Epsiode 9: Steven Seagal, For Some Reason

Last week’s episode was a little gloomy. Seagal has released two albums? They’re And I’m still listening to a lot of Shinee, called Songs from the Crystal Cave and but I am feeling less sad generally, so I Mojo Priest. Both of them have been thought we could pick the mood up a little critically panned. The first album features this week. I am the sort of person who Stevie Wonder. The lead single from the receives, with reasonable regularity, second album was called Alligator Ass. have-you-checked-the-children style I’m not even offering commentary here. calls from friends imparting pieces of I’m just giving you the word salad that is pop cultural knowledge, or requesting Steven Seagal’s musical career. my thoughts on a particular pop cultural phenomenon. Like I’ll be sitting at home, Sometimes, a person’s Wikipedia page is doing things that the girls who die first enough to make you gather your friends in horror movies do – like brushing my around and have them hear all the hair in my underwear or something, and details. Sort of like “get a load of this the phone will ring, and I’ll answer and a fucking guy” but with references. And raspy voice on the other end will be like that’s kind of what I want to do today. “None of the crows used to film 1994 cult classic The Crow were actually crows. They I’m Alex. This is Pop Culture Boner, the used ravens, because ravens are larger.” podcast edition, and today I’m thinking And the line will go dead, and I’ll have to about Steven Seagal. spend the next four hours with 97 tabs open researching corvids while The Crow Ok, so I will forewarn you/ pre-apologise plays in the background because that’s for this episode. Normally, when I’m just how my brain works. writing these things I try and draw out some larger point that I want to think Anyway, the other day, my friend Jamie about – big themes like death, or love, – who you may remember as the Gordon or why action movies that feature the Ramsay devotee from the first season main character staring into the middle of this podcast… or who you may know distance and saying the title of the film from his artistic talent depending on who as a natural part of the dialogue are you are as a person – called me and was actually an elevated art form and we like, “Have you thought about Steven should all accept them as part of our lives. Seagal lately?” It may surprise you to This probably won’t be that – maybe. learn, I had not. But boy was I about to. It’s unclear. Essentially when I started Did you know, aside from doing thinking about writing this episode, I was questionable action movies, Steven just reading Steven Seagal’s Wikipedia page out loud over the phone to Jamie muscular and could fight good because in an increasingly incredulous tone. they were so big and muscular, like Arnold And when I got to the ‘Music Career’ Schwarzenegger; and white guys who heading, I was just screaming the phrase knew a martial art of some description, “ALLIGATOR ASS!!! ALLIGATOR ASS????” like Jean Claude Van Damme. Steven down the phone. Seagal falls into the latter category, and much is made of Seagal’s allegedly He’s just the kind of person where the strong background as a martial artist. more you read about him the more Seagal was born in Lansing, Michigan in you’re like “This guy is out in the world, 1952 to a medical technician and a high unhindered by the conventions of polite school mathematics teacher. He made his society”. So, what I’m saying is, I don’t name with films like Above the Law, Hard know what the hell I’m doing thinking to Kill and Under Siege, which all feature about Steven Seagal, but this is probably Seagal as some sort of everyman who going to be vaguely less informative inexplicably has a background as a former than most episodes. Or like… more CIA operative that has somehow also informative in the sense that you’ll come allowed him unfettered access to martial away with a shitload of information about arts training, rendering him unkillable. one of America’s weirdest celebrities. But I don’t know how the CIA actually works less informative in the sense that I don’t and I suspect a lot of it is paperwork, but know what either of us are going to be like imagine if the US intelligence agency able to do with any of this information was actually just an extended ring of once we have it. Anyway, this is probably karate dojos. Disassembling small Latin going to be 20 minutes of me going “get socialist regimes with the power of the a load of this guy!” and realising why I mighty American karate chop. never wanted to be a stand-up comedian. Let’s get into it shall we. Anyway, the two immediate questions I have when I think about Steven Seagal If you are not familiar with Steven are – which specific martial art does Seagal’s body of work, that is ok. Even he practice and why did that make him if we’re around the same age, by the famous? This is probably an unnecessary time you’d developed any awareness of look inside the horrible machinations of movie stars or celebrity he was probably my gremlin brain that I must endure daily, already some sort of weird punchline. but it turns out that attempting to provide Hollywood has a real knack for churning simple answers to these questions only out celebrities that get extremely famous builds out more complicated questions over the course of like two films and about the history of kung fu movies and then really cement that fame by being men with dubious credentials, but I’ll absolutely bat shit crazy in a way that do my best to summarise. Steven Seagal ensures they live on forever through the practices aikido, which is a Japanese medium of Simpsons punchlines and late- martial art originally developed as a night talk show gags. The late 80s and synthesis of martial arts, philosophy early 90s had action heroes that fell into and religious practices. The practice’s two categories – guys who were big and originator, Morihei Ueshiba, saw it as an expression of his personal philosophy of from Steven. The dojo remained a family peace and reconciliation. It was extremely affair, as Miyako’s family still runs it and influenced by a neo-Shinto religion called presumably, Seagal’s involvement ended Omoto-kyo, which emphasised extending following their divorce in 1986. love and compassion to those who would seek to harm others in order to achieve So, if aikido is ostensibly a pretty gentle utopia. The primary aim of aikido is martial art with a very strong focus on to allow the practitioner to defend peace, harmony and not incapacitating themselves while also not harming their your enemies with a neck-breaking hi- attacker. There is a weapons practice yah to the throat, then why is it showing associated with it, but the primary moves up in a bunch of truly awful 80s and 90s revolve around defensive throws and action films? And how has Steven Seagal, joint locks that neutralise an opponent a man who has built a career on telling without inflicting fatal harm. people how deadly he is both onscreen and off, its most famous practitioner? Steven Seagal’s history has been so This is what I mean about a can of worms, shrouded in personal mythology that it’s because now I’m pretty sure I have to actually a little bit difficult to unpack how talk about the prevalence of kung fu he got started with aikido and why. The movies in the American market. God this official party line is that while working as is a nightmare. No one ever ask me to a dishwasher in a Californian restaurant, think about a random action star again. the Japanese cook introduced him to the I’m kidding. Please definitely do it, I’m art of karate and encouraged him to learning so much about martial arts in visit Japan. While in Japan he discovered this one. Who knows what other cans of aikido and studied under Morihei worms I could possibly open? Ueshiba himself, earning a 7th-dan black belt. Eventually he married Miyako Ok, so in the early 1970s, America was Fujitani, a second-degree aikido black hit with wave of Kung Fu movies. Literally belt and daughter of an Osaka-based everybody was kung fu fighting for fun aikido master. Eventually, he became and profit. In 1973, 15 of the top 50 films the first foreigner to operate an aikido were imports from Hong Kong. Where dojo in Japan. If that all sounds too good previously the films were subtitled to be true, it likely is. Morihei Ueshiba versions designed for diasporic American died in 1968, which would have meant audiences and showed primarily in that Seagal would have had to have been Chinatown, their increased popularity under 16 and living alone in Japan for the resulted in many imports being dubbed timelines to match up. He was enrolled in in English for showing in mainstream college between 1970 and 1971, and it’s theatres, and a slew of joint Hong Kong- likely that he was in Japan from around US productions like Enter the Dragon. 1971 to 1973, because he married his wife As someone whose main love in life is after meeting her in California in 1974. really good fight choreography, I feel He moved with his wife back to Japan in like it’s easy to understand the sudden 1975, where Miyako helped operate her popularity of these films through the lens family’s dojo, possibly with some help of contrasting action styles. Hong Kong kung fu films have deliciously formulaic of Shaolin. But I digress. The reason plots with great displays of physical grace I’m bringing up the Americanisation of and power – martial arts require such these films is that I think it’s inevitable a degree of control that they translate that at some point, the cultural sieve/ really beautifully on screen and they’re Hollywood money machine will realise exciting to watch. When you compare that that cool shit happening in niche pockets with American action films from around of cinema is worth bank, and will the same time, which were like westerns immediately assume that these things or police films, kung fu movies are a can be improved with a white lead. Which whole new type of action. meant that as elements of the genre start to appear in American cinema with more That’s the easy explanation. Of course, regularity, you also get a wave of white there is a slightly more academic one. martial arts guys in leading roles. Daniel Martin suggests in a post-Vietnam War America, movie-goers were fixated Warner Brothers were casting the net on the orientalist idea of martial arts around for their next martial arts star as being somehow ancient and mystical, and Steven Seagal was recommended by possibly as a way to process the fact a former pupil of his, and brought in for that all the technological might of the a demonstration. Aikido, if you watch it, US still couldn’t bomb Vietnam into total is actually a pretty graceful art form with submission. Lots of the recurring motifs lots of emphasis on throwing people in in these films focuses on Chinese cultural big beautiful arcs, so you can see why practices supposedly untouched by it would translate well to screen. If you modernity and therefore imbued with a can stand reasonably still and have some kind of magic. guy flipped over, ass up using only the gentle curve of your palm, you’re gonna Either way, once these films started to look cool as hell. Steven Seagal saw this gain traction with the US market, moves beautiful, peaceful martial art and said were made to assimilate and Americanise “Give me a gun, so that I can shoot this the protagonists. Now, normally when guy I just flipped like a pancake.” Which I talk about this sort of thing, I would is about as American as apple pie, to be be referring to whitewashing – the honest. process of replacing a diverse character list with a bunch of white people – but So, that’s how Steven Seagal ended up in the case of kung fu, the casting was an action star. Why is he such a fucking pretty diverse, and the genre actually nutcase? There’s not a huge number of had a close relationship with the black interviews with Seagal, so at first glance community. Lots of the Blaxploitation it may be a little difficult to establish flicks that were popular at the time drew the freakshow pattern, but trust me. It’s on kung fu stylings. Which is why you there. I’m trying really hard to not just have groups like the Wu Tang Clan using read you a list of some of the fuckery kung fu motifs 20 years later on albums that’s on the Wikipedia page – like this like 36 Chambers, which takes its title gem of a line: “Seagal has an extensive from 1978 kung fu film The 36th Chamber sword collection, and once had a custom gun made for him once a month.” But career has been built on the foundation of in the interests of not just screaming yanking martial arts styles out of Japan – “ALLIGATOR ASS!?” at you, I’ll attempt but so were lots of people’s and you don’t to provide some commentary. Very early see them aged 68, wandering around in on in his career, Seagal became heavily a Mandarin collared shirt with a spray- involved in the production of the films he painted hairline bowing to cameramen. starred in, giving him an unprecedented So, how do you merge the two things? control over his own on-screen mythology. Ok, so hear me out. If you look at On And in doing so, I think he very much Deadly Ground, a film largely considered drank his own Kool Aid and genuinely to be the most ‘Seagal’ of all his films in believes himself to be some sort of CIA, that he produced, directed and acted in Special Forces, World’s-Most-Unkillable- it – it heavily implies that he might be Guy type of man. Every single movie he a First Nations person, specifically Inuit, appears in features him in one of these and that he is the reincarnation of some roles and almost never comes up against sort of spiritual leader who can save the any real opposition. He simply flips his people. Now, that is just a movie, but I opponents out of the way or nails them want you to briefly attempt to get into with a bullet between the eyes. It’s the mindset of a white man who has almost boring to watch, his kills are so fetishized “exotic” cultures for his entire efficient. And having never met a worthy life. Now, imagine you suddenly have the opponent in his cinematic career, I think money to insert yourself into situations he genuinely thinks he is unmatched where you don’t belong. You did that outside of movie-land too. In fact, he has movie with a bunch of First Nations a reality show – Steven Seagal: Lawman Alaskan people, but for some reason – in which he performs his duties as a they didn’t accept you as a reincarnation reserve sheriff’s deputy, because that is of the great sky spirit (a thing that you a thing that he also is. In one of the rare think you read about once, or made up, interviews that’s still floating around the it’s unclear). You know you’re destined journalist asks him if, in his advancing for greatness, so what do you do? Well, age, he is still dangerous and he smirks perhaps you and draw on your knowledge and says “Oh yes”. This happens after of Buddhism (you read a book once – and he has essentially called Jean Claude like… all the pages in the book, not just Van Damme, an internationally awarded the summary notes) and you’ve heard karate champion with the nickname about this thing called a tulku, which is “The Muscles from Brussels”, a wimp; a reincarnated custodian of some specific and said that Chuck Norris, a man with lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Now all his own specific type of martial art and you gotta do is find a guy who can make fought Bruce Lee on film, was too old to you a tulku and BAM! You are officially fight. This man thinks he’s unkillable. the spiritual leader you have always believed yourself to be. I think to reach this level of high on your own supply, you have to feel as though In 1997, Lama Penor Rinpoche, the your life and your work are somehow Supreme Head of the Nyingma School inextricably linked. Seagal’s B-Movie of Tibetan Buddhism, announced that Seagal was the reincarnation of a me alone”. 17th-century treasure revealer of the - He’s banned in the Ukraine, Nyingma. Now, normally tulkus are essentially for calling the annexation of found following the death of a previous Crimea by Russia “very reasonable”. tulku, and trained from a young age for That’s a direct quote. life within monasteries. This is obviously - He once claimed that he was not what happened to Steven Seagal, immune to being choked unconscious and there were accusations that Seagal due to his extensive aikido training, bought his status through donations to so stuntman Gene LeBell consensually the Lama’s Maryland study centre. For choked him unconscious and he shit his part, Penor says Seagal was merely himself. He denies this furiously. recognised, not enthroned, and therefore - He claims to have been one of the it totally wasn’t the same thing and first people called after Brandon Lee, son it’s not like he’s killed anyone anyway of Bruce Lee, was killed on the set of The (despite what Seagal says). Anyway, Crow. Claimed to have predicted when 3 years later, Seagal had parlayed they called him that they would find a this status as enlightened into making projectile lodged in his stomach. I don’t himself the protection detail for the only know what could have possibly given that child of 10th Panchen Lama. Essentially, away – certainly not the gaping stomach he anointed himself as physical defender wound that killed him. of the reincarnation lineage for Tibetan - Seagal claims that he helped Buddhism. Which is a) an insane series Brazilian UFC fighter Lyoto Machida of things to say out loud; b) probably perfect the kick that took out Randy not a great idea, since I don’t think he is Couture in 2011. half as deadly as he thinks he is; and c) potentially the most incredible grift ever Steven Seagal’s career is just a large performed, except I think he genuinely cautionary tale about what happens when believes his own bullshit. He’s like a cult you take yourself too seriously, and are leader without the magnetic personality willing to hang your hat on facts that are – all religious zeal and no following. easy to disprove – that is that you turn yourself into a cartoon character. There’s In the interest of this episode not being probably serious points I could make 4 hours long, I’m going to have to not go about cultural appropriation and the into too much detail on the rest of this distasteful nature of literally everything man’s cartoon existence, but to round the man’s ever done, but it’s not worth it. the episode out here’s an abridged list Like I said, at this point, Seagal is mostly of other pieces of absolutely batshit a punchline. behaviour that I didn’t have time for: Well, that was Seagal. Get a load of that - Steven Seagal holds citizenship for guy! Absolutely off the rails – beyond the United States, Serbia and Russia. He’s all of this awful behaviour, I just think called Putin a ‘brother’ and for his part the wildest thing to me is that he’s so Putin has basically said “I saw some of hell bent on being unkillable on screen his movies once and now he won’t leave that he’s not even interesting to watch. Like at least Jean Claude Van Damme This episode premiered on 31st March lets himself get thrown around. At least 2021 Jean Claude had the decency to make the Street Fighter movie, one of the greatest, Episode written by Alex Johnson and most camp action movies to ever star produced by Wes Fahey. Kylie Minogue. Anyway, let’s not talk about Steven any more. Talk to me about Theme tune by Wes Fahey. (Soundcloud: the Street Fighter movie next time you lee snipes) see me at the pub! Peace! Visit us:

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