Tellingly, Bandit and Carrie have become partners (romantically and economically) by this point. He destroys Smokey’s cruiser (a symbol of authoritarianism if there ever was one) and soundly beats him, but then undermines it at the end of the film by cluing the cop in to his location so the chase can go on.īandit’s final decision to double down on the Burdettes’ bet and his (somewhat affectionate) come-on to Smokey promises another cycle of risk and reward, where chaser and chased are just two components in a capitalist construct. His disregard for authority is limited to breaking speed rules and state laws about food and beverage transportation. Enter Smokey and the Bandit.īandit’s mission isn’t one of self-discovery (or even discovery of America), but rather a quest to rake in a cool $80,000 from the Burdettes. The solution? Create entertainment that looked contemporary in terms of the anti-establishment vibe of cooler films, but which suited the hypermasculine style of certain stars and slyly pandered to traditional values. Hollywood consequently had a problem placing tough guy stars like Reynolds who were never going to fit into stories like Marathon Man or Three Days of the Condorwhich required the male lead to show emotional vulnerability. RELATED: The 20 Best Car Movies of All Time The perceived issue was clear enough, in the wake of social and political upheaval, old school macho attitudes were no longer a solution. In John Boorman’s Vietnam War metaphor, Deliverance, he plays a survivalist poseur who leads a group into the wilderness but is forced to cede power to his sensitive best friend ( Jon Voight) when they run into real danger. Ironically, Reynolds’ best role had been one that perfectly elucidated the dilemma. Contemporary actors, such as Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford, didn’t fit the mold of the macho man, even when they appeared in action films.
70s cinema had a masculinity crisis brewing, with feminism going mainstream and traditional male genres (particularly cowboy and war movies) falling out of favor.
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