch in horror as a regular-sized drill grinds into a small model that looks vaguely like her cell, in the worst special effect of an otherwise well-made movie.

The startling misogynist ending is surprising, given that the writer/director was a woman (Deborah Brock). She went on to direct 3 more B (no, b is too high. Let's say E-Movies) and, amazingly, co-produced the brilliant Buffalo '66.

So here's my message to Deborah Brock (the rest of you may scroll down: you had your chance to make a fun little slasher movie and give it real meaning. You could have furthered the cause of women's lib and inspired millions of young girls to be whatever they wanted, be it doctors, lawyers, or rock stars. And you threw it all away for a stupid twist ending the studio probably pressured you into accepting.

You're telling little girls everywhere that they might as well not run from the monsters--that they should "go all the way" with them or they'll be locked in a dark room with a big metal dick boring up through the floor for the rest of their lives. Shame on you.

As for the rest of you: you gotta see this fuckin' movie.

A Story I Wrote

This is a link to a story I wrote. I'm sort of proud of it, and would like to know what you think. I'd like to cut it down.

Click Here.