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Movie: Pumping Iron
Pumping Iron is a docudrama about the world of bodybuilding, released in 1977. This movie was focused around the 1975 IFBB Mr. Universe and Mr, Olympia competitions, and depicted the competition between Arnold Schwarzenegger and his major competitor for the title of Mr. Olympia, Lou Ferrigno. This movie is inspired by a book of the same name by Charles Gaines and George Butler.
The success of this movie inspired three sequels on the same concept. One was Pumping Iron II: The Women in 1985, second was Raw Iron in 2002, and Vlad Yudin’s 2013 documentary Generation Iron.
Amateur and professional body builders from the Gold's Gym in Venice Beach California to the showdown in Pretoria prepares for the 1975 Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe contests. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is the five-time champion, defends his Mr. Olympia title against Serge Nubret and the shy young deaf Lou Ferrigno, whose father is his coach.
This movie is the story of survival and triumph. This movie created a following for bodybuilding as a sport. It helped create a multi-billion dollar market for bodybuilding equipment, trainers, and thousands of gyms to new body building enthusiasts.
The greatest influence of this film was on bodybuilding, transforming it from a sideshow to a competitive sport. This movie represented the decade in America when record numbers of young generation were inspired to lift weights and pursue bodybuilding. This led to the development of an entire industry that started to cater the trainer’s demand, equipment, training facilities, and instruction video and books. Also, Golds Gym from only one facility, it grew to over 3,000 in 25 years.
The movie depicts the competition among the participants, and the issues they face while preparing for the competition. They prepare for the most glorious body-building competition on the calendar, Mr. Olympia. Movies scenes where body builders steal each other's personal items to try to mess with rivals before they are meant to go out on stage and pose depicts the creation of trouble by one party to another when a change in thinking comes up.
This movie tried to break the prejudice about the body building. Pumping Iron knocks preconceptions sideways in its opening moments – showing the scene where Arnold take ballet lessons to improve his pose. And then it demonstrates that bodybuilders are like other normal creatures in almost everything, be it vanities, foibles, and rivalries. This movie has mixed the two form, that is, documentary and realistic fiction, that kept eyes and ears of the audience on the entertainment. The strongest card of the movie is Arnold, who keeps the audience interested in the movie with his cold gestures.
This movie, in general, depicts how a group of bodybuilders face different troubles and move ahead to achieve their goal. This movie impacted the social thinking of the society. The society, in general, was skeptic about bodybuilding; however, the release of this movie changed the perception of the society. The social engineering made by this movie is its most important contribution to the society.
The society started to see bodybuilding as a sport, and more and more people got motivated by the movie and joined freshly opened gyms.
There are scenes that show the struggle of the builders, like practicing posing for endless hours in the mirror, smearing oil on their bodies and tanning in the sun.
The overall impact of the movie on the society was ample; it hide one thing from the audience. That was, whether the intention of body building is looking stronger or being stronger. If anyone takes a look at the bodies of Olympic weightlifters, he will find that there is little resemblance to the tanned swollen limbs and torsos popping with veins of the bodybuilders.
Pumping Iron can be called as watershed in filmmaking as it not only shined a spotlight on the culture of bodybuilding; it also made this thing acceptable for the mainstream society. This impacted the usual movies, and suddenly all action movies started to see heroes and heavy characters with inflated muscles.
In the end, it can be concluded that this movie had a large impact on society. That can be seen even today. The spurring gyms and bodybuilding enthusiasts and the showcase of body builders in the contemporary film and movie are all examples of the decade this movie started way back in 1977.
As per the troubles and issues are concerned, the movie depicted that how the characters in the fight with themselves to get to the top.