What Is The Relationship Between Mae Braddock And The Great Depression

Raging Bull is a movie that re-tells the story and memoir of Jake LaMotta. The movie begins with Jake (portrayed by Robert De Niro) practicing a monologue in his bathroom. The scene then switches to a younger LaMotta in the midst of a boxing match in 1941. This flashback paints the story of how LaMotta received his first loss. The scene starts off with LaMotta and Reeves exchanging blows until LaMotta gains the upper hand and knocks Reeves to the mat. The crowd starts celebrating, cameras go off, and LaMotta strikes a pose and receives his victory robe. The celebration is quickly interrupted though by the ring announcer’s decision to crown Reeves as the unanimous winner. This creates a huge uproar, followed by a stampede of people and bedlam in the crowd. Amidst the fight, the scene changes to the Bronx, in 1941. This scene features Joey (Jake LaMotta’s brother) and Salvy (Joey’s associate) walking and discussing Jakes boxing career on the streets of New York. Salvy tells Joey to make Jake ‘know that he needs to cooperate and stop being so hard-headed’. Joey then rebuttals Salvy and it becomes known to the audience that LaMotta’s loss was fixed before the match even started. The scene then cuts to Jake inside his apartment sitting at his dinner table.

The name given the movie is because of the fairytale like rise of Braddock back to the top. The mindset of the time period is portrayed correctly by making everyone seem nervous and not smile much at all. When people were watching the boxing matches, it was an escape for people to temporarily forget what they were struggling with and enjoy the fight. When the movies shows how people would be day laborers and the long wait in lines to get relief money it was a correct representation of what people were having to go through during the depression. Braddock’s manager, Joe Gould, did in fact give up everything he owned to put Braddock back in and start his career up again. Jim also did fight with a broken hand, which seems to be something that would be added in for attention but was actually correct and he did take off his cast for the match. Braddock had borrowed $18 and in the movie it shows him repaying the borrowed money which he did do once he was able to after he had sold everything he had to have his second chance at boxing, not a move many man of the time period would have

Millions of people worldwide take part as spectators to the sport of prize fighting: better known as boxing. In a 1962 essay entitled “Who Killed Benny Paret?” the author, Norman Cousins, writes about the dangers that come with the sport of boxing. He especially talks about a match that resulted in the death of a boxer named Benny Paret. Cousins argues that boxing is just a show of violence and that boxers put themselves in the ring just for the simple purpose of entertaining a crowd. Even though investigations reflect the role of the referee, Paret’s manager, and the doctor’s examinations as the main cause of Paret’s death, Cousins blames Paret’s death on the people that attends boxing matches to see a man get hurt or knockout because he

Boxing, an official sanctioned sport in the early 20th century, is a sport that is known as one of the most violent and physically demanding sports on the earth. Professional boxers that get paid to fight must be in top shape in order to preform at the highest level. Being a professional boxer is a tough life. Boxers train hard for many months leading up to one fight and either win, lose, knock out the opponent or even get knocked out. The sport has been around for centuries, but has most recently taken off over the last 100 years. It is a multibillion dollar industry with fighters taking home hundreds of thousands of dollars if not even millions of dollars for big matches. In his novel Papa Jack, Roberts tells the story of the famous African American boxer Jack Johnson. He details the boxers rise to fame and fortune and his downward spiral that would soon follow. In Papa Jack, Roberts displays life of a professional boxer through firsthand accounts with events that happened during Johnson’s life and shows how boxing not only influenced his life but also how he influenced the African American community.

amounts of money presented major obstacles, Jack Johnson tells the story himself in his autobiography “My Life and Battles,” finally moved up in rankings and eventually became the Colored Heavyweight champion in 1903, by defeating “Denver” Ed Martin February 3, 1903. (Jack Johnson 36-38, Roberts 28-29). Meanwhile, the heavyweight champion at this time was James Jeffries, who would continue the racist tradition of keeping the title within the White race by refusing to fight any boxer of color. (Roberts 17-19). Subsequent white champions also drew the color line, until after more than three years of stalking the new champion Tommy Burns around the world, Johnson finally received his opportunity to capture the Heavyweight crown. (Johnson 68). Memorable and historic, on December 26, 1908 Johnson easily pummeled Burns, mercifully the fight was stopped in the fourteenth round by policemen, and the filming of the fight was ordered to be stopped fearful of exposing the myth of White supremacy throughout the globe. (Runstedtler 56-62). Of larger concern that the film would encourage the Black community to seek equality in other societal matters the government banned the transport of fight films across state lines. The impetus to censure Johnson’s victory led to a government regulation of the content of all films as noted in the article, Fighting films: race, morality, and the governing of cinema, 1912-1915. (Lee Grieveson, Farr131-34). Triumphal, Jack Johnson had enduringly achieved

James J. Braddock once said, " I have to believe that once things are bad, I have to change them". The movie Cinderella Man is about Braddock rising from a poor, unsuccessful boxer to the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. The historical background to his life and career was during the same time period as the Great Depression. James Braddock was not always the boxer he is now known to be, in the 1920’s he had lost one third of his fights and people referred to him as a “bum” which is the lowest name you could label a boxer at the time. Despite a broken hand and the hatred the crowd brought upon him, Braddock never hesitated to do his best on the rink. However, when the

Johnson was not the first ever black boxer. While there was some black involvement in the sport, there was not much viewing interest coming from the black population. Up until 1908 white boxers refused to fight black opponents. Ironic how tunes change to the cha-ching of dollar signs. The beginning of the twentieth century saw a decline in boxing popularity and Sam Fitzpatrick capitalized on it. He decided that there was no time like the present for change. He set up a match between champion Tommy Burns and this unbeatable negro. Burns thought this would be an easy way to line his pockets with cash, so he agreed.

The main plot of the story starts with a successful boxer in the roaring twenties. James J. Braddock fought his way to becoming the best-known boxer ever. He is a very well known boxer in his day. The Great Depression takes a toll on everyone in the country. James has lost pretty much everything he worked his life for. This did not stop James from trying his best to provide for his family and even got the chance to fight in the ring once again. This has become the best comeback in the face of great hardships. He never gave up to shoot for his goal to beat the best-known boxer at the time, Max Baer. No matter how hard it was back home he fought his best to get his life back. He then got the nickname of “The Cinderella Man” for his comeback

Franklin Roosevelt said, “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on,” and it directly relates to the Great Depression. People thought that because of this huge downturn that they would not survive but they had to “tie a knot in their rope,” and continue to try and survive. The great depression was a time of horror and failure. The giant Stock Market crashes of the 1930’s triggered this major blow to the nations economy. This major devastation also leads many families into terrible poverty. In the movie Cinderella Man the main character Jim Braddock went through a ton of devastating events in his family during this time. Jim is an easy person to relate to and we see in the movie what his life was like during this

The death of one is not worth the money earned from winning a fight. This is important to realize because the expense of one’s life is worth way more than the winnings of a cage fight. In “On Boxing,” Joyce asserts directly why she thinks boxing is not a humanized sport: “In the boxing ring, even in our greatly humanized times, death is always a possibility - which is why some of us prefer to watch films or tapes of fights already past, already defined as history” (source c). Joyce is stating that many watch tapes from the past when boxing first started because it was much safer then, than it is now. Also in “On Boxing,” Carol states directly her opinion for the sport boxing: “In no other sport can so much take

Tommy Burns was the new heavy weight champion and like Jefferies, he to was denying Johnson a shot at the title. This time Johnson was not having it. He followed Burns for two years from San Francisco to New York from Paris to London, mocking him to fight him. Burns would just state that Johnson was yellow, eventually it was said that King Henry himself called Burns a bluffer, I guess this got to Burns for in the end he agreed to fight Johnson for 30,000 dollars win, lose, or draw. This

Elliott J. Gorn’s The Manly Art is a unique book that tells readers the origins of boxing in American culture. The book was published in 1986 by Cornell University Press, the book discussed the development of boxing and American society. Gorn takes sport history, a commonly misunderstood and misinterpreted topic and wrote a book that not only was easy to read but allowed readers to gain knowledge on the sport. Gorn says “To understand prize fighting, I have discovered, is necessarily to understand something about nineteenth-century America. Ideology, ethnicity, social class formation, violence, urbanization, gender roles, religious world views, productive relationships, all are a part of sports history in general and boxing in particular.” (Gorn, pg. 12)

Johnson followed Jeffries from town to town. “Jeffries, however, refused to fight a black boxer and instead decided to retire undefeated.”(Unforgivable Blackness). The Championship was handed over to a white named Tommy Burns, who as well declined to fight Johnson but eventually gave in at the cost of thirty thousand dollars. In the year 1908, Johnson knocked out Burns in the sixteenth round, to win the title and create history. “He was a fast and brilliant defensive boxer who fought at a time when white champions like John L. Sullivan and James Jeffries refused to fight black fighters. Jeffries retired rather than face Johnson, but he returned six years later when the clamor for a great white hope could not be ignored”(Sandomir D3). Even James Jefferies was beaten and and thus, Johnson had beat all that stood in his way, from bottom to the top. Through perseverance and relentlessness, Johnson had achieved his dream.

James Braddock Always Remained A Positive Attitude Towards His Life, When The Kids Were Sent Away He Had Still Thought Positively By Saying I Need X Amount Of Dollars To Get Them Back. No Matter Braddock’s Situation He Was Always On The Positive Side Of Things, And In The End It Worked Out Well For Him.

     “Raging Bull” (1980) is not a so much a film about boxing but more of a story about a psychotically jealous, sexually insecure borderline homosexual, caged animal of a man, who encourages pain and suffering in his life as almost a form of reparation. Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece of a film drags you down into the seedy filth stenched world of former middleweight boxing champion Jake “The Bronx Bull” LaMotta. Masterfully he paints the picture of a beast whose sole drive is not boxing but an insatiable obsessive jealously over his wife and his fear of his own underling sexuality. The movie broke new ground with its brutal unadulterated no-holds-bard look at the vicious sport of boxing by bringing the camera