Running with Butkus

Animals and Animality in Rocky

Author(s)

  • Jason Price Arizona State University Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52537/humanimalia.9956

Abstract

This essay examines the relationships between humans and animals in the first and last of the films in the Rocky series starring Sylvester Stallone. Analyzing the film’s engagement with capitalism, meat, and animals, the essay engages in discussion with Carol J. Adams work on women and meat as well as Haraway’s recent work on companion species. The essay looks at the ways in which Rocky and Adrian regard animals differently than the other characters in the film as they refuse to injure them or regard them merely as food for consumption; instead, Rocky keeps them as pets and Adrian works at a pet store. Lastly, I look at the scenes of Rocky training with dead animals, comparing these with the scenes where he trains with live dogs. I argue that the scenes of Rocky hitting the sides of beef in the meat locker serve to question the slaughter of animals while maintaining a humanist subject, whereas his training with Butkus performs more of a “posthumanist posthumanism,” to use Cary Wolfe’s term, as his subjectivity is constructed through his relating with his dogs.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

  • Jason Price, Arizona State University

    Jason D. Price is a PhD candidate in Literature at Arizona State University. His dissertation, Desiring Animals: Biopolitics in South African Literature, explores desire as a potential avenue towards changing the ways humans think about and interact with each other, with animals, and with the environment in the context of globalization and late capitalism. His work is also forthcoming in ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature.

Downloads

Published

2014-02-02

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

“Running With Butkus: Animals and Animality in Rocky”. 2014. Humanimalia 5 (2): 87-114. https://doi.org/10.52537/humanimalia.9956.