Rocky and Racism: What are we really fighting for?

• In Event: Popular Culture in the Ambivalent Construction of Race and Hybridity

Abstract

The 1976 smash hit Rocky became a powerful piece of American iconography because it spoke to white America's anxiety about the rise of the angry black man during the 1960s and '70s. The mobilization of this fantasy offers insight into the tensions we faced then--and now--as we continue to re-situate race in America in a less controversial and ahistorical way.

Author

• Sarah Vartabedian, University of Texas, Austin