America on the Ropes: Rocky

FRANK P. TOMASULO

"Movies and Cultural Contradictions"

American Cinema ot the 1970s: Themes and Variations

Berg, Oxford (UK), 2007

In this extremely popular but predictable film, world heavy-weight champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), an obvious Muhammad Ali surrogate, decides to give an unknown boxer a break when his scheduled opponent bows out of a bout at the last minute. As part of this clever publicity stunt, a down-and-out, out-of-shape journeyman club tighter, the dim-wined “Italian Stallion” Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), is chosen to be that lucky man. Religious themes and images abound, as well as various aspects of an All-American Horatio Alger story. This low-budget sleeper relied on patriotic appeal, religious sentiment. class antagonisms, submerged racism, and ambivalent male chauvinism to attract the highest U.S. box office receipts of the year--$57 million--and the highest worldwide grosses of the year--$225 million--all on a budget of only $1.1 million. 

The film opens with a view of a fresco of Jesus Christ holding a Eucharist and a chalice (the Holy Grail of the championship? the martyrdom of Rocky?), then zooms out to show Rocky boxing in faded trunks beneath the religious icon. In the procession to the ring prior to the concluding match, Apollo Creed wears a George Washington outfit--complete with white wig, Uncle Sam hat, and shiny red, white, and blue silk trunks-and Creed's image has now replaced that of Christ in the arena. Before that final main event, though, Rocky is shown waving an American flag and, instead of Jesus, a gigantic U.S. flag looks down at the ring. Also, before the big match, Rocky kneels in a bathroom and prays--a scene that was used in the film's trailer. Once in the ring, the camera retreats to a Godlike perch to observe the monumental struggle between “good” and “black.” These religious motifs are accentuated in that most of the film takes place during the Christmas season (with Rocky as the new savior) and the Balboa-Creed match is held on New Year's Day, a Roman Catholic holy day: the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus. Thus, Rocky's chance to prove his masculinity is associated with the birth of Christ and the ancient religious rite of manhood. 

The title match turns into a bloody fifteen-round slugfest in which both men are repeatedly pummeled and knocked to the canvas, although Rocky obviously gets the worst of it--his swollen face is a gory mess of cuts, welts, and bruises. But he keeps coming back, and even gestures with his gloves to a disbelieving champion to return to the fray and punish him some more. When the final bell sounds, Rocky is still standing, having “gone the distance” against his far superior opponent. As the judge's decision (in favor of 

Apollo Creed) is announced, Balboa's main concern seems to be to locate his love interest, Adrian (Talia Shire), in the packed arena, where he loudly squeals out her name. When she finally arrives, and they embrace, the crowd roars, “having proven himself (and his white manhood), the underdog boxer and his girlfriend can now constitute the couple in the presence of American society. 

Rocky is a classic rags-to-riches myth, with the obstacle a rich Black man-and Black Power. The film was based on an actual heavyweight championship bout in which em unknown white boxer, Chuck Wepner, the “Bayonne Bleeder,” knocked down and almost “went the distance” with the legendary Muhammad Ali, who supported Black unity and lost his world title because of his opposition to the Vietnam War. For those who felt that affirmative action policies and the athletic accomplishments of African Americans went against the grain of traditional values, Rocky Balboa, the “great white hope,” represented an avatar of the racial divide in America, Even though Rocky is not overtly racist--he has great respect for the brash 

and “uppity” Apollo Creed--the film's endorsement of self-reliant white individualism appealed to those disturbed by the “radical visions” (to use Glenn Man's book title) of the early counterculture, At its core, Rocky wallows in white lower-class resentment over Black economic gains in a time of recession. In fact, Rocky is forced to give up his longtime gym locker to an African American, Dipper--a metonymy for the fear felt by many whites that Blacks were taking their jobs. However, contrary to the situation in real-life America, in Rocky, the white guy is the underdog. A white bartender, watching Apollo Creed on TV, says, “All we got today are jig clowns.” Rocky replies, “You call Apollo Creed a clown!” The Italian Stallion seems not to object to having the Black champion called a “jig.” 

A good part of the film's screen time is taken up with the fighter's rigorous training regimen and his preparation for the big bout: chasing a chicken around a yard to improve his legs, pounding a punching bag (and raw meat in a meatpacking house), skipping rope and doing one-armed push-ups, and running through the ethnic streets of Philadelphia in his filthy swear suit to the uplifting strains of Bill Conti's exuberant musical score. Under the tutelage of his flinty trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith). Balboa eventually evolves into a well-conditioned athlete. After an elaborate training montage derailing Rocky's strenuous exertions, in a physical and mental apotheosis, he bounds lip the steep steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art at sunrise and at the top jumps up, his arms raised in triumph (a sequence he could not complete earlier in the film). As he reaches that pinnacle, Conti's Oscar-nominated tune, “Gonna Fly Now,” reaches its upbeat crescendo, a musical metaphor for the fighter's newfound power and masculine self-esteem. 

The movie's love interest, the super-shy Adrian, who works in a pet store, is the antithesis of the feminist rule models seen in countless American movies in which the narrative trajectory involved the female lead 

becoming more independent of male domination and less tied to the domestic sphere. In contrast, Rocky's Adrian "escapes into domestic space" (Kernan 271). Just as Rocky's self-actualization is circumscribed by his class and ethnic determinants (he can only hope "to go the distance"), so Adrian's class and gender prohibit her from thinking much beyond her impassioned declaration "I'm not a loser!" or her idealization of the traditional heterosexual couple. Adrian's compulsive timidity and ugly-duckling persona are far from the empowered and gorgeous ideals presented in many feminist films. Instead, she fits two other classic female stereotypes: gawky wallflower and clinging vine. It is perfectly natural, then, for Mickey, Rocky's trainer, to say that "women weaken legs." It is also perfectly predictable that the usually inarticulate Rocky will find his voice, filled with paternalistic and sexist (shibboleths, when counseling the local teenage "tramp" about developing a "bad rep."

Is Rocky Balboa an inspirational working-class hero, a blue-collar ethnic, a Joe Six-Pack, or a forerunner of Reaganite entertainments that followed in the 1980s? If so, then this working-class pug has higher aspirations, as expressed in the names of his turtles--Cuff and Link (symbolizing the aristocracy)--or his goldfish--Moby Dick (the largest creaturein the world)--and that he has a poster of Rocky Marciano (the only undefeated heavyweight champion) on his wall. Peter Biskind described Rocky as “one of the first of the coming crop of post-New Hollywood feel-good films,” a throwback to the 1950s, and a forerunner of the movies of the 1980s with its “racist, Great White Hope” protagonist (Easy Riders 385). 

Although Rocky’s corny Capraesque optimism seemed to be out of sync with the counterculture, the times were apparently ripe for such a positive character and narrative, for the movie not only topped the box office in 1976-77 but also became the fifth highest grossing movie of all time. 

Screenwriter and star Sylvester Stallone commented on rill' film's success: “I believe the country is beginning to break out of this anti-everything syndrome” (Leab 251). Thus, the film's narrative, characters, and box office receipts depended on its promotion of the status quo: the class system, racial antagonisms, and sexism. In short, although Rocky is a southpaw, he's no “lefty.” In the end, Rocky “goes the distance” and thus valorizes All-American virtues in a cynical age. The irony is that to succeed he must hurt others (and be hurt himself), a metaphor for the iron laws of competitive capitalism. Rocky Balboa can only make it as an individual in an individualistic nation. He can rise above his lumpenproletariat class on his own, but he cannot rise with it (Shor 2). Solitude is emphasized here, not solidarity. 

Although Rocky generally supports the status quo, it is not without its internal antinomies. Like the title and the protagonist's name, the year was “rocky” in both senses of the term: the era was fraught with national and international uncertainties a, the country was emphasizing its “solid as a rock “ credentials during the bicentennial Although the film tacks to the right, the hero's humble roots and hard work reveal dements of progressive possibilities that most of the narrative and characterizations belie.