Rocky
By Peter John Gardner
I've been sitting on this one for a while, and my excuse this time isn't the usual "movie seemed boring". I've seen Rocky dozens upon dozens of times since I was a kid, seen all the sequals, and own the dvd. It's the one movie of Stallone's that I refer people to when they say that Stallone only makes shitty movies. The first installment in what never should have been a franchise is actually a damn good film. It takes its characters seriously and doesn't have the campy feel that later Rocky movies drown themselves in. Critics ate this movie up when it was released in 1976. It was nominated for ten (!) Academy awards and won three of them, including Best Picture and Best Director. Stallone himself was nominated for Best Actor (!!) and Best Screenplay (?!).
Yes, this movie was Stallone's baby, and it proves that when you look past his later shitfests like Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and The Specialist, there is actually some talent deep within ol' Sly.
So why did I wait so long to write about this? Well, I really wanted to take a fresh angle on the film. I revisited the film for the project and wanted to forgo the obvious underdog parallels between my life and Rocky's. I tinkered around with a piece about blind confidence. I wrote a whole draft examining the dichotomy of Rocky and Paulie's friendship (I still might post that someday). I also tried to compare the awkward romance between Rocky and Adrian to my own experiences with love. None of these angles seemed to be working.
In the end, I can't avoid the unavoidable. The underdog parallel is staring me right in the face, and it's too strong to ignore. A story such as this is the reason why I undertook this project.
Everyone has seen at least one of the Rocky movies at some point in their life, and they all pretty much follow the same formula, so I'll spare you a long plot synopsis. In a nutshell, Rocky is a small time boxer in Philadelphia. He fights for nearly no money, works as a thug for a local loan shark for extra cash, and doesn't even have his own locker at the local gym. Heavyweight champion Apollo Creed decides to give a no name fighter a chance at the title for publicity's sake. Enter Rocky Balboa. So, Rocky is lured into this fight despite himself (he doesn't really think he can beat Apollo and the fight would only serve to humiliate him). All the while, a burdgeoning romance is occuring between Rocko and a timid pet store clerk named Adrian.
Although the film never really explains how Adrian went from being creeped out by this big, dumb brute that always came into her store and told really bad jokes to being not only his biggest fan but the love of his life as well. With a movie like this, you don't really care about that. Stallone's acting makes Rocky such a damn likeable character. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he is the quintessential do-gooder with a heart of gold. Just watch the scenes where Rocky talks with his pet turtles. You just want to give the oaf a hug.
Time to tie this together.
I'm not a superb writer. I'm not even a great writer. I'm ok, at best. Slightly above average, maybe. That's kinda how Rocky feels about himself. He knows he can beat the living shit out of the local fighters, but when presented with an opportunity at the big time, he takes it, but with huge dose of uncertainty.
I too am an underdog, not just when it comes to writing, but in most aspects of my life. Like Rocky, I'm not exactly smart, and I tell really bad jokes. Sometimes I squander or just plain fuck up opportunities for change or growth in my life due to my own insecurities. Example: grad school. I've had my bachelor's for nearly a year now, and I always planned on going to grad school after a short break. Take some time off from school, work, save up some money, get rid of student loan debt, etc. But as each day passes, I grow less confident about returning to school. I look at others that shared my major in college and see the progress that they've made, and I become simultaneously proud and jealous. I look at the results from the two times that I took the GRE and kick myself for the pathetic scores that I made.
Am I really cut out for this? Do I have what it takes to make it into a decent graduate program and achieve my goal, which is to become a teacher and somewhat successful writer? Fuck no. But after watching a movie like Rocky, where an underdog overcomes seemingly impossible odds, I feel like maybe I do stand a chance out there. Who says I couldn't be a great teacher...one of those "that dude changed my life" teachers? Who says that I couldn't write something on par with the Apollo Creed of the literary world?
Don't answer that.
I'll never stop trying, though.
