Posted By Tanner on February 12, 2010

I want to make my Friday posts a bit lighter than those I do on Mondays and Wednesdays. So I’ve decided to do movie reviews and a few other things that represent good examples of real Citizens.

This week’s review is of the movie Cinderella Man. A 2005 film produced by Ron Howard and starring Russell Crowe and Renée Zellweger, Cinderella Man is a real-life tale about Depression Era boxer James J Braddock.

Braddock was an up-and coming boxer who was slowly but surely making his way through the ranks as a light-heavyweight contender. While he had a powerful right hook, he was a clumsy fighter and his left arm was practically useless in a fight. After loosing to Tommy Loughran, things took a turn for the worse. Braddock broke his right hand and quickly went from fighting in Madison Square Gardens to being beaten by men in cheap fights in front of a few dozen gamblers. On top of everything, the depression hit, and Braddock lost his fortune, which was invested in a bank and taxi company. He literally went to rock bottom.

Unlike many boxers both now and during Braddock’s era, he was a family man. He was happily married with three children and considered them to be his utmost responsibility and highest source of happiness. Braddock wasn’t well-educated and was resigned to finding physical labor jobs moving goods at the docks. Some days there would be work, and other days there wouldn’t. But Braddock pushed hard and worked what he could to take care of his family.

After long months of working what jobs he could, Braddock was approached by his manager who had gotten him another chance in the ring. He was to fight Corn Griffin, and the win was supposed to come easily for Griffin. But Braddock had two things to his advantage: first, he had a family to fight and win for and second, his time working the docks with a broken right hand helped him develop his left into a usable tool and powerful weapon. Braddock pummeled Griffin to the point where the referee had to stop the fight. After his fight with Griffin, Braddock’s “fairy tale” journey that earned him the title Cinderella Man took him all the way to the top. The movie ends with his heavyweight championship fight with Max Baer, a boxer so skilled and powerful he killed a man in a fight.

While Cinderella Man follows the story of a boxer and has some terrific boxing scenes, the story is really about the type of man and citizen that James Braddock was. He was the type of man whoknew what he stood for and lived by those principles. He fiercely loved his wife and children and did his best to provide for their well being.

There were a couple of scenes that really stood out to me as to the type of character Braddock had and the Citizen he was.

In one scene he comes home to find his oldest son had stolen a sausage from the butcher. Times were tough and his son had technically gotten away with it. Food was hard to come by, and it would have been very easy to keep the sausage. But Braddock was an honest man. He marched his son, sausage in hand, back to the butcher to return it and have his son apologize. He saw his son’s desperation as an opportunity to be a real father and teach him the difference between right and wrong. As they leave the butcher he learns his boy stole the food because some of his friends were sent away to live with extended family as a result of the lack of food. What the little Braddock boy wanted more than the sausage was to know that his father wouldn’t send him to live with someone else. Braddock gives his son his word that he will never send them away and later has to swallow his pride in order to keep it.

Later in the film Braddock comes home to find a house with the electricity all turned off and no food. They were far enough behind in their bills that they couldn’t even pay the milkman to deliver the milk. While he was gone, his wife did what she though was best for the kids – she sent them to live with her family. Braddock tells his wife about the promise he made to their boy and does what he can to get his boy back.

The men and women in the United States back then saw welfare and government assistance in a much different light than many of us do today. To Braddock, putting his name on the relief roles and receiving hand outs from former booker, managers and fighters was a final effort in an attempt to keep his family together and keep his word to his children. He would receive checks from the relief roles, but he saw those checks as loans, not as bailouts or handouts. After winning enough fights, Braddock goes and pays back all the money he had received from the government.

Braddock was not only a good man to his wife and children, he was an inspiration to a nation in Depression. Braddock became a symbol to the poor and beaten of what could happen with perseverance, hard work and a little bit of good luck. Many men and women cheered him on because they tied their own potential for success to Braddock’s ability to win and win while constantly considered to be the underdog.

Cinderella Man is a movie about citizenship because it teaches two major values that every Citizen should have: Honor and Hard Work. James J Braddock exemplifies citizenship because he did for more himself and for his family than he expected anyone else to. His personal responsibility and honor trumped his belief of entitlement to an easy life and the luxuries of those who had more. Braddock never took more from the system than he was willing to put in.

Best Quote: I have to believe that when things are bad I can change them

-James Braddock

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Categories: Citizen Cinema
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