Character Analysis
Post-Modern Prometheus
Some boys are made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails. Not Rocky. He's made of movie monsters, muscles, and shiny gold Speedos.
Rocky's a mash-up of classic Hollywood movie monsters. He isn't just Frankenstein's monster. He is also the mummy, first appearing wrapped in bandages. And his fatalist attitude is reminiscent of Lon Chaney's doomed Hunchback of Notre Dame or Phantom of the Opera.
Emphasis on the doomed—Rocky knows he's doomed from the start, singing as soon as he's brought to life.
ROCKY: The sword of Damocles is hanging over my head, and I've got the feeling someone's gonna be cutting the thread. Oh, woe is me, my life is a misery. Oh, can't you see, that I'm at the start of a pretty big downer.
In this sequence he's super eloquent, which is shocking because for the rest of the movie he hardly speaks a word.
Aside from his debut song, Rocky is created to be Frank's silent sex object. He's all muscle, no brain, standing mutely and flexing his washboard abs most of the time. Okay, he has half a brain. Literally. Frank reveals he split a brain between Eddie and Rocky, but it seems that Rocky got the dumber half.
Rocky's simple. He responds to Frank's sexual advances. He responds to Janet's sexual advances. He would respond to a brick's sexual advances if a brick were capable of flirting. Frank sees Rocky as insensitive for sleeping with Janet. But he isn't insensitive…he was just made that way by Frank himself.
In fact, he's capable of emotion, and he wails with grief when Frank, his creator and lover, is killed. Now we need to add one more mash-up monster: King Kong. Rocky climbs to the top of the tower carrying Frank's body, but he falls to the bottom like the doomed ape. Monkey business has never been this tragic.