“Two worlds collide, rival nations. It’s a primitive clash venting years of frustrations…Is it East versus West or man against man?”
Thus begins Burning Heart, one of the iconic songs of Rocky IV. This autumn marks the fortieth anniversary of Sylvester Stallone’s Cold War boxing epic, a film that captures one of the elemental aspects of the Cold War. The film captures the clash between a society of free individuals versus a totalitarian regime where human beings are just expendable tools.
For those who do not recall, Sylvester Stallone created the Rocky franchise by writing, directing, and acting in the original eponymous movie in 1976. Stallone’s bio is a great American story in and of itself: a young actor living out of his car refuses to sacrifice his artistic vision by selling the rights to his script. He ultimately makes it big.
But, the Rocky movies are much, much more than sports movies. This is a hero epic, and we witness the full arc of the character: the boy from the streets making good and shaking of his ties to local hoodlums, falling in love and building a family, achieving fame and success, making the mistakes of the nouveau riche, and suffering loss. Those who think his hardest fights are in the ring have missed the bigger story: Rocky’s incredible doggedness as a fighter is illustrative of the more important things he has to overcome, including his wife’s death by cancer, the passing of friends, estrangement from his son, the limitations of aging, and, ultimately, his own bout with cancer.
Rocky IV takes place at the heart of the Cold War, opening in theatres at the same time as voting for the re-election of Ronald Reagan. The basic storyline is a challenge from the Soviet Union’s rising boxing star, Ivan Drago, to come to the West and crush America’s boxing champions. We see that Drago, stoically played by Dolph Lungren, is controlled, injected with steroids, and drilled mercilessly by his Soviet handlers. Over the course of the movie, we, the audience, develop a bit of pity for this individual who is just a propaganda tool for his Soviet overlords.
Two themes emerge. The first is a private theme, discussed by Rocky, his wife, and his friend Apollo Creed. That is the question, “When is enough, enough?” and it is tied to an individual’s decisions about what one values in life. Creed is unwilling to face his own declining powers, lusting for glory in the limelight. Rocky argues that they are just men, facing realities of time and age. Moreover, Rocky emphasizes that family and relationships are the most important things to him. In some ways this debate is symbolic of a larger theme in the movie, whether the massive, mechanistic Soviet Union will overcome an aging, divided America.
The geo-politics of sports rivalry goes all the way back to the 1936 Olympics, when Hitler’s regime staged the games as a Hollywood drama. Of course, despite the propagandistic images and truly massive venues, the Nazis were unable to prove their doctrine of Aryan supremacy on the racetrack due to the likes of Jesse Owens.
After World War II, the geo-politics of sports centered on the Cold War rivalry between the free West and the Communist East, including everything from individual athletic drama to boycotts. In point of fact, the two systems were quite different. The Olympiad was designed for amateur athletes, so those in the West typically had only modest sponsorships available to them. In the East, Communist governments asserted control on every aspect of life, and that included taking children from their families at a young age and developing them as athletes. Looking back, we recall the national pride in competition by some of those athletes: Bruce Jenner (USA) shattering the decathlon record and fourteen year old Nadia Comaneci’s perfect “10s” (Romania) in the 1976 Summer Olympics; the 1980 ‘Miracle on Ice’ (U.S. hockey beats the Soviet Union); the ice skating duel between East Germany’s Katerina Witt and America’s Debi Thomas (1988), when both skaters performed to Bizet’s Carmen.
Rocky IV captures the difference in these societal systems. In the Soviet Union, Ivan Drago is in essence a minion of the state. The massive resources of the Soviet machinery are brought to bear, and in typical ‘scientific’ Marxist fashion, Drago’s coaches and handlers brag about the novel techniques they employ to enhance and perfect human performance. This is not just propagandistic drivel. Rather, this reminds us that the anthropology of communism is entirely materialistic, and the elites of communism have always egotistically believed they can shape human nature itself.
Rocky Balboa, on the other hand, is a private citizen. The fight that will occur is not sanctioned by a world boxing association. Rocky receives no support from government, media, or corporate sponsors. Rocky is fueled by a need to vindicate the loss of his friend, Apollo Creed. The soundtrack captures the sentiment in Hearts on Fire: “burning with determination to even up the score.” We see that he is at his very strongest when supported by his wife and close friends. Before the landmark fight in Moscow, we see him kneeling in silent prayer.
In sum, the communists’ motivation is their never-ending need to justify their horrific, repressive regime. Whether at the Olympics, or in the fictional tale of Ivan Drago, that is what is going on. We continue to see it today, such as China’s recent massive military parade celebrating not just the end of World War II, but their new aggressive claims of primacy on the world stage. We see it in the grotesque grandstanding of North Korea, which starves its people to pay for massive statues of the Kim family and unnecessarily massive military industrial complex.
How does America justify its fundamental ethos? By the success of its individuals under conditions of ordered liberty, the innovation and growth caused by free markets, and the resilience and accountability of our democratic institutions. Rocky Balboa is a fictional character whose grandparents probably came from Italy to Ellis Island and then to Philadelphia’s south side. His is a fictional version of the American Dream, but one lived by countless millions of others.
In the final minutes of the fight, Rocky’s incredible resilience in rising up again and again from the floor, and his unbelievable determination despite Drago’s hammering blows, has turned the crowd in his favor. What began as a bloodthirsty crowd chanting “Drago” has become a frenzied audience yelling, “Rocky! Rocky! Rocky!”
Rocky wins.
But, Rocky IV is not through teaching us. Had Drago won, the Soviet Union would have crowed its superiority. In contrast, a battered Rocky is magnanimous. Taking the microphone, he exhaustedly addresses the crowd,
I came here tonight and I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve seen a lot of people hating me, and I didn’t know what to feel about that, so I guess I didn’t like it much …During this fight, I seen a lot of changing. The way yous felt about me, and the way I felt about you. In here there were 2 guys killin’ each other, but I guess that’s better than 20 million. What I’m trying to say is if I can change … and you can change … everybody can change.
Ronald Reagan characterized the Rocky mindset. Reagan struggled against an evil empire while always seeking ways to build bridges to subject peoples held captive behind the Iron Curtain. Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, worked hard to demonstrate a “change” that allowed for Warsaw Pact countries such as Poland, Hungary, and the Baltic States to integrate into Europe and NATO. The side that wins does not just do so through the power of the state and its military, but by the persuasiveness and reality of its fundamental values. The power of the Rocky myth is that it expansively expresses the American Dream, for ourselves and for the world
