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Themes of Masculinity in Rocky

In 1976, Sylvester Stallone created the character of Rocky Balboa and introduced the first in a series of films featuring this lower class Italian boxer and his drive to become successful. Rocky Balboa "symbolized something far more than a simpleminded pugilist. Indeed, his character transcended the dynamics of the boxing ring and came to represent the values upon which America itself thrived.... It told us the story of the American Dream" (Glazov, 1). At the same time, the film and its central character allow an opportunity to explore both the realities and myths of constructed masculinity. In this essay, examples of the masculine traits, attitudes, and behaviors of Rocky Balboa will be presented, building an argument that Rocky provides what Van Deraa (17) calls an archetype of masculinity at its most physical and violent level that is nevertheless representative of a personal catharsis of emotional self-actualization.

As the film begins, Rocky Balboa is presented as a small-time club fighter from the lower class of Philadelphia who also works as an enforcer for a loan shark (Ebert, 1). He is inherently violent but is also in love with a painfully shy girl who works at the neighborhood pet store and is also a man who clearly cares for the unlikely pets (i.e., turtles and a goldfish) he has purchased from the pet store. Rocky is given a chance to fight the world heavyweight champion largely because of his nickname - the Italian Stallion - which suggests a certain raw sexuality which is generally at odds with Rocky's treatment of his love interest, Adrian. While the "Stallion" may be something of a small-time sexual player, the woman he loves is plain, not voluptuous, quiet, and hardly the kind of woman one would expect to be involved with a boxer. This is one of the first interesting aspects of Balboa's masculinity in that his self-proclaimed image as an Italian Stallion is not representative of his true sexuality and...

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Themes of Masculinity in Rocky. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 17:48, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/2000963.html