Pumping Iron II: The Women

Since I'm currently studying this film I'm a bit insulted at some of the shallow reviews. This semi-documentary film shows female bodybuilders in 1985, and it critiques the performance they must all put on in order to make it in their business (hence the loaded make-up: first of all it was the eighties, second of all they had to struggle to remain feminine looking or, as seen with Bev Francis, they were penalized). Watching this film should enrage you since it's clear who SHOULD win the title. Clearly the judges need a little updating, but again, it was1985.

I strongly recommend this film to anyone who has not seen it. It critiques female bodybuilding and questions the stereotypical view of women as seen through the actions of the judges.

I managed to catch this movie on cinemax or something one day at a weird time. It is awful (in a very addictive, bad 80's movie type of way) for the following reasons:

1) See Rachel McLish (sp?), the most self centered, arrogant egotist in the world caught on film talking about the Bible and Jesus constantly while she uses sex to win judges' votes. This woman is just too bizarre for words.

2) See some poor steroid addled woman talk about how she is redefining feminity with her huge (and I mean gigantic) manly shape and facial acne (no doubt caused by excessive use of steroids)!

3) See bad 80's workout gear! :o

3) See the touching supportive relationship between one of these women (name forgotten) whose husband works as a male dancer to support her budding bodybuilding career!

There is so much wrong with this movie you just can't tear yourself away (sort of like watching a car accident in progress). Particularly amusing is the combination workout/shower scene with Rachel and her "posse" - it verges on soft porn.

But in the end you realize just how sad all of these women are, and you try to stop laughing - though it doesn't work. It really is Spinal Tap in a Gym. I thought the movie was a comedy when I first started watching it.

We had a family gathering on New Years Day 2019. One of my daughters brought me a VHS copy of this documentary that she had bought for 50 cents at an estate sale. She told me that I had taken her (born in 1970) and my younger daughter who was three years younger to see this documentary when it came out. I had been dating a woman who worked for one of the competer's backers and had received passes to the theater.

Both daughters loved the documentary and have worked hard to keep in shape.

I have always been an advocate for fitness which I am convinced will improve the quality of your life.

I haven't seen much of Rachel McLish lately , but I bet she is still in great shape. Woman's fitness is a bit more in the mainstream in 2019 and these women portrayed in this documentary should be congratulated for inspiring a generation of female fitness advocates.

I taped this movie not too long after it was released on a Beta videotape. So I have available a peek back to the mid-1980's via my sister's Beta player.

I can't remember what motivated me to tape "Pumping Iron II" in the first place. I'm pretty sure it wasn't for posterity's sake. Most likely it was that female bodybuilding presented a new culture I was totally unaware. And I had an intuition that the presence of Bev Francis was going to revolutionize that culture from the "feminine ideal" to pure muscle tone.

Or maybe it was the scenes. The hilarious one with the judges trying to tabulate the score. The tender one with the implied marriage proposal. Or Carla Dunlap's comforting conversation to Bev. While some scenes have participants act like they are aware of the camera, overall the film has enough real human drama to be worth you while.

Plus there's the bonus of the cheesy 80's music. Only songs from Art of Noise and Grace Jones stand the test of time.

helpless_dancer illustrates how incapable most of us are at actually looking into complex issues and understanding people other than ourselves. The women in Pumping Iron 2 are confusing at times, and a couple of them do seem more than a bit nutty, but reducing the issues at hand to the kind of ignorant, simple-minded derision that helpless_dancer deals in, is unfair to the women in the film and female bodybuilders in general. I don't understand them either, but calling them freaks is grade-school bigotry. The film itself is also, unfortunately, not up to the task, and spends much of its time trying to squeeze out some T&A from them. It does give the women an opportunity to speak for themselves from time to time, and their articulacy is often illuminating.