On the Waterfront has been praised for its acting, its social message, its direction, its realism, and pretty much everything else that you could imagine. But today, I want to talk about one thing that no one seems to ever talk about in regards to this movie. That one, five word phrase that everyone knows but no one mentions, “I coulda been a contender.”

The line comes about in this scene where Terry and his brother are in the cab talking about how Terry could have become a great boxer if it hadn’t been for his brother’s involvements with the mob and the dirty side of betting. The line is a great culmination of all of the emotion in the scene. It was meant to evoke a lot of empathy for Terry and his life. However, watching the movie, I didn’t have that emotion at all because I was thinking about all of the places where I’ve heard that line.

We could mention the obvious choice, which is Rocky, mainly because that movie really gets me going. I really want to talk about the song Funny You Should Ask by The Front Bottoms because I love that band. But there’s just too many to choose from. So I’m forced to go a different route.

As in most aspects of life, something only truly becomes a cultural phenomenon when it gets its own TVTropes page. That link takes you to a whole page of times when either someone said the phrase “I coulda been a contender” or just the concept of someone possibly having been a contender is an important part of the media. There are dozens upon dozens of entries, and I know that Front Bottoms song hasn’t been added yet, so there could be more. And you know what, the quote at the top is the scene from On The Waterfront. And if you look around, there’s nowhere else that line came from.

I know Kazan will be remembered forever, and I hope it’s for something a little more than this.