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Like millions of other Americans, I enjoy many of Sylvester Stallone’s movies. But in recent years, I’ve come to think that Sly might have also been teaching me something.
First, here are four new stories from The Atlantic.
Streaming has reached its sad, predictable fate. Can Poland roll back authoritarian populism? Elon Musk’s latest target hits back. Why go with an evil-looking orb?Self-Deprecating and Graceful
My best friend growing up was the Italian Stallion. No, not that one—not Sylvester Stallone’s fictional boxer from Philadelphia, but an actual Italian. My pal Silvio emigrated from Italy and lived around the corner from me. When Rocky delivered a haymaker to the theaters in 1976, there was no way we weren’t going to see it, and throughout high school, if I heard someone in the hallway yell, “Yo, Stallion,” I knew my buddy was around somewhere.
But while watching Stallone in his 2022 Paramount+ series, Tulsa King, I realized that for some years, I’ve been thinking of the original Italian Stallion as my pal too—especially as we both get older.
I have to confess that in my youth, I wasn’t a huge Stallone fan. I saw Rocky in the theater when I was a freshman in high school, and then Rocky II (which was just … okay) the summer I graduated. Rocky III, in my view, is a lightweight cartoon. The final 1990 cash-in, Rocky V, is practically unwatchable.
Ah, but before that series-ending clunker, we had 1985’s Rocky IV, a gloriously cheesy Cold War parable. It’s not a great film, but it was the highest-grossing title in the series. (As a recent look back in Polygon put it, “It’s no one’s favorite Rocky movie, but no one in the history of the world has ever started watching it and turned it off.”) I saw it alone in a small theater in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland, and, as a budding Soviet expert, I loved seeing the Stallion whomp the bejeebers out of that Soviet creep Ivan Drago, the steroid-filled Commie golem who killed Rocky’s enemy turned friend and mentor, Apollo Creed, in the ring.
But despite Rocky IV, I was more a fan of Stallone’s then-nemesis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, not least because I just couldn’t get into Stallone’s Rambo fantasies. In 1993, however, Stallone starred in Demolition Man, playing a cop named John Spartan who screws up and is put in cryogenic storage for his crimes. He is then thawed out in 2032 and thrust into an insufferably politically correct and insipid Southern California to fight Simon Phoenix, a criminal from his own time.
In Demolition Man, Stallone lampooned every stereotype about 20th-century tough guys—including himself. I was in my early 30s, and every time Stallone (who was at that point in his late 40s but looked 10 years younger) sighed and rolled his eyes and explained to his clueless sidekick how to swear (she didn’t get that it’s kick his ass, not lick his ass), or when he was flummoxed by the “Three Seashells” that 2032 Californians use instead of wasteful toilet paper, I felt like I was seeing myself in the near future.
Stallone later made some forgettable films, but I always thought the critics were too hard on him. (Fine, look, I liked Judge Dredd, okay?) And I felt like he was willing to contend with age, just like the rest of us, especially in 1997, when he gained almost 40 pounds at 50 years old to play a sad-sack New Jersey sheriff in the underappreciated crime drama Cop Land.
But I didn’t really admire Stallone until he returned in 2006 to his greatest character, in Rocky Balboa, a coda to his earlier Rocky movies. This time, Rocky is old, nearly broke, nostalgic, and even somewhat pathetic. He owns a joint in Philly, where he goes from table to table mugging for pictures; the rest of the time, he’s utterly absorbed by grief over the loss of his beloved wife, Adrian, who died years earlier. His sadness is so suffocating that even Adrian’s brother Paulie finally walks away. “Sorry, Rocko,” he finally says to his brother-in-law. “I can’t do this no more.”
I was in my 40s when Rocky Balboa came out; Stallone was 60, and for once, the usually buff actor looked it. His nostalgia became mine. Rocky Balboa is an almost elegiac movie that ends (as all Rocky movies must) with personal redemption. During the end credits, real people reenact Rocky’s original iconic training run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and maybe it was just dusty in the theater, but I had something in my eyes that required dabbing at some tears.
I respected Stallone for giving Rocky a graceful exit. (When the character returned in Creed, it seemed natural and unforced.) The mournfulness of Rocky Balboa stayed with me for years, however, especially as I lost people I cared about and middle age became later middle age. Stallone returned to fighting form in the Expendables series, but by then, we were all in on the joke that he and Arnold and Bruce Willis were too hilariously old for this stuff.
And then I watched Tulsa King, in which Stallone plays Dwight Manfredi, a Mafia capo exiled from New York to Oklahoma after a 25-year stretch in prison (where he valiantly kept his mouth shut to protect his bosses). Tulsa King has been renewed for a second season, so I don’t want to say too much and ruin some of the twists, but Stallone, at the time 75, plays a 75-year-old gangster with grace, laugh-out-loud humor, and credible physical menace.
Manfredi survives prison in good shape, and when he has to make a new life—of crime, naturally—in Tulsa, he goes to work. But he’s no Superman or Terminator; he’s old, and he knows it. Soon, he assembles a ragtag crew, and that’s all I can say without spoiling the fun.
Okay, I’ll spoil one moment. Manfredi picks up a handsome 40-something woman in a bar and takes her to his hotel room. We are spared any graphic scenes, but afterwards, he apologizes for being a bit out of practice in the sack. The woman finally gets around to asking his age, and when he tells her, she freaks out, gathers her clothes, and flees. (She’d guessed him to be a “hard 55,” not 75. I wish someone would mistake me for a “hard 55.”) Manfredi takes the news with equanimity in a great scene that is both funny and wince-inducing.
Tulsa King has plenty of violence, but it’s only incidentally a crime story. It’s about a lot of other things, including aging, time, family, fatherhood, loyalty, and what it means to be a man. As in Rocky Balboa, Stallone treats his character—and the problem of aging—with self-deprecation and respect.
I was 18 when Rocky finally beat Creed, 24 when he floored Drago, 33 when Spartan demolished Phoenix, and 46 when Rocky finally retired once and for all. But watching Tulsa King at 62, I wished—for the first time—that I could be Stallone. Thanks, Sly. I miss Silvio, but I’m glad to be hanging out with the original Stallion as we both take a shot at aging gracefully.
Related:
Rock never dies—but it does get older and wiser. Sylvester Stallone’s glorious renaissanceToday’s News
According to a report unsealed today, a special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, that helped investigate election interference allegations in the state recommended charges against more than three dozen people; Lindsey Graham, David Perdue, Kelly Loeffler, and Michael Flynn were among those not ultimately charged. Hurricane Lee, now a Category 4 storm, is expected to cause dangerous surf conditions in parts of the Caribbean and most of the U.S. East Coast, although it does not currently threaten any land. A major United Nations report assessing the world’s climate efforts warned that there is a “rapidly closing window” for securing a liveable future on Earth.Dispatches
The Books Briefing: 60 years after her death, Sylvia Plath’s life continues to fascinate, Gal Beckerman writes.Explore all of our newsletters here.
Evening Read
Illustration by Matt WilliamsThe Man Who Became Uncle Tom
By Clint Smith
“Among all the singular and interesting records to which the institution of American slavery has given rise,” Harriet Beecher Stowe once wrote, “we know of none more striking, more characteristic and instructive, than that of JOSIAH HENSON.”
Stowe first wrote about Henson’s 1849 autobiography in her 1853 book A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, an annotated bibliography of sorts in which she cited a number of nonfiction accounts she had used as source material for her best-selling novel. Stowe later said that Henson’s narrative had served as an inspiration for Uncle Tom.
Proslavery newspaper columnists and southern planters had responded to the huge success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by accusing Stowe of hyperbole and outright falsehood. Benevolent masters, they said, took great care of the enslaved people who worked for them; in some cases, they treated them like family. The violent, inhumane conditions Stowe described, they contended, were fictitious. By naming her sources, and outlining how they had influenced her story, Stowe hoped to prove that her novel was rooted in fact.
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Kevin Mazur / GettyRead. Red Comet, a 2020 biography of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark, provides a nearly day-by-day account of Plath’s activities—and somehow, it’s riveting.
Listen. Olivia Rodrigo’s sophomore album, Guts (out today), is less an evolution of Rodrigo’s sound than a persuasive fortification.
P.S.
Some news: I’ll be onstage at the end of September. The fight’s gonna be in Moscow, and …
No, wait, that’s still Rocky IV.
I’ll be at The Atlantic Festival, in Washington, D.C., and you can join us September 28–29. The festival brings together influential and provocative political, cultural, business, tech, and climate leaders for in-depth interviews, timely forums, intimate breakout sessions, book talks, screenings, and networking opportunities. This year’s participants include Secretary of State Antony Blinken, former U.S. Representative Will Hurd, the actor Kerry Washington, Utah Governor Spencer Cox, the filmmaker Spike Lee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and many more.
They’ll be joined by Atlantic writers including Arthur C. Brooks, Shirley Li, Tim Alberta, Caitlin Dickerson (our newest Pulitzer Prize winner), and others, including me: I’ll be discussing the future of conservatism with Helen Lewis, David Frum, and Rebecca Rosen.
You can see the full schedule and get your pass here.
Join us!
— Tom
Nicole Blackwood contributed to this newsletter.
When you buy a book using a link in this newsletter, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.
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www.theatlantic.com › newsletters › archive › 2023 › 09 › google-antitrust-lawsuit-trial › 675253
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This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
But first, here are three new stories from The Atlantic.
The China model is dead. A knockout technique for achieving more happiness Why would anyone become a politician?Challenging Power, Again
The year was 1998. Bill Clinton was in office. Titanic had just won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Backstreet Boys were ascendant. And Microsoft was in court, teeing off against the Justice Department over claims that it was a monopoly. That landmark case, which ultimately resulted in a settlement, was the last time the government took a major tech company to trial for antitrust issues.
That will change next week, when the U.S. et al v. Google trial begins in Washington, D.C. The Justice Department (joined by a group of states) has sued Google, claiming that the search giant illegally protected its market position by striking exclusive deals—in particular, one with Apple starting 18 years ago that set Google as the default search engine on iPhones and other devices. This isn’t the department’s only lawsuit against the company, but it is the first to go to trial, and regardless of the outcome, this case signals that the government is serious about investigating the influence that a few companies have consolidated. And it could put pressure on tech firms to proceed more carefully.
The moment is ripe for a Big Tech trial: As tech companies have become more and more powerful, public scrutiny has increased. No longer is antitrust zeal considered merely a left-wing cause; Republicans and Democrats alike are now interested in bringing Big Tech down a notch. The Justice Department’s lawsuit was filed in October 2020, when Donald Trump was still in office; Merrick Garland’s team has since taken over the case. We are also in a time of market concentration. Huge companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Google have amassed immense sway over the past 20 years. (By some measures, Google commands about 90 percent of the domestic search market.) Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer, said in a statement, “This is a backwards-looking case at a time of unprecedented innovation,” adding that “people don’t use Google because they have to—they use it because they want to.” The company has said that its default agreements are not exclusive. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Microsoft’s antitrust woes in the 1990s are worth looking back on, both for their similarities to the impending Google trial and for how the internet has changed in the decades since. The Microsoft trial was a dramatic one. Videos of Bill Gates being deposed by David Boies (who would later represent clients including Theranos) reportedly caused a judge to burst into laughter in the courtroom. Not long after the court ruled that Microsoft was a monopoly, in 2000, the company appealed, and the decision was partially overturned. Among the many concerns of the appeals court were reports that the same judge had been bad-mouthing Microsoft to journalists.
An antitrust lawyer named Gary Reback, who pushed the government to take action against Microsoft, became famous in Silicon Valley in the years leading up to the case. He appeared on the cover of Wired in 1997 with the tagline “This Lawyer Is Bill Gates’s Worst Nightmare.” When I called Reback yesterday, he told me that back in the 1990s, Microsoft’s “monopoly was more far reaching and profound than any one single monopolist today.” (Reback has been involved with litigation against Google in recent years.)
Microsoft’s power was indeed massive, and could have grown further. “Imagine a world in which Microsoft had been allowed to monopolize the browser business,” the law professor and former Biden adviser Tim Wu and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote in 2018. “Holding a triple monopoly (operating system, major applications and the browser), Microsoft would have controlled the future of the web.” And to some, regulation of the company portended a larger change: Milton Friedman predicted, in 1999, “From now on the computer industry, which has been very fortunate in that it has been relatively free of government intrusion, will experience a continuous increase in government regulation.”
Friedman’s prediction didn’t exactly come true in recent decades—but it still could. However the Google trial plays out, it could well lead these companies toward more caution, as the 1998 trial seemed to do for Microsoft. Lee Hepner, the legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties project, an anti-monopoly nonprofit, told me that the Google trial will be key for understanding whether antitrust laws are equipped to handle monopoly power in today’s environment. (The Justice Department, states, and the Federal Trade Commission have brought a spate of other antitrust cases against Big Tech firms in recent years, and FTC Commissioner Lina Khan is a known critic of tech consolidation.)
No single firm now controls the future of the web. The Microsoft case, perhaps ironically, paved the way for today’s tech giants to flourish: Instead of one Microsoft, we have several companies that each dominate their respective slices of the market. But after years of relative dormancy on antitrust issues, the government’s recent cases may mean the end of these companies’ freewheeling heyday.
Related:
The invisible tech behemoth The Silicon Valley myth is over.Today’s News
Donald Trump notified the judge overseeing the Fulton County, Georgia, election-interference case that he may try to move the case to federal court. Hurricane Lee is expected to grow stronger as it approaches the eastern Caribbean, and it could become a major storm by early tomorrow morning. The Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro was convicted of two counts of criminal contempt of Congress.Evening Read
America Is Telling Itself a Lie About Roadkill
By Ben Goldfarb
The great irony of roadkill is this: Its most conspicuous victims tend to be those least in need of saving. Simple probability dictates that you’re more likely to collide with a common animal—a squirrel, a raccoon, a white-tailed deer—than a scarce one. The roadside dead tend to be culled from the ranks of the urban, the resilient, the ubiquitous.
But roadkill is also a culprit in our planet’s current mass die-off. Every year American cars hit more than 1 million large animals, such as deer, elk, and moose, and as many as 340 million birds; across the continent, roadkill may claim the lives of billions of pollinating insects. The ranks of the victims include many endangered species: One 2008 congressional report found that traffic existentially threatens at least 21 critters in the U.S., including the Houston toad and the Hawaiian goose. If the last-ever California tiger salamander shuffles off this mortal coil, the odds are decent that it will happen on rain-slick blacktop one damp spring night.
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Isabel Fattal contributed to this newsletter.
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