The Great Depression

In the movie, Cinderella Man, certain things were added to the film, and things were kept the same, in order to dramatize the life of someone living in the 1930’s. Even things were changed about James Braddock’s, also known as Cinderella Man, life that would make the viewers feel sorrier for him and to portray the life during those times as terrible.

The first thing that the film makers changed was the age of his children. They did this mainly so when James was going through such a hard time, the viewer would not only feel bad for him, but they would also feel bad for the three young, innocent children. When they oldest son stole in the movie, it was used as a way to depict how hard times were. Families were going through so much poverty and were not being able to feed their families during this time. In the movie, at the time that the boy stole, the family was not in their worst shape, but the boy stole because he thought he could do something to help his family.

Some things that were in the movie that were not changed about James’ life help to depict how life was during the 1930’s. When James went to go get work in the movie he would have to stand at a gate and get chosen for the job. This was actually the case during the 1930’s. Many men that went to find work did not get the job and for men that got the job one day were not guaranteed the job the next day. It was very hard to find work during these times because so many people needed work to support their family but the businesses did not have a place for all of them so sometimes people would go long times without it. When James went to get money during one part of the movie, he was very embarrassed. People did not want other people to know that they needed help because they were not able to produce the money. James was looking around the whole time he was in there getting money and continued to look around even after he had gotten the money and was leaving. The woman behind the counter said that she never thought she would see him in there. She said this because she was obviously friends of the family. This is a way of showing the viewers that it was embarrassing and people thought of themselves as failures if they had to go borrow money. Another part of the movie that depicted how much people need the money was when he took the fight. When James first got the offer he knew he had to because he had to get the money so he would not think of himself as a failure. He took the fight even though he was known as a joke in the boxing ring. In the movie that was not the outspoken reason for why he took the fight but it was an underlying reason and as the viewer I could tell on his face how embarrassed he was when he had to go borrow the money. He was also very embarrassed when he had to go into the room with the people that had turned him away from boxing and ask them for money. This was seen as a brave thing to do because back them it would have been basically saying that he knew he was a failure and could not get the money for his family himself so he had to go and ask other people to give him donations so he could support his family. During the movie, at one point James was not able to care for his kids because he was not getting enough work so his wife decided to send them to her dad’s house until they got their feet under them. This was the reason that James went to borrow the money because to him, once his kids left, he felt as though he had reached rock bottom and he was going to do anything in his power to get them back. It was just another example that showed how much the people were struggling and how willing they were to do anything they could to get out of that situation.

There were many other examples that showed the viewer what life was like in the 1930’s. Life was rough and it was very hard on many of the people that lived through it. The poverty hurt a lot of people and even caused some families to be torn apart, like James Braddock’s. In the end he was lucky and got out of the poverty but like I learned, not everyone was as lucky as him.