When Hillary Clinton suggested in Philadelphia this week thatshe was like Rocky, I assumed she was comparing herself to the movie franchise: that she kept going long after her audience lost interest.
But she was actually likening herself to Sylvester Stallone’s character Rocky Balboa, which is her way of saying she can’t be knocked out and will keep fighting even if everyone tells her to stay on the canvas.
Anyone who remembers the original or the first three movies in the series knows that “Rocky” isn’t about boxing so much as it is about race. Which, of course, made it the perfect reference for a campaign that remains intent on widening and exploiting the racial divide within the Democratic Party.
For those who have forgotten what makes the original “Rocky” so powerful, it was the story of a white, ethnic, working-class guy from Philadelphia who was on his way to Palookaville.
The opening scene says it all – Rocky shows up at his gym to find that his locker has been cleaned out and replaced with the gear of a flamboyant black boxer. His coach, Mickey, thinks the guy has more promise than Rocky, who he memorably calls “a bum.”
The rest of the movie is the tale of Rocky’s redemption and his ability to overcome the cynical alliance between Apollo Creed, an even flashier black guy with a gift for gab and natural athleticism, and his rich white backers.
If Hillary Clinton really sees herself as Rocky, the Democrats are in for a doozy of a dustup in Denver.
Campaigning in the city where Rocky still stands as a monument to blue-collar grit, figuratively in voters’ minds and literally at the top of the steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Clinton’s current persona matched up too well with the Italian Stallion for her to resist making the comparison.
It’s worth noting that the Rocky line came not off the cuff but was included in a prepared statement circulated in advance of the Monday speech by her usually mirthless campaign.
That statement didn’t make it out the door at her baby-boomer dominated shop without considering the full implications of embracing Stallone’s one and only Oscar winner.
In the movie, the joke was supposed to be on Rocky – a white patsy for Creed to pummel to entertain fans tired of seeing the champ devastate other black fighters. Rocky walks into certain defeat because he was unwilling to take a dive.
Leading up to that moment you get to watch Rocky’s anguish as Carl Weathers as Creed makes Philadelphia’s bicentennial celebration about him and not the land Rocky loves.
You also get to see Rocky hammer away on sides of beef to train while Creed has all the finest things handed to him by his white backers.
Philadelphia was the right setting for the movie, since racial animosity was still as sharp as a longshoreman’s cargohook when the movie came out in 1976.
Only one year prior to the movie’s debut, Frank Rizzo had been reelected as the city’s mayor. Rizzo, a former police commissioner, rode to office on a wave of white outrage over perceived black lawlessness that had been in full cry since the race riots of August 1964.
Rizzo, before his own bluster and bombast did him in, won the respect of working class Philadelphians terrified of black unrest with moves like raiding the city’s Black Panther headquarters and comparing himself favorably to Atilla the Hun when it came to fighting crime.
Some of the wounds from that era have healed, but this is still a city where Rizzo’s son hosts a radio show and serves on the city council and extols his father’s legacy.
For Clinton to tap into all of those old, bad feelings seems like a pretty radical move just for the sake of comparing herself to a fictional fighter who lost the big match in a split decision.
Chris Stirewalt is the political editor of The Washington Examiner. He can be reached at [email protected]
