Actor Sylvester Stallone as boxer Rocky Balboa in Rocky (1976).
Everyone loves a good underdog story and some underdog stories continue to have the kind of cultural impact that is enjoyed rocky (1976).
the director John G. Avildsen (whoever made the Karate KidAnother iconic underdog story from the ’80s), Sylvester Stallone’s bout filmwhere he plays the role of Italian-American fighter Rocky Balboa, who has won the hearts of countless fans around the world.
An Excellent New Podcast, Paul Farber salute (The first episode is available now on Apple Podcasts and the NPR website), explores the enduring popularity of the film, which centers around a single artifact – the Titanic Rocky statue at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
For example, this 10-foot bronze statue attracts an estimated four million visitors each year, more than double the annual footfall at the iconic Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. The pose Stallone struck in this statue is that of Rocky Balboa raising his arms in triumph, culminating in one of the film’s defining scenes – the training montage of Rocky Balboa in the morning, as he climbs the 72 steps that lead to the top of the cliff. leads to Top of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Farber, director of Monument Labs and author-narrator of this podcast, has spent his life studying monuments and their cultural/historical significance. He uses that experience, as well as an impressive variety of interviews with fans and experts alike, to paint a holistic picture of the craze for this statue.
symbol of hope
Actor Sylvester Stallone at Rocky Statue in 2018. , Photo Credit: Getty Images
How does a monument become a living, breathing, ongoing part of a community? Where exactly does pop culture come from in hyperlocal culture, and what do these moments of ‘convergence’ tell us about ourselves? These are some of the questions that were explored in the first episode, which dropped on Jan. 10.
Farber begins the podcast on an unusual note: by interviewing his mother, the person who changed his “huffy and snobby” opinion of the idol. Growing up as a gay, Jewish boy in Philadelphia, Farber soon learned that Rocky Balboa was not just a fictional character for the locals who loved the statue and often visited it. He’s a symbol of hope and resilience, and as times get tough, Rocky Balboa becomes more and more relevant. Of course, it helps that the boxing ring is a super-convenient metaphor for people from all walks of life to project their hopes and insecurities onto.
one of the great things about salute is that it maintains a balance between the journalistic and the philosophical. A good example of this is Haseeb Payab’s story in Episode 1. An Afghan man who fled Taliban rule with his family, Pyab eventually ends up in Philadelphia, where he visits the Rocky statue, of course. As Pyab says, the moment he comes face to face with the idol for the first time is an important phase of ‘reset’ in his life.
art debate
The Philadelphia Museum of Art initially wanted the statue of Rocky outside its premises because it viewed the sculpture only as a film.
Similarly, when Farber takes us on a crash course through the statue’s history, we learn that the museum initially wanted the Rocky statue, along with other athletic statues, outside its premises. Originally, he did not see sculpture as an art form; It was a symbol of Hollywood’s commercialized, hyper-consumerist ‘art’ – seen in the rarefied world of curators and art historians, who saw the statue as a “movie prop”. In these moments, salute Covers several important themes: publicly funded art, the role of artists in society, and the transaction of cinema and culture.
The second episode dives into Stallone’s stardom: the man, the cinema and yes, the artist. The actor has also been painting for decades, as he revealed a few years ago, and his paintings (including Joan Crawford’s own most famous characters, and a bunch of other things in various stages of abstraction) have been exhibited in the US. . and parts of Europe.
On the evidence of the first two episodes, this is another intriguing, intertextual tale that promises to be full of surprising twists. salute Really highly recommended for everyone, but especially for movie lovers.
(The monthly column will explore talking points from films, OTTs and podcasts.)
The author and journalist is working on her first non-fiction book.