Let's do one of those "Whatever happened to...?" columns, and let's find out whatever happened to oddball "martial artist" and "actor," Steven Seagal, so popular in the 80s with a string of movie that had three words in the titles..."Above The Law", "Hard To Kill", "Marked For Death", "On Deadly Ground", "Bored To Tears."
OK, you caught me making up that last one. But as soon as moviegoers figured out that he was always going to beat up entire gangs as long as they only came at him one at a time, his movie career went kaput. Then he made his great comeback film, "Out Of Work."
No, you caught me again. What he did was to become some sort of volunteer deputy sheriff someplace and try to make a reality show of that, but someone called the "COPS" and he was on the bench again.
So now, Seagal, American-born but a naturalized citizen of Russia, has started the All-Russian Aikido Centre in Moscow to prepare young Russians for army service.
“I am very glad to be able to present this centre today and that aikido will develop here,” he said during the inauguration. “These arts can make this world a better place.”
Tass, the official state-affiliated media outlet of Russia, says that the main objectives of this Aikido center are to “increase the applied nature of aikido, develop various styles and directions of traditional and modern aikido, increase the general motivation of those involved - the opportunity to become a champion, receive a sports category, title, as well as prepare young people for service in the Russian Armed Forces.”
I think that sentence sounds like something Seagal would have said: both self-aggrandizing, and senseless, all at once.
Not so long ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to award the American "actor" the state Order of Friendship. The decree cited Seagal’s “great contribution to the development of international cultural and humanitarian cooperation.”
Truly, when we think of Steven Seagal, we think of international culture and humanitarian cooperation. Why, he is even the Russian Foreign Ministry's "special representative" to the United States, a honor of which former president Barack Obama could only say it left him "flabbergasted." Especially since SS does things like visiting Russian prison camps and talking up the Kremlin way of doing things.
Steven is 70 now, and maybe he's just playing around with all this Russian-loving stuff. Who knows? Maybe this all some big reality stunt movie he's secretly making!
Call it "Putin You On."
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