Love, Agency, Purpose. One man against all odds.

Readership: All
Theme: Honoring Fathers
Author’s Note: Written on 2023/2/26.
Length: 800 words
Reading Time: 4 minutes + 3 video clips.

Case Study – James J. Braddock

Cinderella Man is a 2005 movie directed by Ron Howard and starring Russel Crowe as James J. Braddock, a real-life working class boxer of Irish descent from New Jersey whose professional career spanned the 1920s and 30s.

The movie starts in 1928 with James as a promising, undefeated contender for the world championship with 20 straight wins, 16 by knockout, who’s never been knocked out himself.  He’s making thousands of dollars per fight (a lot of money in 1928), and his wife, Mae (Renee Zellweger), and children live in relative luxury.  From there, things take a turn for the worse.  James begins to lose in the ring.  Then he loses all his wealth in the crash of 1929.  Then he breaks his right hand, “his only real weapon”, as one announcer put it.  Finally, the boxing commission revoked his boxing license.

Indebted, utterly defeated, “all prayed out”, and unable to pay for gas, electricity, or even milk, James goes to the docks to compete with other desperate men who – if they’re “lucky” – get hired for one shift only to do physically demanding and often dangerous work.  With a broken right hand.  Most days on an empty stomach.

Obviously, this wouldn’t be much of a story if James didn’t get a second chance, and he absolutely does.  Every movie needs a villain, and world champion Max Baer (Craig Bierko) plays that role here.  The movie exaggerates his negative qualities compared to real life, but that’s to be expected.

Love

How does Cinderella Man honor fathers?  Check this scene out for one example.

The main theme of every movie that honors fathers is love.  Obviously, everything fathers do for their families flows out of their love for their families.

But, in addition to love, each movie highlights other themes as well.  Two themes that have stood out to me are agency and purpose.

Agency

James’ manager and promoter is Joe Gould (Paul Giamatti), whose only weapon is his wit.  His wife is Lucille.  In one scene, Lucille tells Mae…

“Can you ever stop yours when he sets his mind to a thing?  I don’t know who it’s harder on – them or us.  We have to wait for them to fix everything, and every day they feel like they’re failing us.  Really, it’s just the world that’s failed, you know.”

James – like the vast majority of Americans in the Great Depression – was fighting against forces over which he had zero control – economic fallout, stupid government policies, drought, etc.  So, he chose to fight in the one place where he felt he had some control over his circumstances.  James tells Mae…

“There’s still some juice in these legs, and I can still take a few.  Just let me take them in the ring.  At least there I know who’s hitting me.”

…

“I have to believe I got some kind of say over our lives, that when things are bad, we can do something about it, make things better for our family.”

Too many men lie to themselves about what they can and cannot control.  They look for excuses to evade agency.  James knew you can’t make anything better that way.  He ran towards agency, not away from it, even if it meant risking injury and death in the ring against men who were younger, stronger, better trained, and better fed than he was.

Purpose

As for purpose, in one interview James says…

“This time around I know what I’m fighting for… milk.”

James and Mae also demonstrate the importance of choosing a spouse wisely.  When disaster strikes, some couples shatter, while others cleave to each other even more strongly.  The movie shows both types, and James and Mae are definitely the cleaving type.  As I keep saying over and over, attraction doesn’t keep couples together.  Virtue does.  A woman may be head-over-heels for you at the beginning of the relationship, but when you suffer a run of bad luck, like James did, if she’s not virtuous, she’ll activate Briffault’s Law and detonate the relationship.

Mae isn’t perfect, and the movie doesn’t shy away from her flaws, but she’s definitely a virtuous woman.

Choose a woman like Mae, who’ll cleave to you for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness or in health, or choose none at all.

Cinderella Man is one of my all-time favorite movies, an absolute gem, and it’s only gotten better with age – probably because I didn’t have kids the first time my wife and I watched it, and now we have 10.  It’s a movie about faith, hope, and love that honors fathers.  You can rent it on Amazon Prime, but I’d recommend buying a physical copy, and reading the book.

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