Pumping Iron II: futur sexe

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.

more insightful and revealing than the first Pumping Iron movie,(in my opinion)this movie is engaging and interesting.it has its share of drama and suspense and I felt the woman were more open and honest than the men in Pumping Iron were.there also seemed to be less ego involved this time around.and very little in the way of mind games or psyching out of opponents.I also found the women to be more likable and sympathetic,compared to their male counterparts.it doesn't go into quite as much depth regarding training and behind the scenes drama as Pumping Iron does but the women were more real and genuine.overall,the film was much more fun.for me,Pumping Iron 2 is a strong 8/10

Bodybuilding for women is "something new under the sun," something as Charles Gaines, the writer of Pumping Iron pointed out, has no precedent in all of history. Pumping Iron II is a documentary made about the very earliest years of women's bodybuilding as a sanctioned sport. As a documentary, it has its failings. But as a look at who the women were participating in bodybuilding in the mid 1980s, how they looked and what they had to say, it is unique. Of course, women doing bodybuilding at all is still controversial and some people have trouble accepting it. One of the other reviews of this film makes that plain, written by somebody who hates the idea of muscular women to such a degree he is hardly any judge of the quality of the film. Obviously, somebody who is that angered and disgusted by women with muscles should not bother to watch a documentary about them. But for those who like "buff" women or who are at least curious about them, Pumping Iron II is an important film and shouldn't be missed. And as women's bodybuilding becomes more and more accepted and popular, the film will become even more significant.

Wow, talk about "documentary" filmmakers having an agenda. These guys (George Butler and Charles Gaines) must have graduated from the Michael Moore School Of Objectivity.

This film is the follow-up to the highly-acclaimed "Pumping Iron," made by the same guys about a decade earlier, and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, That one was well-done, even though they went out of their way to stretch the truth there, too. (Arnold is shown to be overly heartless and ruthless and his main competitors are pictured as easily-manipulated stupid idiots. Both were exaggerated).

Here, in the women's edition of Pumping Iron, Gaines and Butler have two more main objectives: 1) show how Bev Francis got screwed out of the championship trophy; 2) show the Christian contestant to be downright evil and a big phony.

Judging by some of the stupid reviews so far, Gaines and Butler succeeded: people now all hate McLish.

Dear readers. Here is a scoop from someone who spent his career in the newspaper business: editors can pick and choose what they want you to see and hear. It's called editing. You can bet thousands of footage was filmed for this "documentary." On McLish, only the material that made her look bad was inserted in the film. That was obvious. We never see her shown in a positive light. And, of course, anytime they could get her to mention she was a Christian, and then follow that up with something the audience would find distasteful about her, all the better!

Regarding Francis, frankly, I agree -- she did get robbed. Who in their right mind would argue she wasn't hands down the best contestant? Nobody, even the gracious winner Carla Dunlap. However, the filmmakers could have let the viewers see the obvious, without hammering their point home time and time again, going out of their way to show how ignorant the judges were. It's like.....okay, we know what's happening here .... move on. How about showing more of the winner of the contest?

Overall, the movie was interesting, especially to people who work out regularly in a gym....... but it could have been so much better without the bias.

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.