Saturday, August 8, 2015

The cult of Black and white cinematic symbolism (Part 2.5)...Why the Black Diaspora should boycott the movie 'Creed'...


Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone, better known as Sylvester Stallone, was born in New York City on July 6th, 1946. He was the elder son of Frank Stallone Sr., who was a hair-dresser and beautician, and Jacqueline Stallone, who was an astrologer, dancer and former promoter of women's wrestling.

At age 15, afer his parents divorced, Sly moved to Philadelphia to be with his mother, Jackie, and her new husband. By this time, he had begun lifting weights and was enrolled in Devereaux High School where he took up fencing, football, and the discus. 

Following graduation, Stallone received an athletic scholarship from the American College of Switzerland. While there he was a girls' athletic coach and in his spare time he starred in a school production of Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman'. The experience inspired him to become an actor and after returning stateside, he started studying drama at the University of Miami until he decided to move to New York in 1969 to pursue his dream.

Stallone auditioned frequently but only occasionally found stage work and eventually had to resort to appearing in a softcore porn film titled, 'Party at Kitty's and Studs', which was later repackaged as 'The Italian Stallion' after he became famous. He managed to secure a bit role in Woody Allen's Bananas (1971), but after he was turned down for The Godfather (1971), he became even more discouraged.

Rather than give up, Stallone channeled his frustrations into writing, churning out lots of scripts, some of which were produced. Still auditioning though, he managed to land a starring role in the movie, 'Rebel', in 1973.

In 1974 Stallone married actress Sasha Czack and they moved to California in the hope of building their acting careers. His first minor success came when he wrote the screenplay for the film, 'Lords of Flatbush' (1974) with Henry Winkler, which he also co-starred in.

Then, on March 24th, 1975, Stallone went to see the Muhammad Ali vs. Chuck Wepner fight. Now, supposedly, he was so inspiried by what he saw, he went home and after three days and twenty straight hours of writing, he produced the script for his film, 'Rocky'.

Now, other stories like the autobiographical flick 'Somebody up there likes me', about the life of Rocky Graziano, may have been the real inspiration behind this film; but personally, when I saw the movie 'On the Waterfront', starring Marlon Brando, I was shocked at how many comparisons I saw to the film Rocky. After watching several scenes, I was literally thinking, oh, so this is where Sly got that idea from.

The film Rocky was released in 1976; and we all know how this was the movie that made Sly an international star. I think we've all seen this flick about a journey-man boxer who works part-time as an enforcer for a local Philadelphia loan shark. One day Rocky is given a shot at the Heavy-weight boxing title by it's owner 'Apollo Creed', and even though Rocky loses to him in a split-decision, Rocky's still lauded for 'going the distance' with the champ.

And I'm pretty sure everyone knows about the other sequels in the Rocky franchise. But the one I'd like to focus on is 'Rocky 4', where he squares off against the hulking Russian, 'Ivan Drago'.

Now, Rocky 4 was released in theaters on November 27th, 1985. It was also written and directed by Sly Stallone, and it was produced for a budget of $28 million, and raked in over $300 million in american theaters.

This movie is the story of Russia's top boxer, Ivan Drago, coming to america to show his athletic superiority to the whole of the american boxing community. Ivan wants to fight Rocky, but instead Apollo Creed agrees to introduce him into the ranks of american boxing. Ivan kills Creed in the ring, and afterwards Rocky fights him to get revenge supposedly for Creed, but more so for his country. Thus, the poster of Rocky 4, where Sly is draped in the american flag.

Now, what I wanna' comment most on is the killing of Creed. If you've ever watched this flick, you'll remember how Ivan Drago was a 6 foot 5, 260 pound, giant of a guy. And what were his facial features like? He was blonde-haired and blue eyed. The walking embodiment of the aryan ideal. This was the archetypal aryan 'superman'; and these were the types of men recruited for the Nazi 'SS'. And Drago's physical traits were fundamentally what Hitler's diatribes of ethnic purity were founded on; even though Hitler himself didn't have blonde hair and blue eyes. In the 1936 Olympics, Hilter set out to show how athletically superior these men were, until brotha Jesse Owens showed 'em all what time it really was.

So right before Creed and Drago are set to fight, Creed puts on this big theatrical production, lead by brotha James Brown singing the song, 'Living in america'. Now, if you haven't seen this movie in a while, watch the scene where Drago delivers the death blow to Creed. Creed's Black corner man sees him getting killed and yells to Rocky, “Throw in the towel!” But Rocky freezes. He doesn't throw in the towel, he drops it. Now, this was supposed to show how perplexed Rocky was at Drago's 'freakish' strength, but in essence, what Rocky's doing, is letting Drago, the white aryan, kill Creed, the Black man. See, it's not enough that Creed was defeated and his title was taken away, the white fascist/aryan ideal, is that the game's not over, or the job's not done, until the Black man is dead.

Understand, the Black man has the most genetic power to breed white men out of existence. So a Black man 'Living in america', or anywhere else for that matter, is a threat to white men, and people, everywhere. And this is further emphasized by white birth rates currently falling below replacement levels. So James Brown's singing 'Living in america' before Creed dies, is sending the sublime message that for Black men, 'Living in america' is a death sentence.

Also, in one scene, while Drago is training, he's shot up with some sort of serum which looks to be steroidal in nature; this is saying something that Brotha Panic (google him if you don't know who he is) phrased beautifully in one of his lectures, and that's how 'technology is the white man's spirituality'. And it's also the way they compensate for their lack of melanated gifts that are natural to Black men (again Jesse Owens). An example of this kind of technology is the Black gun. There are guns that are painted different colors, but the vast majority of them are colored Black, especially when you think about the pistols issued to white cops. And the reason the gun is so phallic-looking, is 'cause it's paying homage to the Black man's penis being more genetically powerful than a white man's. And notice I didn't say anything about penis 'size', this is a stereotype white men/women gave us.

And anyone who thinks I'm exaggerating when I say that white men secretly wish they were as genetically, or physically powerful as Black men, should take a gander at this cover of 'Men's Journal' magazine from July 2014. I recently saw this in a dentist's office. Now, remember when Klansmen would talk 'til they turned blue about 'ethnic purity'? Well what we have now, are white men so desperate to identify themselves with Black male virility, that they're not only tanning themselves, but they're now smearing themselves with dirt to darken their skin. And if you're saying, aw c'mon bruh, you're reading too much into this cover, I want you to notice how this whiteboi is not only holding a Black bag behind his head, but how he's wearing Black trunks as well. And the sub-title, 'PUSH HARDER' is clearly a sexual reference. So you make the call.

Hell, even the Rocky poster for what people thought was the last picture in that franchise has him cast not only in Black and white (to the left), but shows him throwing the 'Black power' fist.

Moving on...

Now, the latest movie in the Rocky franchise, 'Creed', began filming in england and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on January 19th, 2015; and is slated for a release date of November 25th, 2015. And this film features Micheal B. Jordan as the son of Apollo Creed. You should take note of the Creed movie poster in this post's header, where the young Creed is still wearing red, white and blue...so white fascists are basically saying, across generations, this is still the story of the Black man in america.

I've got the trailer for this film at the end of this post, and in it, you'll see how it starts in total darkness, before a white flourescent light flickers on; this is setting up the Black and white cinematic symbolism I spoke about in my post before last. Then we see the 'MGM', 'Warner Brothers' and 'New Line Cinema' logos, one after the other, all in Black and white. A few seconds after, we see the young Creed stepping into a boxing gym, where the gym's trainer reminds him, “...your daddy died in the ring.”

This and the fact that Rocky agrees to train the young Creed for his championship fight is saying, that a Black man (Apollo Creed) can't turn a young Black man (Apollo's son) into a winner, but the white man (Rocky) can. And with the young Creed wearing red, white and blue, this flick's saying how this is one of the universal truths of the american social order.

Now this is further exemplified in this picture of Rocky and the young Creed, where Rocky is completely dressed in Black, while the young Creed wears a white t-shirt. This is meant to show Creed is the subordinate of the two. And it shows how Creed is supposedly weaker, physically or genetically, than Rocky is. Just like how white men are genetically weaker than Black men. Remember, white people are genetically recessive (the truest definition of the word 'degenerate'). Now this is how whitey always twists our truths. He takes what is real and puts his white supremacist spin on it. It's just like when white people have us calling ourselves 'minorities', when whitey knows that they're the world's real minority; but in order to keep Black people feeling inferior, they have us saying this about ourselves.

And ultimately, this movie is meant to keep young Black men content with ingesting the various aspects of american culture that are designed to either kill them, or make them hate themselves.

Now, we saw the same non-sensical mess in the movie, 'Django Unchained', where Jamie Foxx as Django was shooting down the various white men in the 'Candy Land mansion', and a Tupac song came on.

Not only was this song cinematically and chronologically out of place, but it was meant to indoctrinate young Black men and women into the idea that their history is only comprised of american slavery. Just like the crap they learn in american schools.

See, white fascists know that the last, best hope for our Diaspora to come up out of our dysfunction, lies with our young people. So by all means, they're doing whatever they can to keep them abiding by and imbibing in, the self-hating doctrine that was nearly force-fed to my generation in every pre, middle and american high school (The Umar Johnson 'scandal').

I wouldn't be suprised if they pushed the release date for this flick back to Christmas, just like they did for Django.

So if and when this flick comes to a theater near you, do yourself and the Black community a favor, and give that twenty or thirty dollars you'd spend at the cineaplex to a Black-owned business.

Let's show Stallone, that our 'Creed' from now on, will be avoiding entertainment that's meant to keep us hating ourselves and everyone who looks like us.

And like Sam Jackson said in 'Do the Right Thing': “...that's the triple truth, Ruth.”

Later...

MontUHURU Mimia

Here's the trailer for this flick...

2 comments:

  1. Great breakdown brother! Don't worry they wont get a penny from me! I wont be supporting this trash! Thanks for the heads up.

    ReplyDelete