Battle Black
Cinderella Man Essay
"A person can learn quite a bit about life in America during the depression just from watching the film Cinderella Man"
I agree with this statement because the movie is not only successful in being entertaining but it also puts us in perspective of how life was in the 1930's and more specifically in the Great Depression.
One of America's biggest struggles during the Great depression was unemployment. Many men were desperately trying to find jobs to be able to provide for their family and in the movie it teaches us just how bad the conditions were. In Cinderella Man, they show several times, James Braddock, along with other men, standing outside of a gate hoping to get picked for a job just for that day. One day in particular James does not get picked and has to go back home, while leaving the gate James walks passed a newspaper on the ground, saying how unemployment has gone up to fifteen million Americans, this small detail shows just how bad the unemployment had been.
The competition was so tough that most men did not even work two times a day, so providing for their wife and children became a major problem. During the Great Depression, many families could not afford to take care of their families and were forced to send their children off to stay with relatives who were not suffering. This is depicted in the movie by Mae (James Braddock’s wife), when they cant afford to pay their electricity bill, she accepts the fact that her kids were suffering from the shortage of money physically, and so made the tough decision to send her kids away, to go stay with her relatives. When James comes home and discovers what she has done, he has to do the one thing he can do get his children back. To support and reunite his family, he becomes one of six hundred thousand in New Jersey to apply for government relief. James receives the money and is able to reunite his family once again, and later once his boxing career takes off, he pays back every penny he borrowed.
Cinderella man is also accurate for the different attitude of the people during this time. James, like most people in this era, looked at the situation as just misfortune and bad luck. However, Mike, his stubborn friend, looks at The Great Depression as the government screwing all the Americans over, and wants to rebel. Mike is also shown living in Hooverville, which was an actual place the lowerclassmen lived during the Great Depression.
The
most obvious reason you can learn about the Great Depression through Cinderella Man, is how it shows the
popularity of boxing. During this time period boxing was one of, if not the
most popular sport in America. It was cheap and very entertaining, especially
for the working class. The majority of people, in this time, had conventional radios,
so if even if you could no afford to go to a boxing match, you and your family
could listen to it on the radio.
Cinderella Man is not just an amazing, inspiring movie, but a movie with accurate information of the Great Depression, and showing how tough it was for all Americans of this time.
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