The Rocky Statue

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0:55Only the strongest will survive this shedding. Pantene, abundant and strong. This is 99 % Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. And this, of course, is the theme for one of the most epic training sequences of all time. It's from the 1976 movie Rocky, and it plays as the struggling boxer in Philadelphia, Rocky Balboa, builds his strength for the big fight by doing one-arm push-ups and using a giant slab of raw meat as a punching bag. The training montage ends with him bounding up the 72 steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The camera's panning around him, and he raises his fists up victoriously. This is producer Justin Craman.

1:41Until I re-watched the movie recently, I'd pretty much forgotten everything else about it. Like, this moment is my image of the film. Rocky jumping up and down in front of the museum, arms raised, all of Philly below him. Rocky's run up the steps becomes this iconic moment. And pretty much immediately, people who run up the steps as part of their exercise routine in Philadelphia become associated with Rocky. And it becomes recognized as this fan practice where people are responding to the film and they're running up the steps. Laura Holzman teaches art history and museum studies at Indiana University.

2:23She's written about Rocky's legacy in Philadelphia cultural history. And in Rocky II, the movie acknowledges the prominence of this fan practice because he repeats the run up the steps. And this time, he's joined by a group of kids as he runs up the stairs. Today, at the top of those iconic steps in front of the art museum, stands an eight and a half foot tall statue of Rocky Balboa, a gift to the city of Philadelphia from the film star Sylvester Stallone. It's a bronze sculpture and it depicts Rocky dressed like a boxer in that same victorious stance. Standing on a one and a half foot base, this chiseled gladiator towers over the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, a stretch of Philly that's home to some of the city's most famous museums and cultural sites.

3:13That location really highlights just how important the statue is in the city. Around 4 million people visit the Rocky statue every year, about the same as the Statue of Liberty. When Stallone first gave the statue to Philly, this is exactly where he wanted it to live, at the top of the museum steps, fists high, looking over the city, just like the movie. But it would be decades before this became the Rocky statue's permanent home. Because what started as a simple gesture of gratitude and possibly a bit of self-aggrandizement soon became much more. The statue set off a 50-year battle about class, public space, and what it means for a single piece of art to represent an entire city.

4:00In the way that great boxers aren't born as indomitable fortresses of muscle, the Rocky statue began its life not as an important public sculpture, but a common movie prop. Stallone had the statue built in 1980. Originally, it was for a scene in Rocky III in which a fictional mayor, standing next to the statue at the top of the museum steps, dedicates it to the city of Philadelphia. It is with tremendous honor that we present this memorial, which will stand always as a celebration to the indomitable spirit of man. Philadelphia salutes its favorite son, Rocky Balboa.

4:44But instead of getting the art department to make this prop out of painted plastic and foam, Stallone paid$53 ,000 to an artist named A. Thomas Schaumburg to cast the statue in bronze. It is really significant that he chose to have this be made of fine art materials and not just stuff that would be thrown into the trash bin at the end of the film shoot. Stallone once called Rocky a, quote, euphemism for the city of Philadelphia. Some have speculated that he had always wanted the statue to be a permanent piece of public art there. Stallone went to high school in Philly, and because of his and the statue's connection to the city, he made an offer.

5:29He said that after the Rocky III film shoot, he wanted to donate the 1 ,800-pound statue to Philadelphia to stand permanently at the top of the museum's steps. But almost as soon as Stallone announced his plans, there were haters. Critics who didn't want the statue anywhere near the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Some refused to indulge what they saw as just an ego trip for Stallone. Others said it was simply an ad for his films.

6:00But the strongest opposition came from the leadership at the museum. Their beef with the statue emerged from a much larger concern. At the time, Philly's influential art patrons and tastemakers were trying to figure out how to return Philly to its former glory as a hub of national culture. Philly was hot back in the day. I mean, like, way back in the day. Like, 1776 back, when Philadelphia was at the center of the nation's founding. But by the early 20th century, that shine had seriously faded. Philly looked more like your typical East Coast American city. And by the time of the bicentennial, so 1976, Philadelphia had a reputation as a city that just couldn't get a break.

6:49There was a crumbling urban infrastructure. There was a lot of corruption in local politics. In the nostalgia stirred up by that bicentennial, the 1980s art crowd were dreaming of ways to remake Philly as a grand cultural metropolis. They aspired for the city to again become, as a famous architect once called it, the Athens of the Western world, a city that would boast one of the nation's premier art scenes. This art crowd had invested a lot in the city's preeminent museum. They didn't think this nine-foot-tall boxer with shredded abs was going to push Philly toward that dream. They were inclined to tell Stallone, thanks for the gift, but we will decide where it goes.

7:33By the way, it won't be anywhere near the museum. But that wasn't actually up to the museum. Instead, that decision fell to a couple of city commissions, which voted on the selection and placement of public art around the museum. One of those agencies was an eight-member group simply called the Art Commission. And before they even met to place their votes on where the statue could live, things weren't looking good for Rocky. The president of the commission was a wealthy art patron named F. Eugene Dixon Jr. His friends called him Fitz. He'd invested a lot of money in Philly's art sector. And when he got word of Stallone's gift, he said it would be fine for the statue to stand temporarily on the steps while Stallone promoted Rocky III.

8:21But in a letter to a colleague, he added, If, however, this statue is to be placed somewhere in the courtyard on a permanent basis, I hope you are jesting. That's not Fitz. That's writer Mark Bowden. He's signing the letter with best regards, as always. Sincerely yours, Fitz. I just picture him in his mahogany-lined library out on the farm in Montgomery County. I'm just like, who are they kidding? Mark is the author of numerous acclaimed and best-selling books, including Black Hawk Down and Killing Pablo. At the time, he was a staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer's Sunday magazine, and he covered the Rocky Statue gift.

9:01I was intrigued by the sort of collision between what's popular and what's regarded as serious art. As Mark worked on the story, he discovered the museum crowd bristled even at the use of the term art when discussing the Rocky Statue. Their position? We're not even talking about really a work of art. We're talking about a movie prop. This raised a question for me. As art goes, could one deign to call the Rocky statue an aesthetically good sculpture? Like, was it beautifully crafted? How did it stack up pound for pound against other famous sculptures? I brought my questions to Laura Halsman. Is it a good statue?

9:45That's such a hard question to answer. What makes anything a good statue? She did her best to avoid it. I can say that it means something very important to a lot of people. Went to great lengths to preface her answer. I mean no offense to the people who worked really, really hard to produce it, maintain it, install it. Then ultimately gave in. Yeah, okay. I will say on aesthetic terms, the Rocky statue doesn't quite do it for me. He's kind of awkward looking. Other art historians and critics I spoke to weren't so diplomatic. One called it, quote, a pretty limp piece of sculpture, not a powerful work of art, and a very superficial look at the human body.

10:32Another praised Rocky's armpit hair to the exclusion of every other detail in the statue. So it's not surprising that in the winter of 1980, the Art Commission voted 6-2 to reject the permanent placement of the statue on the museum steps. Stallone could put it there to film his movie, but after Rocky III wrapped, the commission would choose a different place to park his gift to the city. And if you're wondering, the remaining two votes were to bar the statue from the steps entirely. So the statue stood for a few days at the top of the museum steps while they filmed Rocky III. Then it was packed up and shipped all the way to L.A.

11:12where some might say a movie prop belongs. But the fight was far from over because while some wealthy influential art patrons, some might call snobs, did not appreciate the statue, a lot of other Philadelphians did. To them, the idea of a local guy who fought his way to the top through pure grit and determination, no trust fund needed, this was the real Philadelphia, working class Philadelphia. So at the same time Stallone's team was pressing the city to put the statue back in Philly. A similar push came from a local truck driver named Art Gorman. He was one of the statue's biggest champions. Here's Mark Bowden again.

11:52Art, you know, was just a huge enthusiast of the movie Rocky, and hence Sylvester Stallone. He is a sort of a salt-of-the-earth Philly guy from a blue-collar neighborhood who feels like, who are these snooty guardians of good taste? to be telling us what we should be able to see on the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. We want it there. In late 1980, Gorman drafted a petition in support of bringing the statue from L.A. back to Philly permanently. I do think we should note it was written entirely in capital letters. Mark read me some of the petition. Rocky statues should be back in Philly, remember?

12:34Rocky won when you and the kids went to the movie. What did they and yourself feel? seeing Philly on the screen instead of New York or San Francisco. Pretty good. Ha! Why don't you voice your opinion if you feel that the statue should be back in Philly? Gorman hit the streets collecting thousands of signatures from regular Philadelphians. This impassioned 33-year-old door knocking around Philly, fighting to bring back the Rocky statue, drummed up a bunch of media coverage. Petitions are being collected around Philadelphia asking for the return of Rocky. It seems like the story gets told in a way that pits blue-collar Philadelphia against elitist high-culture Philadelphia.

13:20This narrative of, you know, slobs versus snobs. Still, it was the snobs who got to vote on the matter. And the petition didn't change their basic stance. Rocky III was about to come out in theaters, So the Art Commission said, fine, the statue could come back to the museum steps, but only for the premiere. As soon as that was over, Stallone's gift would have to be taken off the stairs. Rocky III opened in May 1982. Philly's celebration featuring the Rocky statue came and went. But the production company kind of just left it there. And the city won't pay to have it removed. So the museum has to take care of it.

14:03It was several months before movers finally came to haul the statue away. But when they got to the museum, they had one more obstacle to deal with. The statue was bolted to the pavement with steel rods that went several feet into the ground. It was as if the movie producers meant for it to stay there forever. But the statue was finally pried loose and hauled five miles away to its new home in South Philly, at the Spectrum Sports Arena, where other statues of athletes stood. And to most, it seemed like the fight was over. But, you know, it's Rocky. The fight over the statue kept going, partly because the movie franchise just kept going.

14:48Yep, big reveal, the Rocky series did not end up being a trilogy. There was another. Rocky 4 is one of the big hits of the holiday season. And another. The Rocky production crew spent two months in Philadelphia As he cranked out sequels, Stallone asked the art commission repeatedly to move the statue from the spectrum to the museum for good. And each time, the commission said no. And that's how it went for 25 years. Rocky punched, the museum counterpunched. Then, in 2006, Rocky got his best opportunity yet. Don Street, Philly's mayor at the time, had launched several projects to revitalize public spaces all over the city.

15:33So the topic of what public art would be displayed in those spaces had some traction. Meanwhile, Stallone was preparing to release Rocky Balboa, the first Rocky movie in 16 years. Philly usually hosted big Rocky premiere parties, which helped promote the movies and the city. At that point, the Rocky statue was in storage while the city built a new sports complex. This seemed like the perfect moment for it to reemerge as a piece of public art and to use it to celebrate the new film. That's when a lawyer named Jimmy Benz decided to make a very important phone call. Jimmy was a friend of Sylvester Stallone.

16:10He appeared in one of the Rocky sequels and had a reputation as a Philly power broker. I got Jimmy on the phone, and he told me how he asked Stallone if he wanted some help getting the statue to the museum. Stallone said, yeah. So Jimmy called up the mayor and told him that he, Jimmy, would like the statue back at the museum. Here's what he said. He said, you know, those people go crazy. Those people meaning the trustees of the museum. And I said to him, well, let me ask you a question. I said, do those people invite you over to their house on Sunday afternoon for cocktails? And he laughed and he said, no.

16:49And I said, well, f*** them. And he said, OK, f*** them. With the mayor's support, the idea of placing the statue at the museum finally started gaining real momentum. Even the Philadelphia Museum of Art began to bend. The mayor's office was able to persuade the museum to consider Stallone's vision. The museum and the mayor's office began to hash out a potential compromise. The statue would move out of storage and back to the museum permanently. However, not at the top of the steps, but at the bottom and a little to the side. At long last, after nearly a quarter century of petitioning, it seemed like Stallone was about to make his dream come true.

17:33The only hurdle left was the art commission, because they were the ones who still had the final vote on where the statue would go. When this fight started, they were the statue haters. But this time, it seemed like they might play ball. So in May of 2006, the Philadelphia Art Commission announces that the statue might be relocated to the museum. And a whole additional wave of public debate comes out of that. That debate involved not just commission members, but all sorts of gatekeepers who were weighing in on the statue's artistic merit and where to put it. One city official named Harris Baum went on a local NPR call-in show to express his desire to keep the statue far away from the museum.

18:21He said it clashed with the commission's grand vision for the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, where the museum sits. We're trying to develop the parkway to become a Champs -Élysées, similar to what they have in Paris. And we want to develop more art around the art museum as such. But that is not a piece of art. But the response Baum got wasn't the same as it might have been back in the 1980s. Now, listeners didn't want to get pulled into a debate about art. Baum was fighting an old fight. For the listeners who called in, it was about how Rocky represented them. Hi, Judy. Go ahead. Your Radio Times.

19:01You can put me at the top of the steps, Cam. That statue is an icon. It's an image of the blue-collar spirit of our town. It illustrates what we are all about in Philadelphia. Let me get Jack from Lansdale to join us. Hi, Jack. Go ahead. You're on the air. I just wanted to say, ideally, I'd like to see the top of the steps, but a bunch of pompous, powdered wigs aren't going to let that happen. Well, just one quick question. I mean, are you calling Harris bomb pompous? Yeah, absolutely. The snobbery that he was exuding earlier, it's just, it's absolutely, it's insulting. Pardon me, sir, but maybe Philadelphia likes it where it is.

19:34Why do you get to decide what Philadelphia looks like?

19:40You can hear it. Philadelphians had developed a loyalty to the statue. It's like they were defending a guy from their own neighborhood. On September 6, 2006, the Art Commission voted, again, on whether or not the Rocky statue could finally live beside the museum's steps. And the minutes from that meeting reflect a clear shift in their thinking. Quote,

20:08By a vote of 6-2, the Art Commission finally approved plans to install the Rocky statue at the museum. The snobs had given in. Less than a week later, the city unveiled the statue in its new home, at the base of the museum steps, and a little to the side. So this is a clip from KYW-TV in Philly. And you hear the audience roar when the music swells and the curtain drops and an eight-and-a-half-foot bronze Rocky is unveiled. Stallone walks up to the statue and kind of marvels at it in this boyish way. Like, how did this finally happen? He lifts his hand and pats the statue admiringly on its rock-hard abs.

20:51I have to say, I found the whole thing oddly touching. I can't believe you've allowed me to come into your lives in such a way and have this incredible... This is actually mind-bending to me that this could happen. I asked Laura Halsman if she thinks this was the museum and the art commission finally embracing the Rocky statue after 26 years of resistance. I think it's an acceptance. By 2006, it doesn't just work as an advertisement for the Rocky movies. It works as an advertisement for Philadelphia and Philadelphia's grit and resilience and Philadelphia's fame, not just from fine art, but also from pop culture.

21:37This acceptance marked a new era in the statue's life. What you start to see is an understanding that this is becoming a fixture in the city's landscape. It's emerging as a monument, and it's being treated as that. Paul Farber directs Monument Lab, a nonprofit that studies and advises on monuments around the country. When it comes back to the art museum, to the base of the steps in 2006, I think it is seen more and more as an accepted monument in the city. The bureaucracy of the city is treating it as something that's going to stay. Once Rocky was installed, the city leaned fully into its status as a Philadelphia monument.

22:24Lights were added to illuminate the statue for night visitors. It was hoisted up onto a brand new foot and a half tall granite pedestal. This kind of publicly ratified monument is different from a statue that starts out as a monument. The art historian Alois Regal once talked about the distinction between what he called deliberate monuments and unintentional ones. The deliberate monuments are the dudes on horses, sculptures made explicitly to commemorate a person or an event. An unintentional monument is an object that becomes important to us, not for the reasons it was originally made. It becomes meaningful because of how we, the viewers, come to see it.

23:06Like an ordinary house that later becomes a landmark or a museum. The Rocky statue had undergone this transformation. It had transcended the squabbles about art that initially surrounded it and arrived as a full-on monument.

23:24Up on its pedestal, looking over Philadelphia, it seemed like Rocky had at last found its permanent home. But then, about a decade into the statue's residence there, a tragedy more than 500 miles south of Philly would spark a reckoning about race and monuments around the country. And once again, Rocky was in the middle of a whole new controversy. More of that after the break.

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25:16You can listen to Jeff Lewis live at home or anywhere you are. Download the SiriusXM app for over 425 channels of ad-free music, sports, entertainment, and more. Subscribe now and get three months free. Offer details apply.

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26:25Squarespace, because no matter what you're into, a website makes it real. Use offer code DIFFERENCE for 50 % off select plans. Terms and conditions apply. By 2015, the Rocky statue had been standing beside the Philadelphia Museum of Art for nearly 10 years. It drew locals and tourists who posed and took pictures next to the bronze champ. It seemed like the statue could finally settle into its status as a true Philadelphia monument. But then, Rocky got swept up into a different fight. It started in June 2015, when white supremacist Dylan Roof entered a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and opened fire.