Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

In 1985, when his star was arguably at its zenith, Sylvester Stallone appeared in the second and third highest grossing films of the year – Rocky IV and Rambo First Blood Part II. Both films were unashamedly jingoistic in the worldview that they presented, and while the former saw the perennial puncher draped in the American flag after single-handedly putting an end to the Cold War, the latter capitalised on the still unfounded belief that American servicemen classified as Missing in Action were still being held in internment camps more than a decade after the close of the Vietnam War. The success irrevocably tied Stallone to an image of right-wing Republicanism that has continued to inform how we see the star, preserving him as an iconic symbol of the right, despite (until very recently at least) never really demonstrating any real political allegiance or affiliation one way or another. This chapter tracks the representation seen in Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), and explores how this has been mapped onto Sylvester Stallone, considering what is at stake if we accept the film as a political text.