Rocky and Adonis: Sport Film, Masculinity, Ideology

This article examines the Rocky films, the most successful sport film franchise in the world, and the Creed films, the equally successful reboot of the Rocky universe first released in 2015. While prior criticism focuses on the Rocky films’ dated narrative of white working-class masculinity in favor of the updated racial and gender diversity of the Creed films, my article highlights the former’ enduring achievements, as well as the latter’s process of “remasculinization” despite the surface inclusiveness. The first section surveys the key issues of sport studies, (sport) film studies, and masculinity studies, in relation to the term “ideology.” The second section looks at the “negative dialectics” of ideology and utopia portrayed in the Rocky films, and reads the representation of masculinity in these films from the perspective of “post-masculinity.” Drawing upon the theme of “crisis of white masculinity” which has been ardently adopted by American literary and film texts since the 1950s, the last section argues that the Creed films create an extended Black version of this theme in a way similar to Fight Club.