pinkos.

Last night, Rob and I watched "Masters of the Universe." In a fit of madness over the weekend, we decided that it needed to be watched and was therefore placed on the queue, at the top. The movie is ridiculous, obviously. But it is also illustrative of a trend in 80s cinema, which was the constant scapegoating of the Communists.

In case you've forgotten the plot of this movie, it goes like this: On the planet Eternia, the evil Skeletor and his army of darkness have taken over Castle Greyskull, imprisoned The Sorceress of Greyskull, and Skeletor has begun draining her powers as he bids to claim the powers of Greyskull and become master of the universe. Mighty warrior He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe, and his companions, loyal soldier Man-at-Arms, his daughter Teela, and a dwarf inventor named Gwildor, accidentally transport themselves to Earth with Gwildor's creation, The Cosmic Key, a device that can open portals that lead to any part of the galaxy. Skeletor requires the key for his goal for universal conquest. The Comsic Key is found by Julie Winston and her boyfriend Kevin, and Skeletor and his mercenaries arrive on Earth in pursuit of He-Man and his companions, who are also searching for The Cosmic Key so they can return to Eternia and defeat Skeletor.

Of course, thrown into the mix is a surly and incredulous cop who keeps running into the two teenagers in the wake of damage caused by skirmishes between He-Man and his companions and Skeletor's minions. Naturally, he suspects that the boy Kevin is lying to him that The Cosmic Key is really an advanced new synthesizer from Japan that he found in the graveyard. He believes that Kevin is responsible for the damage and arson, and intends to arrest him. The cop is the vehicle through which the Communist paranoia seeps into this film. At first, when he is in the music store with Kevin, looking to find a reasonable explanation for the "synthesizer", he says something along the lines of "Do you think it's from the Russians?" But the more outrageous example is yet to come.

Just as the two teenagers, He-Man, Man-at-Arms, Teela, and Gwildor are about to fix the now-damaged Key and return to Eternia to stop Skeletor, the cop attempts to arrest them at gun-point with a rifle. In the ensuing chaos, they open the portal and are all transported to Eternia, including part of the brick wall from the building behind them, and half of the pink Cadillac that Gwildor earlier hot-wired and altered to "run on neutrinos". They are thrown into the middle of the throne room at Greyskull, where an intense battle begins. As the minions of Skeletor shoot at them, the cop, in disbelief and rage, yells out "Okay, you pinkos! Nobody takes pot shots at me!" and starts shooting back with his rifle.

What the hell? PInkos. He calls these people, Queerman, Monster Mash, and Zoomacroom, "pinkos":




Maybe it's just me, but they do not seem to be Communists or have any Red tendencies. They do not seem to have any political leanings at all, other than "minions of Skeletor", who most certainly is NOT a pinko. I just can't fathom how they came up with that. Perhaps it is because I think the word "pinko" itself is inordinately funny, but when applied in the most insanely inappropriate atmosphere of the throne room at Greyskull during the defining battle between He-Man and Skeletor, it goes to a whole new level.