the groundhog day project

Sometimes I have very little interest in writing about film because film reminds me of life and life is, of course, more important. I saw Creed tonight (and I'll offer up a brief review in a moment) and it got me thinking about my pet subject here since the Groundhog Day days--identity, how we choose (or don't choose) to be who we are. Creed hinges on both identity and the much simpler--or far more complicated--Hamletian dilemma, "to be or not to be." Or, on a more literal level within this story, "to fight or not to fight." To fight in the ring or--and, not this is not much of a SPOILER because trailers already gave away the film's second "pinch"--to fight cancer. The film hits the same basic beats as the original Rocky , with a few nice echoes of beats from other films in the franchise--notably Rocky III and Rocky IV ... probably the others as well, but I have seen those two entries more times than the others, so I am more familiar, and ...

(There's a whole lot to be said about Rambo and masculinity and hegemony and everything I talked about yesterday , but I want to cover something else before I get back to that... for two reasons: 1) to not be too repetitive and 2) to give myself a little time to look over a whole lot of new research in between some bits of homework I've got to do tomorrow. For tonight, this may come mostly from me, but beware: in addition to several things found in new research earlier tonight, I've got a stack of sources from 2009 when I did two speeches on Rambo, so the entries for the rest of this week may be dense. Then, a fifth movie this month, but only for 6 days, so that I can watch Groundhog Day on Groundhog Day. Now, on with Rambo .) Right from the start, this movie tells us a couple things. The opening shot: an explosion, not fiery but still an explosion. We're in for something big. Then we get to see our location a little better: a prison. Most of the prisoners: black. ...

Daughton (1996) argues that by the time of Groundhog Day , the world no longer supported the "traditional masculine belief system" that Phil Connors represents. She calls it "the masculinity of the 19th century" and "no longer functional for men today" (p. 141). She cites Rapping (1994) in assessing the 'juvenilized' version of American manhood [as] Hollywood's answer to a real political crisis in the meaning of masculinity... We live in a world that has made old-fashioned heroism hard to believe in... (p. 141, quoting Rapping, p. 118-9) Daughton suggests the Groundhog Day answer as follows: "In fact, the rhetorical point of Groundhog Day has more to do with its protagonist coming to appreciate the stereotypically feminine focus on connection with others, than with reinscribing the stereotypically masculine individuation and domination glorified in films.... (p. 141) (And, I believe I've quoted that passage before, but I will ...