Essay: 'Masters of the Universe' (1987)
He-man is my gender icon
During the summer of 1987, I begged my mother to take me to see the movie Masters of the Universe, a big-budget adaptation of a cartoon series based on a popular toy line about a never-ending battle between the heroes and villains of a faraway space kingdom.
The movie starred Dolph Lundgren as He-Man, the musclebound hero of Eternia. The Swedish actor—and chemical engineer—had become famous a few years prior as Soviet bad guy Ivan Drago in Rocky IV. He seemed perfect: he was blonde and muscular and blonde. The Masters of the Universe filmmakers then turned to a severe and celebrated stage actor to play their supervillain.
I do not know any other way to write this, but Frank Langella acts the hell out of Skeletor, a living skull with evil plans and a cape. He-Man’s greatest enemy is a flamboyant Grim Reaper played by the award-winning star of stage and screen, and one hopes he was paid well.
Langella’s Skeletor is all camp and fury. His performance is enthusiastic. Playful. He tackles the character as if he’s the star of Tim Burton’s Richard III. He is not the only actor having fun, either. Billy Barty stars as absent-minded Gwildor, a gnome-like alien genius-slash-comic relief who invents the movie’s MacGuffin—the cosmic key. Meg Foster also sparkles as Evil-Lynn, Skeletor’s blue-eyed henchlady, and a pre-Friends Courtney Cox is memorable as a spunky Earth teen who helps He-Man.
Masters of the Universe is a movie that belongs to the final years of a time long ago, when cigar-chewing Hollywood executives would greenlight any project that resembled Star Wars in any way whatsoever. Laser guns? Magic swords? Aliens and high-speed rocket sled chases and weird speeches about magic dimensional shit? Wait, and they’re ALREADY toys? Here’s a pile of money!
Masters of the Universe had some panache. It wasn’t soulless. The movie’s plot is both convoluted and simplistic. Our heroes, including He-Man’s sidekicks Man-at-Arms and Teela, escape to Earth from Eternia, and there are some welcome fish-out-of-water bits. Skeletor and his assorted minions are all clad in late ‘80s sci-fi S&M chic. There are some fine sets—the production spent money on Grayskull’s throne room—and a Return of the Jedi-like sky-sled chase is... more than adequate. During one scene, our hero, He-Man, is stripped, shackled, and laser-whipped by a bald assassin with an eyepatch named Blade because he refuses to kneel before Skeletor. It’s quite a moment.
The people who made Masters of the Universe didn’t love the source material as I did, but they tried their best.
I was a newly minted teenager when I saw their interpretation of the popular interdimensional beefcake warrior, and I was unimpressed. None of the characters—not even Beastman—looked the way they did in my beloved cartoons or posable plastic figurines I had been obsessed with just a few years earlier. I was too old to play with them now. Later that week, I put them in a box in the basement.
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The cartoon series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was a half-hour-long advertisement for a successful toy line of action figures that ran from 1983 to 1985.
What is the plot of He-Man? Generally speaking, they were crudely animated morality plays about good and evil, and each episode ended with a tidy little life lesson.
The entire He-Man aesthetic was informed by professional wrestling and the sword and sorcery genre, with a little Flash Gordon thrown in for fun. These were superheroes, for sure. Some were half-man, half-beast, others cyborgs. But they were colorful and flamboyant, like Las Vegas showgirls.
I would watch the cartoon after school while clutching the brawny plastic figures as if they were magical totems. I suppose, in retrospect, it was like eating a hamburger while watching a commercial for a hamburger. The action figure empire helped toy manufacturer Mattel mint money. At least $1 billion.
The He-Man action figures were taller and wider than my Star Wars action figures. He-Man smiled. He-Man was swole. He-Man taught me that men can wear short shorts and boots. We both had Dutch boy haircuts. He-Man was my gender icon.
(I also watched She-Ra, who is He-Man's twin sister. She rode a winged horse, and I loved winged horses. Still do.)
I wanted to be He-Man, a super-strong Hulk whose secret identity was Prince Adam, a super nice dude. Prince Adam looks exactly like He-Man; only Prince Adam wore a pink shirt. A clever disguise! Prince Adam likes to laugh a lot. It’s fully clothed Prince Adam who says magic words that trigger his dramatic costume change into heroic, beefy He-Man.
The Champion of Grayskull was everything I thought a grown-up should be. Jolly and graceful, courageous, and powerful. He was gentle but could still bear-hug the wickedness out of archenemy Skeletor with his blue biceps.
He had a cool boss, the Sorceress. They worked together really well and respectfully.
I still want to be He-Man, and I am middle-aged now. I don’t mean I want to get ripped and shave my body, although I still have time to sort of make that happen. Sort of. I’ve always wanted to be He-Man because he’s more than a man.
He-Man wasn’t a barbarian. He was a human being confident enough to run around half-naked, fighting evil with his pet cat.
He was also smooth like a dolphin.
All of my favorite figures were hairless, like He-Man’s best bud Man-At-Arms and Skeletor’s right-hand monster, Trap Jaw.
There were two Masters of the Universe molds. One was hairless, and the other was covered in hairy curls that looked carved into the plastic. I was drawn to the figures who were shiny, not shaggy like Tom Selleck, beloved primetime TV hunk with a bearded chest.
Some of my other favorite toys: a robot with multiple faces named, wait for it, Man-E-Faces, and a squat character with a flat metal head named Ram-Man. Some of the toys were just plain weird, like Stinkor, a wereskunk whose power was being stinky (patchouli oil was the secret).
These toys were silly, except when I played with them. The fate of the universe was at stake. But mostly I just stared at He-Man, holding him with both hands, studying his muscles, daydreaming.
When I was ten, I was overweight. In fourth grade, it was frequently pointed out that both Sarah K. and I had boobs. For Sarah, this was undoubtedly traumatic. But I was offended because they were mocking my huge pectoral muscles, like the ones He-Man had.
That is a good memory—a moment of pure confidence. I laughed off the insults. Fools! That self-esteem did not last.
Here’s another honest boyhood memory: I used to stand in front of my bedroom mirror, naked, rehearsing the mighty mantra “By the power of Grayskull!” Over and over. My voice was a boy’s voice, but I tried to make it deeper. The Castle Grayskull playset was my prized possession, a giant, plastic, goth dollhouse. But there were times when it wasn’t a plaything. I distinctly remember wanting to be able to summon lightning with a magic sword that would transform me in an instant from a prepubescent child into a fully grown man, without the awkward adolescent part.
I haven’t watched a Masters of the Universe cartoon in decades. The last time I watched the movie was during college, when I was deep-frying my brain cells. I’m not particularly nostalgic about the shows and toys I grew up with. Nostalgia is just candied grief. I don’t want to mourn for what was, even if it tastes sweet.
GIFs That Keep On Giving
My overriding memory of the Masters cartoons is watching it every week in the hope that Skelator and co would finally get one over the annoyingly clean-cut buff blond dude in the bondage harness. I was always left disappointed. Mind you, I used to root for Wile E. Coyote to no avail, as well.
The Castle Grayskull playset was my prized possession, a giant, plastic, goth dollhouse. “
By the power of Grayskull!
I had She-Ra’s castle!