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Ron Howard's "Cinderella Man"
The Crass Slipper Fits
By DAVE ZIRIN
"When our country was on its
knees, he brought America to his feet."
So
proclaims the tagline for Ron Howard's Depression Era boxing film
Cinderella Man starring Russell Crowe. Cinderella Man, the story of
1930's heavyweight champion James J. Braddock, has been compared to
the 2003 film Seabiscuit, both stories of plucky sports underdogs
that triumphed during the Great Depression. The comparison is apt,
and not just because Crowe mopes around Cinderella Man with the same
blank, hangdog expression as that damn horse. Like the insipid
Seabiscuit, this entire big budget biopic comes off as yet another
Hollywood effort to sweeten the story of the 1930s. And like
Seabiscuit, Cinderella Man portrays the Depression as a time, in the
words of film reviewer Jamie Bernard, "that was really good for
teaching values." Beyond that, all one would learn from Cinderella
Man is that the Great Depression was really depressing.
In reality, the 1930s was an era
of not only poverty but also mass resistance, as strikes swept the
south and shut down the cities of San Francisco, Toledo, and
Minneapolis. It was a time when many of the reforms on the chopping
block today, like Social Security, were won through the struggles of
the labor movement. It was a time when revolution in the United
States was on the table as hundreds of thousands of people attempted
to offer an alternative to the barbarisms of capitalism. As
Depression era sports writer Lester Rodney put it, "In the 1930s if
you weren't some kind of radical, Communist, socialist, or
Trotskyist, you were considered brain-dead, and you probably were!"
Just about everyone in Cinderella Man wears their brain-deadness
like a medal of honor, passively enduring poverty as if they had
just received red, white, and blue lobotomies.
The only hint of the other side of
the Depression in Cinderella Man is Braddock's dockworker buddy Mike
Wilson (played by Patty Consodine.) Mike believes in the power of
protest, but he's also clearly doomed from the opening frame,
portrayed as a drunk whose wife snaps at him, "You can save the
world, but not your family!" Renee Zellweger, as Crowe's spouse Mae
mirrors Mike's wife, as the typically sexist sports-movie female
character, fretting with every fight and forced to say lines like,
"You are the champion of my heart, James J. Braddock!"
The film is also shamefully
simplistic and even slanderous in its portrayal of the heavyweight
champion at the time Max Baer. Baer was a hulking, brutal fighter,
who had two opponents die in the ring. But Cinderella Man reduces
Baer to a one-dimensional stock villain, a perfect counterpart for
Crowe's paper-thin stock hero. As played by Craig Bierko, Baer
struts around with a psychotic gleam in his eye, as if he would
enjoy nothing more than killing Braddock and spitting on his grave.
In one scene, he looks at Mae and says, "Nice! Too bad she'll be a
widow."
In reality, Baer was devastated
and nearly destroyed by the ring deaths that occurred at his hands,
as any non-sociopath would be. Also Baer was a complex figure who
fought against Nazi favorite Max Schmeling with a Star of David
embroidered on his trunks. To see Howard's movie, one would think
that the only symbol Baer favored was a pentagram.
But the real tragedy of the film
is its treatment of Braddock. Crowe does what he can with a terrible
script, but it says everything about the film that the final credits
roll before the actual ending of Braddock's fight career, a 1937 8th
round knockout at the hands of Joe Louis. Louis, the first
African-American heavyweight champ since Jack Johnson,was a symbol
of hope for both African-Americans and the left wing of the
radicalizing working class. To have portrayed his fight with
Braddock would have meant dealing with complex issues of how boxing,
in a violent society, has acted as a deeply symbolic morality play
about the ability of people - especially people of color - to
succeed and stand triumphant. It would have meant trying to
understand why some people would have rooted for Braddock against
Baer, but then bitterly opposed him against Louis. But the
filmmakers could care less about these complicated dimensions of
either the period or the sport. Their job in Cinderella Man is to
take complex characters and turn them into stick figures, easily
consumed and easily forgotten. At that task, they have succeeded
admirably.
[For people really interested in
the James J. Braddock story, read the just released Jeremy Schaap
book also called 'Cinderella
Man' and - blessedly - not connected to the film.]
Dave Zirin's
new book "What's
My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States" will
be in stores in June 2005. Check out his revamped website
edgeofsports.com. You can
receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by e-mailing
edgeofsports-subscribe@zirin.com. Contact him at
whatsmynamefool2005@yahoo.com
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