When Chuck Norris died Thursday in Hawaii at the age of eighty-six, the internet, the medium that ultimately defined him more than any film or television role, duly noted his passing with a mix of irony and sincerity.
“Chuck Norris will NOT be resting in peace,” wrote the digital artist Beeple, accompanied by an AI image of Norris in hand-to-hand combat with angels in heaven. “Chuck Norris passed away just so he could punch Satan in the face,” another user replied.
It was a fitting tribute. Norris left the earthly plane with a profoundly bizarre legacy that passed through several distinctly American incarnations: karate champion, B movie action star, Walker, Texas Ranger icon, and then, improbably, patron saint of the early meme web. Squint hard enough and you can spot in “Chuck Norris Facts” the DNA of the “based” right-wing political propaganda of today — the America-as-’80s-action-hero White House videos, the dehumanizing sh-tposting, and creepy AI-generated sludge.
Norris once made propaganda for the American militarism of a previous age. Born Carlos Ray Norris, he was an Air Force veteran and a black belt in martial arts before appearing in film. Early in his film career, he represented a stoic, bland American version of Bruce Lee (they even squared off in the 1972 kung fu film The Way of the Dragon). In the 1980s, he picked up a gun and became a perfect cinematic symbol of the Ronald Reagan era, a shoot-first-ask-questions-later cowboy commando out to do America’s dirty work on screen. Gen Xers know him best as the star of Missing in Action, a cartoonish action trilogy in which Norris flies to Vietnam to rescue prisoners of war — violently, of course. Norris, an outspoken Reagan supporter, admitted that Missing in Action was meant as a corrective to the anti-government mood of Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo. The goal, he said, was “to instill a positive attitude” about the Vietnam War.
In 1985, he cowrote and starred in the pulpy…
Auteur: Ryan Zickgraf
