Stereotypes In The Film 'The Expendables'

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In August 2010, the sixty-four-year-old actor Sylvester Stallone premiered in one of his most recent projects The Expendables. This is an action-adventure film starring a bunch of ‘‘tough guys’’ from both past and present: Hollywood action heroes (Stallone, Willis, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger), former professional athletes (Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and Steve Austin), and martial artists/actors (Jet Li and Jason Statham). Directed, produced, and co-written by Stallone, the plot of the film is full of the stereotypical action movies of the 1980s that helped start the careers of most of The Expendables’ cast. In this plot, Barney Ross (Stallone) leads an aging team of ex-Special Forces that are now…show more content…
Of course there is the stereotypical action scenes and dialog that come along with a lot of other Hollywood movies; however, this film tries to dodge the stereotypes of ageism. Quite frankly, this series of movies could be the aging actors’ way of trying to defy or deny aging. The stereotypes that older people cannot be active, jump, run, or be cool is one hundred percent contradicted in this film. These 50 through nearly 70 year old characters are doing it all, they are “portrayed” (because most of the scenes were done by younger stunt men) as premier athletes running, stabbing, shooting, killing, and wrestling like they were still in their glory days. These outrageous action scenes trying to defy ageism did however bring upon aging stereotypes by critics and viewers. If Stallone could have made the film a little more realistic he might not have gotten all the backlash and stereotypical aging comments that he and his crew received. When viewing the movie most viewers could pick up on some of the sexism and the racism. Of the same with a lot of stereotypical Hollywood action films, this one had the generic American good guys going up against a generic team of dark skinned bad villains. It is hard to knock on this film too badly on the racism card because one of the lead villains was a white American (Steve Austin). Lastly, there was the sexism in the movie. There was a total of one semi-main female character in the entire movie, enough said. The film overall did not seem to have a realistic view on ageism, sexism, or

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