Billy Hope Dystopia

It is true that everyone likes a good fight, and they love a great fighter. People for many years have flocked to the theatre to see boxing movies. The most famous onscreen Boxer, Rocky, held the world’s attention for seven episodes. The critical reason is everyone has a battle in life and boxing stories show the battle metaphorically played out on the big screen. These story lines offer hope and encouragement because just as the boxer faces challenges and battles throughout and gets to the ultimate victory, people feel a sense of “I can do this too” after seeing the onscreen story play out. One might look at boxing movies as somewhat of a utopia because often times winning means having it all- titles, money, fame, but the underlying struggle within the fight shows the dystopia related to the difficulty of the battle itself. One boxing movie in particular, Southpaw, demonstrates how boxer Billy Hope seemingly lives in utopia as a champion in his career , along with having a loving

Billy Hope lived in a seemingly utopia world of having it all, but the underlying dystopia of losing it all to gain the world rang true in every aspect of his story. Even when life is at its best to the outsider looking in, the person creating the wonderful life can be contributing to reason it falls apart. This story shows that living life out of balance and focusing on one aspect (career) too keenly, can result in others areas (family) taking a huge hit. Too often, the utopia people try to create becomes the reason for much of the pain and discontentment and we end up developing our own dystopia. It happened to Billy Hope and he was fortunate enough to revive himself and bring life full circle- back to the euphoria of what matters most. Movies almost always bring us back to a better place and that is why everyone loves a good boxing