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This is an archive article published on August 11, 2003
Foreign media targets Governator
You could almost hear the chortling and the hands rubbing together in the newsrooms of Paris, London, Mexico City and other capitals when th...
Written by SEBASTIAN ROTELLA
Paris | August 11, 2003 12:00 AM IST
2 min read
2 min read
You could almost hear the chortling and the hands rubbing together in the newsrooms of Paris, London, Mexico City and other capitals when the story broke: The Terminator, to paraphrase several foreign wits, had become the 8216;8216;Running Man.8217;8217;
Roused from the vacation sloth and no-news languor of August, political writers, pundits and other opinionated sharpshooters opened fire on Arnold Schwarzenegger, California8217;s zany recall election and, let8217;s face it, America. They got off a few nasty zingers. 8216;8216;He is a barely articulate, pumped-up bodybuilder with a cupboard full of skeletons,8217;8217; read the headline in The Guardian, a British newspaper.
Schwarzenegger 8216;8216;talks as if he has just arrived on Austrian Airlines,8217;8217; the article said. 8216;8216;His rise to fame owes more to steroids than charm, and he is best known for impersonating a robot.8217;8217;
A French commentator opted for more restrained disdain. 8216;8216;Let8217;s see if Arnold performs well in his role as Governator,8217;8217; Jacques Guyon wrote in La Charente Libre, a regional newspaper in northeast France. Izvestia, a venerable Russian publication, offered this theory: Schwarzenegger could be the right man for the times. 8216;8216;People long for a 8216;strong hand8217; 8212; in the US, in Russia and all over the world. In fact, he has got two strong hands,8217;8217; Izvestia said.
It continued: 8216;8216;Arnold is running at the right time. The contemporary world is ruled by terminators who have mixed reality with blockbuster aesthetics. Politics will again be in demand for heroes who make daring moves. Wisdom, prescience and sagacity are not highly valued today8230;It is a play of muscles, not a play of intellect.8217;8217; LAT-WP
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