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1976 was a comeback moment
A country down on the mat
The country had just lost a very unpopular war in Vietnam, and Nixon had resigned after Watergate. Many Americans feared the long 1950s was ending: the arsenal of democracy, the economic juggernaut, the industrial jobs, the political stability. Most adults still had living memory of the 1950s and early 1960s, so the slump might be a blip.
Rocky's question
Rocky is set in post-industrial Philadelphia and asks whether a common guy can get off the mat and be a champion once more. That question matched how many Americans were thinking.
A contested bicentennial
The Revolution itself was contested ground. A people's bicentennial ran at odds with the corporate bicentennial, which viewers met in bicentennial minutes on television. The left and the right were both heavily invested in what the Revolution meant, and both thought it held something valuable they could plant a flag in.
How did a small boxing film win Best Picture?
Rocky, written by and starring Sylvester Stallone, premiered in late 1976 and won Best Picture at the Academy Awards in March 1977. It beat Network, All the President's Men, Taxi Driver, and Bound for Glory. Stallone reportedly wrote the first draft in a few days, and the film cost about a million dollars to make. It earned more than 100 million dollars at the United States box office, according to box office records.
How did corporations sponsor the bicentennial?
Bicentennial Minutes were short historical spots that aired on CBS nightly from 1974 to 1976, sponsored by the brokerage Shearson Hayden Stone. Celebrities, politicians, and other public figures each presented an event that had happened on that date in American history. The spots were one of the most visible corporate ties to the celebration. Congress had created the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission in 1966 to plan the celebration.
Why did trust in government fall by 1976?
The Pentagon Papers, leaked in 1971, showed that officials had given the public a rosier picture of the Vietnam War than internal assessments did. Watergate led to Nixon's resignation in 1974. Pew Research Center's compilation of National Election Studies surveys shows that 77 percent of Americans said in 1964 that they trusted the federal government to do what is right most of the time or always. By 1974 the figure was 36 percent.
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