Arnold Schwarzenegger Bodybuilding + Image Building: Selective Recall

Arnold Schwarzenegger bodybuilding & image building: Total Recall vs. selective recall

Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger may be an inept actor and may have been an even more inept (Republican) governor of California, but one must admit that he is the consummate salesman. His chief product: Arnold Schwarzenegger – I mean, not his ruthlessly ambitious self, but rather his unassuming, self-parodying public image, which, for the braindead everywhere, equals the man. And that iconic public image can be found in Schwarzenegger’s soon-to-be-bestselling book of memoirs, Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story. (Image: Arnold Schwarzenegger bodybuilding days, Pumping Iron.)

Now, “Selective Recall” might have been a more appropriate title for the book – and for Schwarzenegger’s book-hawking tour. Here are a couple of reasons why:

Arnold Schwarzenegger & gay marriage in ’60 Minutes’ ‘blow job’ interview

Schwarzenegger told 60 Minutes’ Lesley Stahl – in what has been described as a fawning, “blow job” interview – that he twice performed gay marriages while in office. “I personally always said that marriage is between a man and a woman,” Schwarzenegger told Stahl, “but I would never enforce my will on people. I always want people to make that decision. If they want to get married, let them get married.”

Never mind the fact that while in office Schwarzenegger – an exemplar husband and father – twice vetoed marriage equality (i.e., “gay marriage”) legislation.

Also, missing from Total Recall is the following, as explained by the San Francisco Chronicle‘s Debra J. Saunders: “His out-the-door commutation of a prison sentence for a crony’s son, who had pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Schwarzenegger cut the sentence to seven years from 16. … I see why Schwarzenegger left that stain out of the book. He could hardly confess to it with mock remorse, but a glint in his eye.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger movies

The 65-year-old Austrian-born former bodybuilder was back on the big screen this year in The Expendables 2, a box office disappointment in North America, but a solid hit internationally. Next in line are the action thriller The Tomb, co-starring The Expendables 2‘s Sylvester Stallone and The Passion of the Christ‘s Jim Caviezel, and The Last Stand, in which Schwarzenegger plays a U.S. sheriff out to stop a drug cartel leader from crossing the border into Mexico.

Arnold Schwarzenegger gay marriage quote via The Advocate.

Arnold Schwarzenegger bodybuilding photo from his Pumping Iron days: White Mountain Films / Cinema 5 Distributing.