Yes, this.
I grew up in Philly.
I’m a retired Steadicam Operator, trained by Garrett Brown. He’s the lovely fellow who invented the Steadicam and used it on the infamous Art Museum Steps sequence, not to mention all of the other Steadicam shots in Rocky and Rocky II.
As a child ( pre-Rocky ), we used to both visit the Art Museum a LOT with our parents as well as swimming in the fountain at the foot of those infamous steps, just across the turnaround in the Parkway.
Yeah. Rocky 100 %.
Though Rambo became a caricature of America world wide, he definitely had cultural impact than Rocky outside the US
Now we’ll have to do BATMAN or SUPERMAN.
Definitely Superman.
Maybe, but I don’t think it’s so lopsided. Superman has had 1 good movie in the last 45 years while Batman has done significantly better. Animation as well, not sure about comics.
I think the Superman archetype is more popular than Superman himself today (Homelander and Omni-man). Which is a tally in his column I suppose.
Which begs the question, how much does the endurance of gritty vigilante Batman over the last 40 odd years owe to Rambo?
None? They’re not even the same genre.
They are part of the same culture, no? You don’t see the similarities?
Good thing it isn’t the Georgetown steps sequence from The Exorcist.
I’d name Tyson first, Foreman second… If you primed me with “fictional boxers are okay,” I would still start with Tyson, then probably King Hippo.
I think the WORD Rambo and its trope has more cultural impact than the CHARACTER Rambo. More than Rocky, too. But I think as characters, Rocky >Rambo. Rocky was an underdog success story, which is kind of universal and therefore still relevant. So people remember the character and the story. Rambo was much more a creature of its own zeitgeist, i.e., the fallout of the Vietnam war. So Rambo has transformed into a sort of anonymous caricature. He’s become the Spirit of Halloween version of Rambo: “Bandana Jungle Fighter.”
Again I’d call that almost the definition of being culturally impactful. And Rambo did that but Rocky did not.
Pedant mode ON
As long as this thread is off on tangents, it does NOT beg the question. It may raise the question, but that’s not the same thing.
Pedant mode OFF
One data point: My school is currently in the midst of elections for next year’s Student Council, which means that the hallways are currently plastered with badly-photoshopped posters of the candidates. One of the posters declares that the candidate has the “eye of a tiger”, and a picture of her face pasted onto a boxer’s body. None of the posters has anything whatsoever to do with Rambo.
The Rocky theme itself is also incredibly recognizable. Depends on how tightly you want to parse what’s related to a character I guess.