Over Thanksgiving break, I had the pleasure of re-watching the Rocky movies with my brother. I say “re-watching,” but watching might be more accurate—this was my first time taking in the films as a fully-conscious adult. At least, I like to think that I am now fully cognizant. In any event, I saw Sylvester Stallone’s masterpieces yet again!
While watching each movie, I jotted down brief notes capturing my salient motifs, morals, and quotes that spoke to me.
From Rocky I:
“I run a business here, not a goddamn soup kitchen.”–Mick
“Be a thinker, not a stinker.”–Apollo Creed
“I just wanna prove somethin' — I ain't no bum. . . It don't matter if I lose. . . Don't matter if he opens my head. . . The only thing I wanna do is go the distance— That's all.”–Rocky
From Rocky II:
“How about I take a cut in pay?”–Rocky
“Can’t do it; union rules.”–Meatpacking manager
From Rocky III:
“Friend don’t owe; they do because want to do. . . You ain’t down, and you ain’t a loser. You’re just a jealous, lazy, stinnking bum.”–Rocky
“When a fighter don't believe, that's it! He's finished! It's over!”–Rocky
From Rocky IV:
“Without some damn war to fight, then the warrior inside might as well be dead, Rock.”–Apollo Creed
What’s the shared theme of these quotes. Well, besides the fact that unions’ effective wage floors price low-skilled workers out of the job and Mick does not run a charity, the message is a simple one: do your best.
Rocky doesn’t win in Rocky I; he gets his ass whooped by Creed. He knows he’s going to lose, given his level of training and boxing acumen. But that’s not the point; the point is that he’s done being a nobody—he’s going to give it his all, go the distance, and be the best version of himself he can be. Rocky is a warrior both literally and, more importantly, abstractly: He has a goal, strives toward it doggedly, becoming a better, stronger, sharper version of himself in so doing. He does this both to win the “war” without, i.e., the extrinsic conflict, as well as the war within: accepting mediocrity, giving in to anomie, and losing all hope for a brighter tomorrow. It seems to me that America writ large, especially its youth, are at risk of losing this psychological war and falling into anhedonia, drug abuse, and depression.
I wasn’t alive in the 1980s; I was born in 2000. But it seems obvious to me from its music, movies, and pop culture that it was an optimistic time that did not suffer from whatever ominous cloud of purposelessness, friendlessness, and hopelessness currently looms over the country. How to get back there from here? Well, art may be an expression of its times, but I think Oscar Wilde was on to something when he said that life imitates art. Wilde penned this in his essay, The Decay of Lying, in which he argues that the most sublime art is wholly separated from moral and epistemic value—art should tell use beautiful lies, not moral truths. I think that art should strive to tell us beautiful truths that have been lost along the way and are now regarded, improperly, as lies.
Romanticism is not deception, and America is in desperate need of it. Who’s going to be the Sylvester Stallone of my generate? The Rocky Balboa? I don’t know, but I hope that, whoever they are, they are feverishly working on a script/song/painting that inspires young and old alike to strive toward a better tomorrow.