Rocky II
Last night we watched Rocky II. Last Friday night we watched Rocky.
Every Friday night there's a movie shown in Nkyoyo Hall and students fill up the rows of 600 wooden chairs and spill out onto plastic chairs in the grass out under the stars--all faces toward the bug white wood screen. A few of us missionaries are responsible for picking the movies and we try to rotate between action/adventure/thriller kind of stuff and comedy/romance/drama kind of stuff from week-to-week. No matter the actors or the conflict or the conflict resolution, the student audience wants good and bad--someone to cheer for and someone to hate. The first movie last year was Ben Hur--I sat toward the front and watched and listened and during the chariot race, was overwhelmed. I didn't know what to do. I just laughed and laughed. Nothing was funny but I had to respond emotionally and I didn't want to cry. You watch a movie with an emotionally involved audience like that, and it's like nothing you've ever experienced. Every Friday night brought another surprise whether Fiddler on the Roof or Spartacus or The Apostle.
But last night was unreal. I brought Rocky, Rocky II and Rocky IV over knowing they'd be big hits with the students because they were such big hits with Grace when I watched them with her in DC last spring. Things got pretty intense and loud at the end of the first one when Rocky and Apollo Creed exchange blow after blow for 15 rounds, and there was a noticeable climax right toward the end of the 15th round, but the bell was rung and the fight was over. The focus immediately shifts from fight to Love with Rocky calling for Adrian and Adrian calling for Rocky and it's easy to miss that Apollo Creed wins the decision. When I watched the movie with Grace, she had a triumphant grin and I asked her who won the fight and she said "Rocky!" I hit rewind and talked about moral victories and going the distance and all that, but all she said was "I want to see the next one."
I didn't bother trying to correct 700 potential misconceptions after Rocky last week. But last night, as Samuel Kato struggled to figure out a way to get the audio from the little projector speakers and out through the sound system without using the cables which were somehow distorting the picture, I quieted everyone down and asked them who won the fight last week. They didn't understand the question. I asked again and they all said "Rocky!" with "of course" implied. I smiled and pointed to the screen where there was a messed-up still shot of Apollo's trainer's jacket. "No, it was that one." A few cheers rang out but were answered by a mass of "boo"s. Kato brought out two microphones and placed one directly on top of each of the little speakers and turned up the volume. We went back to the beginning and the music played...
I sank in my chair smiling the Ugandan movie smile I can only smile while watching movies in Uganda with Ugandan university students. As the story overlapped just enough with the end of the first one, students became aware that I'd told them the truth. Rocky had lost. If any of them thought, "Of course, Stallone knew he'd get more mileage out of the sequel if he lost in the first one" or any other such cynical things, it wasn't apparent. Throughout the movie you could feel hope rising from the audience. Hope that Rocky and Adrian would always love each other, hope that Rocky would find a good job, hope that Adrian wouldn't have to work, hope that Adrian's baby would be healthy, hope that Adrian wouldn't die after giving birth, hope that Pauly would somehow prove to be a good brother, then, when they realized Rocky would fight Apollo again, hope that he would win.
I watched Rocky II with Ma in the living room in Brunswick late one of the last nights before I flew out to Uganda. She thought it was going to be a big brutality movie--Rambo with white trunks. I told her it was a great story and she stayed awake through the whole thing and even winced a couple of times with open eyes during the fight at the end. My dad was in the back of the house in bed asleep.
Last night, no one within a half-mile radius could have slept undisturbed. A wave began to grow even as Adrian was in a coma. Rocky was in the chapel with Mickey, praying, then he was beside Adrian's bed and her hand moved and here eyes opened and everyone knew, not only that Adrian would live, but that God had answered Rocky's prayers. The wave grew as Rocky did sit-ups and push-ups and ran through South Philly with a growing throng of children behind and then he went into an intense sprint and flew up the colonial stairs and it was already almost as fevered and ecstatic as the Ben Hur chariots. On the way to the fight Rocky stops by for a blessing from the Priest, in the locker room he kneels at the sink, in the ring he kneels at his corner--with each prayer the students roar. Then they fight. Punches taken, punches thrown, flashes of Apollo Creed's attractive black wife and the villianous students applaud, flashes of Adrian at home with Pauly drinking High Life and the good-guy lovers erupt with hope, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger and stronger and stronger. I'm sitting in the front row and I'm laughing almost the whole time and no one could hear me laugh cause it's way too loud and no one can see me laugh cause they're all over the screen. People toward the middle are fighting the urge to stand, some losing and standing and those behind them shoving them back into their seats with rabid though smiling eyes and mouths, and it's the 15th round and they all know what that means and the corners are visited and no one's stopping this fight and the bell rings and Rocky takes a few early and then pounds and pounds and pounds and staggers Apollo and then Apollow gets in one good one and then Rocky gives one back and they trade a few and then Rocky goes hard again with a couple body blows and then a big cross and Apollo goes down and I'm still laughing hard and loud cause it's all I can do with the wave that's coming strong behind me and I don't know what I think is about to happen but there's something in the air that makes it feel like something big and strange and crazy is gonna have to happen if the wave keeps growing cause everything's gotta stop growing at some point and then ... Rocky goes down, from the momentum of his own swing. So they're both down and the ten-count is going but there's no way anyone in Uganda can hear it under the wave that dropped just a bit but is now back and bigger trying to get Rocky off the mat, then Apollo flops and Rocky stands and staggers and stands and it's over and the wave crashes and I'm glad I chose laughing instead of crying cause I'd've drowned otherwise.
Beautiful. All night the smile stayed with me. This morning I woke and thought about it and wondered why it was such a big thing. Not just why it so big for the Ugandan students, but why they're big reaction so big for me.
Last week in an Understanding Worldview lecture, Dan Button said to 400 African students, "The trouble with you Africans is you have no future." The students gasped and then grumbled loud and it took a while before they got quiet enough for Dan to explain that he was joking--that he was only pointing out the fact that in most African languages there are several different tenses for the past and often no tenses for the future. His point was that Africans are traditionally more Past-oriented than Future-oriented.
I'm tempted to observe the passion elicited from Ugandan university students by American movies, and say it's the result of innocence. Innocence seems an appropriate opposite of cynicism. Cynicism/sckepticism/realism keeps us from getting "sucked in" to movies and their manipulative stories and messages. But I don't think it's innocence/ignorance/idealism that allows Ugandan students to get sucked in. I think it's hope--not hope for the distant or theoretical future--hope for the future that everyone knows comes right after the present. Though most of us fallen humans--African, American, European, whatever--know sadness or disappointment are likely to come in those quickly coming futures, maybe it's more than distraction or escapism to practice hoping for futures of big joy. I hope so.