This chapter describes Creed as a sequel-reboot which functions as a politically ambivalent, but textually reverent, reboot of the Rocky franchise (1976–90). It asserts that Creed is a film that at one and the same time celebrates the franchise’s deployment of the tropes of the boxing picture and male melodrama, while also updating the racial and sexual politics of the series. Developing ideas on the way film reboots mediate the tension between familiarity and novelty, the chapter demonstrates how Creed rewrites aspects of the original Rocky films so as to create a new political narrative, one that explicitly challenges stereotypes of African-American athletes.
Postcolonial and Post-Racial Runners: The Rise of African and African-American Athletes in Society