Afterwards, I wanted to compare Hollywood's treatment of female versus male boxing protagonists, AKA Million Dollar Baby.
It's not a perfect match up. MDB is pumped full of excellent cinematic storytelling and Acadamey Award Cred whereas Southpaw is a generic piece of trash. Also, Clint Eastwood is actually the protagonist of MDB. However, because of Boxing Movie Tropes there is a lot to compare.
The Differences
The Training Montage Music communicates the biggest difference in how the filmmakers saw Billy Hope and Maggie Fitzgerald.
Billy Hope trains to retrieve his daughter from social services and to avenge his wife's murder. And all those emotions get channeled into epic feats of personal strength, mirrored by epic angry word play in rap. (the credit song is Eminem's epic Kings Never Die, sampled in the training montage)
Maggie's is easily one of the strangest training montages I have ever seen, and I can't decide if she got the acoustic treatment because she's a woman, because this is one of a few boxing movies that is actually about more than boxing so we don't need Maggie to be just a ripped, angry bad ass, or if Eastwood was trying to purposefully subvert the training montage.
But the montages point out another key difference in these movies - Billy is fighting for family and Maggie is fighting for herself. A movie about a single, childless lady who is focused on something other than getting a husband/children! Feminist victory.
There aren't a lot of ladies in either film, but the few who exist are treated with respect. Billy's wife is his true love, his intelligent, resilient sounding board - wearing really hot cocktail dresses and bathing suits, but a believable character over all. His daughter, brainy and pissed off, is his biggest achievement. There's also a nurse, and an uncompromising social worker.
Maggie has a nasty and ungrateful mother and sister, and the Blue Bear - a formidable female opponent - but other than these ladies, the boxing world is a slew of suited white men, chain-wearing black men, and of course many other male boxers (most black).
I can't remember the ratios, but they are EASILY 1:3 women to men speaking roles. In fact the ratio is probably closer to 1:5 or 1:6.
The Similarities
Plot Points that are identical:Billy & Maggie come from backgrounds of no means, an orphanage and a trailer park respectively
Billy & Maggie work out at crappy, underdog gyms
Billy & Maggie beg reluctant old man coaches to train them
Billy & Maggie are DOWN ON THEIR LUCK
Billy & Maggie rise to the top of the boxing world
Billy & Maggie have no other potential job but boxing
Billy & Maggie face unbeatable opponents
and my personal favorite....
The moment where all the gym is dark but some moonlight catching on the side of a bag.
Bent over his mop, the late night janitor hears the unmistakable sound of punches and grunts. But...who could be up this late? Who in their right mind would train in the dark after every other boxer has unwrapped their gloves and called it quits? The janitor turns the corner and sees...
Billy & Maggie. That's who.
(Stepping outside of the Feminist Box for a second....I was surprised by the similarities between Morgan Freeman and Forest Whitaker's characters. In Southpaw Forest Whitaker teaches the Billy the secret to good boxing, and shows off his bum eye from boxing. In MDB Morgan Freeman teaches Maggie the secret to good boxing, and shows off his BUM EYE FROM BOXING. )
The ultimate rip off or the ultimate tribute?
My favorite part of Million Dollar Baby was the treatment of strength in the female body.
In the beginning, a few characters, some other boxers and Clint Eastwood, question if being a woman and a boxer go together. Twenty minutes in, the questions are dropped because with Maggie's knockout success, they clearly do.
As Maggie works her way through opponent after opponent, there is really no further mention made to the fact that this is woman's boxing. We're not less worried for her safety because she's fighting ladies. We're not less impressed by her strength and commitment because she's a lady. We're not led to feel like this world is inferior to the male boxing world, that the stakes are lower, although her matches are obviously smaller and less well-attended and always ruled by male coaches, trainers, managers, and refs.
I cannot think of another commercial movie in which women are punching women for non-sexualized glory. Usually, the stars of these movies are wrapped in leather, guns tucked into garters, knives pulled from cleavage, heels used like daggers, frat boys chanting on their encouragement.
Additionally, MDB has no bullshit moment where Maggie gets dressed up for a gala and between the dress, and the undo and the earrings and the make-up Clint Eastwood finally has a window into what an incredible lady she really is. Maggie proves her worth as a human and a fighter in the ring: muscles flexing, dressed to move, gloves on, hair pulled taught from her face, ready to attack.
But both films left me wondering. What drives audiences to boxing movies? Why do I like them?
I can't even watch the fights in the films because the brutal sounds and blood overwhelm me, force me to look away. But even as I wince and writhe in my seat, I really really want my hero to win.
I think we like them because they are the other side of the Superhero coin. How far would Bruce Wayne have gotten without a billion dollars? Clark Kent without an extraterrestrial boost? Tony Stark without a genius-level IQ and a billion dollars? Billy and Maggie rise out of nothing, an orphanage, a trailer park. And with nothing but guts and their fists, they step into the ring to fight for their right to exist.
Southpaw just isn't adding anything new to the well-established tropes of boxing movies. His character is predictable, underwritten and hyper-masculine even as he sobs as he tries (and fails) to shoot himself after his wife dies. Southpaw would have undoubtably been a better movie if the writers/directors had treated Billy less like a piece of 8-abs meat and more like a real person, more like a human with complicated human who is trying to better his station through violent yet accepted means more like...Maggie in Million Dollar Baby.
Writers of a male protagonist who have to take a lesson in humanization from writers of a female protagonist? MDB wins with a solid first round knockout.
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