Bean and I went to see “The Pursuit of Happyness,” a new movie starring Will Smith as real-life stock broker Chris Gardner. Set in the 80s, the movie tells the story of how Gardner — black, poor, a single father with only a high-school education — became a stock broker using only intelligence, hard work, and a seemingly inexhaustible will to succeed.<\/p>\n
The movie was entertaining but not fantastic. What struck me most about it is how differently liberals and conservatives will interpret the movie’s message. To conservatives, like Michael at InternetMonk<\/a>, the message is that hard work wins the day:<\/p>\n Will Smith\u2019s \u201cThe Pursuit of Happyness\u201d [is] a stunningly positive, pro-individual, pro-America film that may go to the top of every economic conservative\u2019s \u201cmust see\u201d list. \u201cPursuit\u201d is a stereotype breaker in every scene, and it\u2019s not an accident. This is a film with the unashamed message that America is a place where individuals aren\u2019t rewarded via pity, but through initiative, sacrifice and hard work. Chris Gardner\u2019s success came by taking the gifts God gave him, motivating himself with love for his son, and persevering in a superhuman effort to outdo people with racial, social and educational advantage. […]<\/p>\n And when he achieves his goal- a genuinely emotional breakthrough that will be hard for any man who loves his family to resist- it is not because of affirmative action, but because Chris Gardner was the best man for the job. You can look in the eyes of all those corporate types and know that they have only been dimly aware that this is a man who has been sleeping in restrooms and at homeless shelters, but they are treating him completely in line with the content of his character and not in pity. At a moment when he is nearly starving, his boss- a millionaire many times over- asks him for five dollars for cab fare. Gardner gives it to him because that is who he is and will always be. ((Contrary to Michael’s interpretation, I think it was clear that Gardner gave him the five bucks because he was an intern who had no choice but to suck up to his bosses, and who couldn’t let them know how close to the edge he was living.))<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I saw the same movie, but I got a different message. Because the effort Gardner puts forth in the movie really does <\/em>seem (as Michael says) superhuman. In the movie ((and in real life, for all I know)), Gardner had no real friends, no support network, no savings, no home, and a child to take care of. He was pretty much in the situation Hilzoy discusses here<\/a> — no margin for error, no margin for bad luck.<\/p>\n There are thousands of Americans in that situation. What makes Gardner’s story so unusual — and a good subject for a major Hollywood movie — is that Gardner ended up a millionairre. The far more common story of people who don’t make it, isn’t the story of which major movies are made. Artist and blogger Marc Vallen (who created a 1980s protest poster used as set dressing in the movie) writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n The Pursuit of Happyness has as its actual star the mythic American dream story, where anyone can become financially successful through dedication and hard work. While it\u2019s said “everyone loves a winner” and “a happy ending”, I\u2019d still like to see Hollywood tackle the stories of those real-life people who\u2019ve struggled and worked hard all of their lives but never even came close to achieving their dreams. Odds are that describes a huge number of people, and as yet, their stories haven\u2019t appeared on the silver screen. I also find it ironic that a poster once considered controversial, and used by activists who were willing to be beaten, arrested, and jailed for a cause – has became set dressing for a popular “feel good” movie.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For me, the lesson to take away from “The Pursuit of Happyness” isn’t that anyone can make it in America. Gardner wasn’t “anyone.” He was broke, but he had a natural endowment of intelligence, charm and drive that made him one in ten thousand, or maybe one in a million. I think it’s possible to become a better society — one in which no one is every that <\/em>utterly lacking help and resources, and in which it doesn’t require Chris-Gardner levels of talent and drive for someone on the bottom to make the system work.<\/p>\n The San Francisco Gate has a story with more information about The Real-Life Chris Gardner<\/a>; there are interesting contrasts between his life and the movie version. (For example, in the movie he was homeless while doing an unpaid apprenticeship; in real life I doubt he was homeless while he was an apprentence, since the apprenticeship program paid $1000 a month.) And CNN has an article about Gardner’s current activities <\/a>— he’s hoping to become the next Oprah.<\/p>\n Also, Czerna has a related post.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bean and I went to see “The Pursuit of Happyness,” a new movie starring Will Smith as real-life stock broker Chris Gardner. Set in the 80s, the movie tells the story of how Gardner — black, poor, a single father … Continue reading
\nI’s ludicrous to think that “Pursuit of Happyness” shows that anyone can make it; on the contrary, “Pursuit of Happyness” shows that for someone starting with nothing in America, it take a ludicrous amount of talent and drive to pull oneself up.<\/p>\n