I first saw the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, with a friend at the movies. When I saw it for the first time I didn’t think of the questions that would be asked of me in my gender class. A friend and I wanted to see the movie because it was a true story of a man that went from being homeless to having a good job with Dean Witter and then writing a book about his struggle. I do remember looking at the movie and thinking of his wife as a villain, because she did not stick by him and left him with a child to raise alone. Although I know a lot of men who would have done what Chris Gardner did it does make for a good discussion about stereotypes, gender issues, and gender being specific to men.
There are many definitions for stereotypes, but my understanding is that it is a belief or attitude held by an individual or group of people about another group of people, and the stereotype could be positive or negative. There are many stereotypes and although they could be positive or negative some are inaccurate. The stereotypes I have heard about African American males are that they are lazy, violent, thieves, uncaring, and dead beat fathers.
In the movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, I am watching it for the second time and aware of some of the ways that Chris Gardner challenge some of these stereotypes. I like the way the movie started with men walking around in the city, men of all races and ethnicities and situations. Some of the men were businessmen, a homeless man, and street entertainers. Chris Gardner did have in the movie some of the racial incidents such as when Mr. Griffin that he attended a game with and he was spending time so that he could handle his accounts told him he never could. Chris understood this immediately and moved forward.
As far as some of the stereotypes I mentioned, Chris was anything but lazy, he was constantly trying to sell the bone density scans, and when he got the internship at Dean Witter Reynolds he was early to work and...