Creed II, Bianca and Donnie became engaged and Bianca gave birth to the couple's first child, a girl named Amara, making both characters important motivating factors in Donnie's story. In order for Creed III to be a success, however, the film must centralize its characters' personal journeys more – especially Bianca's.
Bianca needs to play an integral role in Creed III's story because her arc has lacked depth since the franchise's beginning. Through the first two Creed films, Bianca has served as hardly more than Donnie’s love interest. The first movie laid some compelling groundwork for her when it introduced her as a singer with hearing impairment, but the franchise has not developed her character enough since the beginning. Creed III has an opportunity to change that. The franchise's third entry has to deliver on the promising groundwork it laid for Bianca in Creed, else it could repeat the franchise's failures.
How Creed & Creed II Failed Bianca
Creed's story most prominently focuses on Donnie’s boxing journey and Rocky’s (Sylvester Stallone) mentorship of him, but it hardly dedicates enough time to illustrating Bianca’s character. For the most part, she acts as a plot device in Donnie’s story despite the potential for her own subplot. Creed could have seamlessly melded Donnie and Bianca's stories together without sacrificing one's individuality for the other's, but unfortunately, Donnie ended up taking center stage while Bianca was almost entirely forgotten. In Creed II, Bianca's career motivated the pair to relocate from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, yet the film hardly paid attention to Bianca's musical endeavors. Instead, engagement and pregnancy largely defined her role in Creed II. Of course, the Creed movies chiefly revolve around Adonis', but what's even more important is that they tell a beautiful human story about perseverance and love. Bianca has so much more to give to that, but the first two movies sidelined her and relegated her to the main character's love interest.
Why Bianca’s Story Is So Important
Considering that representation for deaf and hard of hearing people — especially those who are Black women — is all too often absent from mainstream cinema, Bianca's role in the Creed films is very significant. Additionally, she exists as one of two female characters to appear in all three films — the other being Donnie's adopted mother Mary Anne. Given the comparative lack of women in the first two Creed movies, Bianca's presence is doubly important. Underrepresented audiences should not merely get to see themselves on the screen. They deserve to see themselves fleshed out and serve a greater purpose than solely another character's love interest. Creed deserves some credit for including deaf and hard-of-hearing people in its narrative, however, the bare minimum is not enough moving forwards.
How Creed III Can Improve Bianca’s Story
Following Creed II's introduction of Bianca and Adonis’ daughter as an infant, Creed II since Creed III likely won't run much longer than two hours. Nonetheless, a stronger focus on Bianca's music career and relationship with her daughter would serve the character and the movie well.
