The scary thing is that today children use guns to solve disputes as quickly as Rocky used his fists. The other common denominator besides economic status is education.
Rocky in the film was portrayed as a troubled Italian kid who wound up in reform school to reform school and eventually jail. He was also portrayed as not a very bright guy. The instance in the movie while in the ice cream parlor the vendor was talking using words Rocky said he could not understand. This was a grown adult saying he couldn't understand some very simple vocabulary. His lack of education parallels that of many children today who end up either in jail or worse because of their own void in education. The inner city communities have astoundingly terrible educational facilities. They have used everything from books to furniture. Many parents don't care if at all there kids attend school. This leads to them out on the streets at a very early age, as was Rocky, causing trouble. Some of them resort to crime as a means to help feed themselves. Others do it for the respect they could not survive in their neighborhoods with out. I believe that is where Rocky found himself in a tough Italian American community where all he had was to eat and have friends that respected him. While Rocky grows older, his intellectual .
capacity does not really follow. This is apparent when he keeps on making the same mistake of resorting to violence, even after he knows he is going to be punished for it. Even when he is about to fight for the championship and considers Frank Pepo's criminal element, he is reverbing back to his education, or lack of it. Education is the last thing on the minds of some kids today. Granted they have to be worried about surviving, but they don't understand, as Rocky didn't, that education can help you survive more than crime and violence can. For many kids today there is only one way out of their problems, playing sports, as did Rocky by taking up boxing.
