This film was not well received by Schwarzenegger's fan base, being too long and developing an unhealthy film buff's interest in the philosophical niceties of cinematic reality (as opposed to car-chases and shoot-outs); the climactic scene, as I remember, takes places in a theatre showing a re-run of Bergman's The Seventh Seal, with Ian McKellen playing the scythe-wielding Death figure. But there were moments to treasure (other moments to treasure), one of them in a video store where a poster advertises The Terminator, featuring Sylvestor Stallone. Yes, you read that right. And I always liked the police station scene where a special unit pairs up, this being a movie, oddball detectives - the couple I particularly remember were a stripper and a Hasidic Jew.
Which brings me, circuitously I admit, to female genital mutilation. And aliens. To be exact, the Raelians, the world's largest UFO religion. To explain about Raelians I can do no better than quote from Wikipedia, which states that "The Raelian Movement teaches that life on Earth was scientifically created by a species of extraterrestials, which they call the Elohim". The movement was founded by a former motor racing journalist, Claude Vorilhon, who claimed that in 1973 he came upon a UFO on a hilltop in France.
If you are bored or need cheering up, it is well worth reading about the Raelians. I particularly enjoyed the revelation that the Raelians "frequently use the swastika as a symbol of peace, which halted Raelian requests for territory in Israel, and later Lebanon, for establishing an embassy for extraterrestials". For them that would have been a no shit Sherlock moment, one would hope. It can't have helped their Israeli ambitions that "the religion also uses the swastika embedded on the Star of David".
More alert readers will have noticed that two paragraphs ago I mentioned female genital mutilation. What does this have to do with the Raelians? Well, like many a cult - sorry, religion - the Raelians are quite keen on sex, particularly a woman's right to go topless, as the following picture of South Korean Raelians makes clear:
So keen are they on sex, that the Raelians, for all that their eyes must perforce often be turned skywards in search of further UFOs, are laudably enthusiastic about extending its charms to all. Including Muslim women who have been hacked about by evil co-religionist killjoys. And the Guardian reports this morning that Raelians are now putting their money where their - but I see I'm treading on thin ice - they are putting their money, shall we say, into a hospital project in Burkina Faso which will specialise in genital repair.
The Raelian backed NGO which is to pay for this facility is called Clitoraid.
FGM is a desperately awful thing, but amidst the lowering stench of human meanness and stupidity emanating from this story, comes a joyfully unlikely pairing, too implausible even for the writers of Last Action Hero. FGM and aliens. Thank God we can laugh.
