Essay Proposal: Cinderella Man

In my essay I will be applying Marxist Criticism and my primary text will be Cinderella Man. James J. Braddock (Russell Crowe) is a boxer who has to deal with the struggles of the Great Depression. To many peoples surprise, James Braddock becomes a major icon in the history of sports. The movie starts out as James being one of the best fighters the U.S. but after many fights he becomes swashed up and unable to fight. He was not able to pay his bills after he gave up fighting and was forced to go on Public Relief. Until one of his children get sick which drives him back into the ring. He over came all the hardships to winning fights again. The called him the Cinderella Man because his was a hard working, ordinary lower class man, who was on brink of starvation, who become a mythical icon in sport history.

Marxist Criticism is all about the common ownership of production to bring about a classless society. In my essay I want to examine how Cinderella Man promotes the American Dream and how the American Dream reinforce the idealisms that drive capitalism. Cinderella Man proves that a common man can be whatever he wants to be and can break that class boundary if he works hard enough. James Braddock had to deal with the struggle between social classes. In the being of the movie he was part of the middle class and for the majority of the movie he was lower class but eventually he went back to the middle class. The Great Depression was a huge challenge for the middle classes to over come. By Braddock overcoming the social boundaries of his class it results in social progress.