California's Body Politic sags
Date: 27-01-2007
Posted by: Anabolic Info TeamAustralia |
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TIME is chasing Arnold Schwarzenegger and catching up. Normally, a politician's body would not be noteworthy. But California is witnessing a singular moment: the deconstruction of one of the greatest bodies of all time.
At 15, Mr Schwarzenegger began pounding and pressing, transforming himself into a symbol of physical perfection. Now, a few months from his 60th birthday, California's Governor is being photographed in a hospital bed, hobbling on crutches and publicly lamenting his anger at being in constant pain.
Referring to himself last week as the "bionic man", he finds himself with an artificial hip, reconstructed heart valves, surgically repaired shoulder and a badly broken femur, an injury common among the elderly. And, in perhaps an even bigger blow to his ego, photos from a holiday in Maui a few years ago showed him in a swimsuit with a sagging chest, robust stomach and ashen chest hair.
During a Christmas holiday at his lodge in Idaho, Mr Schwarzenegger slipped on skis and fractured a leg that already had an artificial hip. His doctor has said the Governor's past steroid use had nothing to do with the slow-speed injury. Mr Schwarzenegger blamed the hip and "torque" — a bad angle meeting momentum.
Since then, he has walked onstage with crutches at his own inauguration and the Golden Globe awards, and discussed his painkiller protocol on national television. He has appeared tired and has cut back his schedule, forgoing a trip this week to the annual economic forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Unable to ride motorcycles in Malibu or continue a twice-daily work-out routine, Mr Schwarzenegger has seemed depressed by his injury. Capitol aides are used to seeing him at a gym in Sacramento in a white T-shirt and Chinese slippers, working his biceps.
On Wednesday in Sacramento, a hobbling Mr Schwarzenegger encouraged a middle school assembly to remain physically active.
Long before Mr Schwarzenegger's form began to reveal its flaws, Robert Mapplethorpe photographed him stunningly in dark tones and Annie Leibovitz portrayed him practically as a god atop a white stallion. Early photographs by George Butler, the documentary filmmaker who made Pumping Iron and catapulted Mr Schwarzenegger to movie success, are signature images of youth and determination, a man dedicated to muscle and skin.
Mr Schwarzenegger eventually won more bodybuilding prizes than anyone in history. He became the undisputed king of proportion. And he is responsible for the modern fetish of the steroid-pumped body; he took it out of the shadows of dingy gyms. He was President George Bush snr's ambassador of fitness, and his annual bodybuilding convention in Ohio attracts a worldwide following.
The Governor told the Sacramento Press Club last week that his work helped keep his mind off his leg. But he added: "I am full of excitement and full of energy. Injury or no injury, I work through that. It makes no difference."
Mr Schwarzenegger, who has always wanted to be an example to other people, is looking more like a fragile human than the hardened, gap-toothed young man whose body was his life and whose life was his body.
