The Structure of Meaning in the Boxing Film Genre Author(S): Leger Grindon Source: Cinema Journal, Vol

Society for Cinema & Media Studies Body and Soul: The Structure of Meaning in the Boxing Film Genre Author(s): Leger Grindon Source: Cinema Journal, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Summer, 1996), pp. 54-69 Published by: University of Texas Press on behalf of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1225717 Accessed: 10-12-2016 07:09 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Society for Cinema & Media Studies, University of Texas Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Cinema Journal This content downloaded from 129.100.58.76 on Sat, 10 Dec 2016 07:09:44 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Body and Soul: The Structure of Meaning in the Boxing Film Genre by Leger Grindon This essay focuses on the master plots, characterizations, settings, and genre history of boxing in Hollywood fiction films since 1930. The boxer and boxing are significant figures in the Hollywood cinema, with ap- pearances in well over 150 feature-length fiction productions since 1930.1 During the decade 1975 to 1985 the screen boxer was prominent with, on the one hand, the enormous commercial success of the Rocky series and, on the other, the criti- cal esteem garnered by Raging Bull (1980). As yet there has been no probing ex- amination of this cultural phenomenon. My essay will initiate such a study by analyzing how the evolving conventions of the boxing film genre express conflicts pervasive in American culture. In the cinema, contemporary genre analysis has focused on evolving narrative conventions as a dramatization of pervasive social conflicts. As Thomas Schatz ex- plains, genre criticism treats familiar stories which "involve dramatic conflicts, which are themselves based upon ongoing cultural conflicts."' Guided by the practice of Schatz, among others, I will outline the conventions animating the boxing genre with a sketch of the typical plot, characters, and setting, followed by a consideration of the genre's history and the typical emotional response. However, following Rick Altman's principle that "the first step in understanding the func- tional role of Hollywood genre is to isolate the problems for which the genre provides a symbolic solution,"" I will begin with the problems or conflicts which set the Hollywood boxing film in motion. Conflicts. The fundamental problems or conflicts in the boxing film can be organized into four categories: body versus soul; opportunity versus difference; market values versus family values; and, finally, anger versus justice. These four related conflicts shape the more apparent conventions of plot, character, and setting. A fundamental issue at work in the boxing film is the conflict of body and soul established by the tension between physical reality and psychic experience, the material and the spiritual. Whereas Western philosophers emphasize conscious- ness in their ruminations on the body/mind division, the boxing film foregrounds the body and particularly the male body. One may usefully study the boxing film as Leger Grindon is associate professor of film studies and chair of the Theatre, Dance, Film- Video Department at Middlebury College in Vermont. He is author of Shadows on the Past: Studies in Historical Fiction Film (Temple University Press, 1994). ? 1996 by the University of Texas Press, P.O. Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819 54 Cinema Journal 35, No. 4, Summer 1996 This content downloaded from 129.100.58.76 on Sat, 10 Dec 2016 07:09:44 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms a masculine manifestation of the "body genres," that is, films which Linda Williams describes as presenting "the spectacle of a body caught in the grip of intense sensation or emotion."4 This issue is readily acknowledged in two boxing films from 1947 and 1981 that take Body and Soul as their title. A conflict arises from the gratification the boxer gains from the physical power of his body that is opposed by his recognition of its deteriorating force. As Joyce Carol Oates has noted, boxing "is the most tragic of all sports because more than any human activity it consumes the very excellence it displays-its drama is this very consumption."5 This confrontation with physical decline implies a grap- pling with death as well. The concluding line from Body and Soul makes this ex- plicit. As the boxer Charlie Davis leaves the ring forever, he mocks the gangster's threats, declaring, "What are ya gonna do, kill me? Everybody dies." A dominant theme of the boxing genre is how the fighter deals with his waning physical pow- ers: can he overcome the deterioration of the body by cultivating his soul? An ad- ditional question is frequently posed: what spiritual alternative does the culture offer to material rewards? The boxer's problem evokes a long-standing division within the American tradition between an Enlightenment rationalism and its secular, pragmatic descendants versus the Puritan-evangelical aspiration to build a community in the service of God. In the ring the boxer represents the free individual exer- cising his skills in a pragmatic struggle against his onrushing opponent. However, upon facing the inevitable decline of his ability, he must transform his perspective or perish. The identification of the boxer with his body develops related problems which I have organized around the conflict between opportunity and difference. America is a nation of immigrants, and the American ideal strives to embrace diversity and simultaneously to promote equal opportunity regardless of difference. Opportunity is central to the national community because the quest for self- improvement serves as a crosscultural value which promotes social unity. The American experience has labored fitfully under the demands of its promise, and the conflict between difference and opportunity continues to undermine this aspiration. In the boxing genre the ceremonial weigh-in, the impersonal referee, and the bare ring speak of equality, a rule-bound competition emblematic of the culture of opportunity. But these films constantly unmask the trappings of fairness and express the liability of difference. Everywhere the fix is on, the fighter is cor- nered, the game is rigged. The boxer's physical being and the social consequences of this condition de- fine him as different, and that difference generates conflict as the boxer pursues opportunities in the fight game. Ethnicity accentuates the boxer's body as the source of difference. Even during the classical studio period the pugilist was often a member of an ethnic minority; consider, for instance, the Italian-American Joe Bonaparte in Golden Boy (1939) or the Jew Charlie Davis and the Hispanic Johnny Monterez from Right Cross (1950). Ethnic identification intersected with class difference, characterizing the boxer as a poor worker selling physical labor in an industrialized economy which found little value in his skills. As a result, the boxer generally represents an oppressed underclass struggling to rise. Such a Cinema Journal 35, No. 4, Summer 1996 55 This content downloaded from 129.100.58.76 on Sat, 10 Dec 2016 07:09:44 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms tradition is long-standing and can be traced back at least as far as Jack London's story "The Mexican" (1911). Though the body defines difference, economic mar- ginalization is one of its consequences, so the questions arise: can the opportunity be seized? Will difference be overcome by money? "The crisis of masculinity," which Pam Cook and Robin Wood have explored in Raging Bull, is a manifestation of difference in terms of gender.6 For example, The Champ (1931, 1979) portrays the boxer as an immature father whose childish behavior estranges him from his wife and places him under the care of his young son. The boxer's career unfolds in an exclusively male world which retards the fighter's emotional development and intensifies his difference from women. In the romance the female protagonist is associated with mainstream culture and the family, whereas the society of the boxer is defined not simply as male but also as underdeveloped and apart.7 The romance provides the opportunity to overcome gender difference through marriage. Occasionally a comedy, such as The Main Event (1979), will move a woman into the boxing world using a gender reversal for humor. At the other extreme, the boxer may be an unmitigated brute who abuses defenseless women, such as Battling Burrows in Broken Blossoms (1919). The conflict between opportunity and difference points to the third conflict: market values versus family values. The boxer, like Midge Kelly in Champion (1949), is typically motivated by poverty to turn professional, and he is driven not merely to become a champion but to become rich. As a result the boxer, in a close relationship to Robert Warshow's gangster, embodies the success ethic and offers another critique of the Horatio Alger myth.8 His ambition stimulates a need for cash and a desire for integration into the dominant culture, which alienates him from his family, his fiancee, and his native community. In the boxing genre the struggle of the underclass acquires a vivid analogue for the physical, psychological, and moral toll of the drive for success. As in Golden Boy, material success generally fails to overcome loneliness and spiritual alienation.

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