Pumping Iron 2: The Women
This week the From Below Microcinema presents part 2 of Sequel August: *Pumping Iron 2: The Women *(1985) on Wednesday, August 7th, at 8pm.
Here is the link to reserve a seat. Doors will be at 7:50 and we’re starting the movie at 8:10!
*Pumping Iron 2 *is a documentary that focuses on four women as they prepare to compete in a 1983 bodybuilding competition in Las Vegas. Profoundly 80’s from top to bottom, with its synth soundtrack, big hair, neon singlets, and grainy video quality, Pumping Iron 2 delivers a sweaty meditation on gender, muscles, the body, and the relationship between artifice and the natural.
Professional competitive women’s bodybuilding is only about six years old at the time of filming. “Strong women” had primarily existed prior as vaudevillian freak shows, and the professionalization of men’s bodybuilding decades earlier had reserved space for women to participate only in high-heeled bikini shows held as side events. The Ms. Olympia and the National Physique Committee (that’s really what it’s called) had only just begun holding competitions in which women would flex to display muscles in 1977. George Butler captures a snapshot of this transitional moment for the sport. The norms and criteria of judgement are contested territory, and we listen to the judges and competitors negotiate different ideas of which ideal the female bodybuilder ought to be building a body towards.