To need Chris Gardner’s levels of talent and drive for someone on the bottom to become a millionaire isn’t necessarily bad.

The movie ends when Gardner finally climbs to the lower middle class. I’m talking about how incredibly hard it is for someone in Gardner’s position to make it to the middle class.

Hm. But what consists of making the system work? To need Chris Gardner’s levels of talent and drive for someone on the bottom to become a millionaire isn’t necessarily bad. Millionaires are at the top of the income levels in the U.S.; that’s a pretty high standard. Do you have to be a millionaire to be considered having made the system work? If he had simply gotten to the point that he was making a middle-class income and was decently housing, feeding, clothing, etc. himself and his son, I would consider that making the system work. How much talent and drive does that take? Does our system require Chris Gardner’s level of drive and talent to make the system work?

“And apparently his wife left him (along with her income that the family in part depended on) and he owed a lot of back taxes.”

So then, to answer Joe Veccio’s question, “But what does it say about this country that someone so skilled and hard-working became homeless in the first place?”, the answer is that when you take risks, sometimes you fail, and there are bad consequences from failing. Just because you are skilled and hard-working doesn’t mean that you know how to successfully start and run a business. Apparently he didn’t have the right skills for that.

Mythago said:
“Funny how fast the review skips over the fact that Gardner was not on a level playing field, and for reasons that were completely out of his control.”

Hm. Why do you say that Gardner was not on a level playing field for reasons out of his control? Was he denied employment elsewhere because he was black? Or is it because he was homeless? Because the latter was due to his own choices, but I haven’t seen the movie so I don’t know if the former was involved.

What did it say in the movie on this? How did he become homeless?

shrug.

Big Lebowski i think is not really in the same league, either tone-wise or anywhere near the number of viewers.

>But what does it say about this country that someone so skilled and hard-working became homeless in the first place? What does it say about people who pay (and can afford to pay) a lot of money to hear him speak? Is all they want out of life to own a desk made from an airplane wing? And why indeed aren’t THEY multi-millionaires, especially considering that they never had to go through those kinds of hardships themselves?>

exactly.

and the subtle message is:

the answer as to why YOU aren’t a multi-millionaire, too, is because you are a LOSER and AREN’T TRYING HARD ENOUGH.

because -everyone- could be a multi-millionaire if they really tried!

But what does it say about this country that someone so skilled and hard-working became homeless in the first place? What does it say about people who pay (and can afford to pay) a lot of money to hear him speak? Is all they want out of life to own a desk made from an airplane wing? And why indeed aren’t THEY multi-millionaires, especially considering that they never had to go through those kinds of hardships themselves?

Finally, what I’d like to know is if Mr. Gardner has supported, or will support, politicians and policies that would make it more difficult for someone to accomplish what he did? If so, then he is not to be admired, and the title should be changed from “The Pursuit Of Happyness” to “I Got Mine, Screw You”.

I can’t speak to Gardner or Oprah, but tell me that Michael Jordan’s enormous success didn’t in part come from being a winner in the athletic genetic lottery. Yes, he is also famous for a tremendous work ethic. That work ethic tellingly is a great contrast with many other athletes who have much less success even though they have as much or more athletic ability as Michael Jordan because at some point they stop putting the work. But luck is also a great portion of what Michael Jordan what he is.

And oh how they love the opportunity to dig at affirmative action.

But (and this is the part we talked about in class), it’s about the only jump that many black people get to see being others of their race make when they’re growing up. Oprah makes it to billionaire status, Michael Jordan goes from wherever he started to superstar, etc. Those transitions are spectacular (and praiseworthy, when like Gardner’s, Jordan’s, Oprah’s they come from skill and brains and effort rather than luck), but they aren’t the transitions that create real social mobility. Mobility in the mass comes from people moving from lower-middle to upper-middle, or poor to lower-middle, or desperately dirt-poor to stable working poor, and so on.

Because of the pathologies of the inner city, pretty much everybody who makes any progress leaves as soon as they possibly can. Their subsequent improvements and transitions are witnessed only by people who have already seen the same story a thousand times already, and who learn nothing thereby. Black kids don’t see their neighbor Larry put himself through school and become an accountant, and then ten years later get his CPA and then ten years after that start his own practice, and ten years after that franchise out and become comfortable. They see Larry move out, the end; his subsequent successes are not viable models to follow, because they don’t see them happen.

If you look at Gardner’s talents and brains, it’s clear that if he had set more modest goals, he would have achieved them with modest work. (Not to discount his awesome progress; just that for every Gardner, there are a thousand guys rolling the dice and ending up with nothing). But he didn’t perceive that modest improvement in status as being possible - he had to go to the top, or nothing. It’s good for him that it worked out, but it’s not so great that he had no role models for a more practical life development course. One that might have, for example, kept his family intact, and spared his son the traumas of life on the street.

If we’re looking for a more realistic movie, something like a contemporary version of Gorsky’s The Lower Depths, I can’t really think of anything. But I’m not sure if I’d want to see a movie as bleak as that anyway.