THE HERO’S JOURNEY MONOMYTH AND ITS MESSAGES IN ROCKY AND ROCKY IV

Abstract

This article analyzes two Rocky films – namely, Rocky and Rocky IV – through the lens of Joseph Campbell’s heroic journey monomyth. The article takes as its theoretical and methodological basis the most basic, tripartite, pattern of Campbell’s heroic journey: departure on an adventure – victorious completion of the adventure – return home with boons for the community. It argues that both of the selected Rocky films contain the same couple of messages, derived from the boons that the films’ hero brings to his community, whether narrowly or broadly understood (Philadelphian/US working class, or the whole of the United States, or even the whole world), upon the successful completion of his heroic journeys. The first message from this couple of messages is of a non-political nature, and it says that one should never lose hope even when one suffers from poverty, loneliness or even poor health, because winning is not in defeating someone else but in defeating one’s own feeling of aimlessness and lethargy and in doing one’s best though fighting against the odds. This message, which is generally loved throughout the world, is Rocky’s most valuable and most enduring legacy because it symbolizes man’s indomitable spirit and refusal to surrender in the face of adversity, refusal to stop seeking happiness just because it seems far beyond reach. This is a universal, timeless topic that resonates well with the people of all ethnicities, faiths, and even social classes, because even the richest sometimes find themselves in the role of the underdog. The second message is political and propagandist. It buttresses American exceptionalism, the latter concept being defined as two-faceted: 1. the US as a country with special characteristics, such as the availability of social mobility on the fair grounds of personal quality and hard work; 2. the US as a nation with a special mission to spread liberal democracy all over the globe and exercise hegemony for the benefit of the whole world itself. The second message is mostly popular in the United States, much less on a global level, especially because of the open advocacy of US hegemonism in Rocky IV. Overall, this article relies on the existing Rocky scholarship in both English and Serbian, its contribution being relevant, first and foremost, in the area of the Serbian studies of Rocky films, which, understandably, have produced far fewer research articles than the English studies thereof. The two films – Rocky and Rocky IV – as the corpus of this article were selected on the basis of their manifestation of the two respective aspects of American exceptionalism given by the American scholar James Ceaser. The key bibliographical reference in English is J. L. Salyer’s MA thesis on Rocky’s heroic journey, but this article’s approach is different from Salyer’s in that it uses Campbell’s shortened tripartite pattern of the monomyth instead of Christopher Vogler’s twelve-stage version derived from Campbell’s longer eighteen-stage one, and in that it focuses more on Rocky and Rocky IV’s relationship with American political ideology and on the perception of these two films among non-American audiences.