The highest paid baseball player, Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees, is in the doghouse because his failure to pass a steroid test in 2003 was leaked to the press recently. The Yankees recently gave Rodriguez a huge long-term contract extension because he's on track to eventually surpass Barry Bonds as the all time home run leader, and they figured all the hoopla over a "clean" athlete breaking Bonds's tainted record would provide them with a financial windfall. Some smart strategic thinking there ...
In contrast, Mickey Rourke is the sentimental favorite to win the Best Actor Oscar for his comeback in "The Wrestler," which I review in the upcoming issue of The American Conservative. Rourke, who is either 52 or 56 (sources differ) and stands about six feet tall, upped his weight from 190 to 240 over six months for his role as a pro wrestler. Rourke, who is not the kind of guy to stick to the talking points created by his publicist, has not denied using muscle-building drugs to add mass for the part. And in the past, he has explained that he has an Andrew Sullivan-like prescription from his doctor for testosterone supplementation.
By the way, here's the YouTube of Rourke's star-making three-minute supporting turn as a professional arsonist in 1981's "Body Heat" with William Hurt. (Language NSFW). And here's the trailer from "The Wrestler" 27 years later.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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29 comments:
Do you think there will come a moment when we will be able to discuss in a some reasonable manner about whether performance enhancing drugs should be allowed in sports? By 'we', I mean the general public; and by 'allowed', I mean that the general public doesn't frown upon the drug-use.
If Rourke is six feet tall I do not believe he is 240 pounds in the movie trailer. 210, 220 tops.
Peter
The financial windfall will still be there for the Yankees. There is no such thing as bad PR.
Rodriguez will just become an even bigger star... just in a more negative way.
The only question is whether he can handle the heat.
To further my point that Rourke cannot be 240 pounds in the movie trailer: here is a picture of heavyweight boxer Samuel "the Nigerian Nightmare" Peter at the weigh-in for last October's fight with Vitali Klitschko. Peter is the same height as Rourke and is about 250 pounds in this picture. He's also hugely muscular, and of course a given volume of muscle weighs more than the equivalent volume of fat. Peter clearly is much heavier in this picture than Rourke appears in the trailer, far more than ten pounds would produce.
I stand by my prior comment: Rourke is probably about 210 in the trailer.
Peter
Rourke's legs are fairly skinny in the movie.
But if he got himself into good shape without weightlifting, he'd probably be about 5'11" and 170, so a muscular 210 would still be 40 pounds over his normal lean weight.
I think the general difference is that:
(a) There is a much lower chacne that using high, high levels of steroids will become a necessary pre-requisite to become competitive as an actor in general than that it will become necessry to be competitive as a professional sportsman in general.
(b) Acting is not a game, per se, and so using steroids isn't "cheating" in the same way that it is in sports.
Facial Plastic Surgery and Suntanning (especially artifical tanning with the wrong kind of UV light) has wrecked havoc on the mugs of many people.
Mickey Rourke is an example of the surgery (I dont know if he was a sunlamp worshipper).
Steroids thin out your skin by decreasing the amount of adipose tissue. This makes you look cut, but it also makes you look old.
Rhinoplasty, and perhaps jaw reduction for people with Jay Leno chins, are the only forms of plastic surgery or botox that I could recommend. Every kind of cheek implant, jaw implant, browlift all have way way more risk of a lousy result than relative successes. Dont let anyone tell you otherwise.
Botox is horrible. People's faces are supposed to move and convey emotion. It makes every woman who gets them look like a transvestite. Blowing up lips is also immediately noticeable, even if only subconciously. They make a womam look "phony" and like she is "trying" from the word go.
Alchohol and drugs also assuredly took their toll on Rourke.
An old proverb:
At 20 a man has the face he is born with, at 50 he has the face he DESERVES.
Taking up professional boxing in his later 30s (eight pro fights total) didn't help Mickey's mug, either.
The use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs by professional athletes seems to be one of those "problems" that the MSM and politicans obsess about, and which the rest of the world shrugs their shoulders over.
At this point most people accept that lots of pro athletes are juiced. Undoubtedly, it's in their interest to do this under doctor supervision, rather than on their own. It may not be great for their long-term health, but neither is working 70 hours a week for years on end, and we don't have any laws against that (as of yet, anyway).
When I see Congress holding hearings on the use of steroids in baseball, I think (a) this is an absurb waste of time, and (b) at least they're focused on something inconsequential, which is probably for the best.
In contrast, Mickey Rourke is the sentimental favorite to win the Best Actor Oscar for his comeback in "The Wrestler,"...
Sentimental to you and me, but the Hollywood crowd can't wait to stick it to the rest of America by awarding the Best Actor Oscar to Sean Penn for his "courageous" performance as Harvey Milk. Write it down.
Rourke is hardly the first actor to use steroids. Check out the shirtless Brad Pitt -- who was skin and bones at the time --in Thelma and Louise vs. the huge specimen he became in Troy. Nicolas Cage was thin early on (Peggie Sue Got Married), but by Con Air he was jacked and carrying himself entirely differently. The early Edward Norton was built nothing like the Norton of American History X. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an admitted steroid user, said that it's impossible to put on more than five pounds of muscle past the age of 23 without artificial help. Trust me, the guys mentioned above did not do it naturally. I once saw a picture of Sean Penn on the cover of a supermarket tabloid looking 'roided up, too, though I can't recall seeing any movies where he looked that way.
I've only got one the to add...
Marisa Tomei *sigh*
Second Peter's guess at to Rourke's weight, though I think 220 is about right for Rourke's pumped-up body...not in The Wrestler, but where the new improved Mickey Rourke really began his comeback: in Sin City, as the superhumanly tough and very muscular Marv, the protagonist of by far the most entertaining of the three set pieces that made up that very peculiar (but enjoyable) film.
Professional wrestlers are themselves juiced to the gills, of course. They have to be, to recover enough from the horrific stress they put themselves through day after day, week after week, on the professional circuit.
Steroid use isn't "cheating" in sports except insofar as it breaks rules set by governing bodies solely concerned about their publicity. The whole steroid-in-sport hysteria is the result of a sinister confluence of interests: power-hungry politicians, publicity-shy sports owners, and sensationalistic sports "journalists" (why are they even called that?). The story is a manufactured one, pumped up, bloated, unnatural, and should be allowed to shrink down to its normal, natural dimensions...and we can get back to watching athletes wreck their bodies in all sorts of non-chemical ways to provide us with momentary entertainments.
MIckey Rourke is so damned ugly. I just don't think I could bring myself to watch one of his films. He looks even worse in his old age, now that he's all acromegalic from growth hormone.
Steve, did you ever see/review The Pope of Greenwich Village?
Great Rourke/Eric Roberts film. They play a couple of Italian (?!)mooks hustling the mob.
I would concur that Rourke is at best 210. Good for him for using testosterone so long as he wasn't idiotic about it. The present brouhaha over testosterone is completely misplaced. Weak, femme men are a danger to society in hidden ways such as enabling "feel good" social programs to manifest. Men need to stand for reality and a certain amount of testosterone is very helpful in fighting those who seek to re-engineer society.
Moreover, the battle against steroids will likely prove fruitless: http://www.steroidreport.com/2008/08/22/combinatorial-chemistry-undetectable-designer-steroids/
Possible counter measures: http://grg51.typepad.com/steroid_nation/2009/01/pro-cyclists-may-be-caught-doping-with-blood-values.html
A discussion on steroids: http://blog.anthonyrobertsonline.com/2008/12/roundtable-discussion-with-anthony-roberts-william-bill-llewellyn-bruce-kneller-rick-collins-and-more/
"Sentimental to you and me, but the Hollywood crowd can't wait to stick it to the rest of America by awarding the Best Actor Oscar to Sean Penn for his "courageous" performance as Harvey Milk. Write it down."
I had to laugh at this comment. I'd forgotten just how much the "creative" crowd hates the average Joe Blow. It's not always the Jews.
If Rourke is six feet tall I do not believe he is 240 pounds in the movie trailer. 210, 220 tops.
I haven't seen the trailer but "6', 240" really stuck out at me. 6' and 240 is LARGE, like linebacker large. I'm 6'2" and not small-boned and my "ideal" BMI is supposedly 190 or so. If I had very low body fat and weighed 240 I'd be LARGE, like approaching linebacker size.
Just saying, 240 when you're 6' is very heavily built.
Actually steroids are just for making modest enhancements to the male physique. For dramatic changes you need synthol.
Check this guy outSome biceps what?
Steve
You can't call this a "comeback" for Rourke because he was amazing in a recently produced film that is better than "The Wrestler."
And that film is "Sin City."
Or Heath Ledger 'cause he's dead...
Steve, Tomei was/is another actress that other women feel more threatened by than inspired by and therefore she never got the big roles. She has that sexpot aura that is largely absent in both K. and A. Hepburn, Meryl Streep and others like Julia Roberts.
In the visual media industries the gay male producers team up with the insecure female customer masses in a weird alliance that mostly blocks the truly hot women from the top spots.
And as the matriarchy advances the on-camera job prospects for average-looking "faghags" will only get brighter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7886477.stm
Arnold Schwarzenegger, an admitted steroid user, said that it's impossible to put on more than five pounds of muscle past the age of 23 without artificial help
Nonsense. You can add appreciable muscle mass after age 23 without steroids. You just can't put on as much as with steroids and it'll take a lot longer. That's why actors use steroids, to bulk up in a few months for a role.
gay male producers team up with the insecure female customer masses in a weird alliance that mostly blocks the truly hot women from the top spots.
The film critic John Simon had complained for decades about the lack of beautiful, sexy women in American films and hinted that it's as you said--a combination of The Velvet Mafia and Plain Jane resentment.
Outstanding acting talent should take precedence over looks, of course, but most of the big female movie stars today not only lack looks but are at best mediocre actresses.
the "sexpot theory" of hindered success for movie actresses sounds plausible but it doesn't really pan out. there appear to be enough hetero producers and horny male ticket buyers to overcome any "conspiracy of hags and fags". here is a link for actress rankings by commercial success and another link for award winners and nominees:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_actress#Winners_and_nominees
http://www.the-movie-times.com/thrsdir/actors.mv?actress+ByAG00
there seems to be quite a few bombshells and sexpots at the top of both measures of success.
btw if you check that box office link by actor instead of actress and sort the list for the 2000 decade the top dog is gary oldman! which is real justice because he is the olivier of this age.
http://www.the-movie-times.com/thrsdir/actors.mv?actors+ByAG00
there seems to be quite a few bombshells and sexpots at the top of both measures of success.
Eh. Very few bombshells and sexpots among the Academy Award winners. And maybe about half of those top-grossing actresses qualify.
Many of them are popular only with women. Funny thing is, because they get written up so much in women's magazines and touted by gay men as the ultimate in glamor and sex appeal, many women actually believe that most guys are really turned on by Julia Roberts, Calista Flockhart, and Gwyneth Paltrow.
Anonymous said...
I'd forgotten just how much the "creative" crowd hates the average Joe Blow. It's not always the Jews.
Haven't you heard? It's the WASPy Harvard Elites. They've taken over the entertainment industry and they're trying to drive a wedge between Jews and average Joe Blows.
Personally I can't see how anyone watches a movie starring somebody like Mickey Rourke - and by "somebody" I mean "people with nasty nose and chin and cheek implants". At least when a starlet's had a boob job, you don't usually have a full view of them for the whole movie.
One day the idea of cutting people open to insert foreign objects into their bodies in order to enlarge some feature will seem like foot binding, or those African women who extend their necks with metal rings.
Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones
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