#57 ‘Rocky’
Grit, Glory, and the Great American Mansplanation
Rocky (1976) is the cinematic embodiment of the American dream as imagined by a man doing push-ups on a raw steak: if you get punched in the face often enough and grunt sincerely while doing it, the world owes you a shot at greatness. Written by and starring Sylvester Stallone as the ultimate underdog, Rocky isn’t just a boxing movie—it’s a sweaty parable about masculinity, redemption, and how a woman’s love can be won through sheer, unrelenting presence.
Rocky Balboa is a small-time boxer with big-time delusions and a heart of gold buried under layers of self-pity and literal bruises. He mumbles, shuffles, feeds turtles, and stalks a painfully shy pet store clerk named Adrian (Talia Shire) until she finally agrees to go out with him—less because of chemistry and more because the script decides she should. Their courtship? He takes her ice skating in a closed rink and talks at her until she stops saying no. Romantic!
Adrian is the classic ‘fix-him’ fantasy: a withdrawn, bespectacled woman whose entire arc involves removing her glasses, speaking above a whisper, and learning to support a man’s self-actualization at the expense of her own interiority. She doesn’t fall in love with Rocky. She surrenders to him, which the film treats as an emotional triumph rather than a case study in consent fatigue.
Meanwhile, Rocky trains for his once-in-a-lifetime shot at the heavyweight title against Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), a charismatic, brilliant, self-promoting Black champion who’s essentially the villain for being successful on purpose. The film never quite forgives Apollo for having confidence and a business plan. He’s the flashy foil to Rocky’s humble sincerity—a capitalist peacock to Rocky’s blue-collar Christ figure.
Yes, Rocky loses the fight. But that’s not the point. He lasts fifteen rounds. He bleeds. He suffers. He proves himself. The crowd loves him. Adrian loves him. America loves him. Because in the world of Rocky, you don’t need to win—just to endure and monologue your way into our hearts.
Technically, it’s well-crafted. The gritty Philadelphia streets feel lived-in. Bill Conti’s soaring score could make a ham sandwich feel inspirational. The final fight is tense and well-staged, and Stallone—credit where it’s due—commits to every emotional beat with the intensity of a man who wrote his own myth in real time.
But let’s not pretend Rocky is a revolutionary underdog story. It’s a film that says masculinity equals pain, romance equals persistence, and women exist to whisper your name after you’ve nearly died doing something violently poetic.
3 out of 5 raw eggs
(One for the score. One for the training montage. One for the sheer audacity of Stallone’s self-mythologizing. The missing stars? Still running up those museum steps, wondering why Adrian never got her own damn storyline.)
