Which naturally brings us to the fallacy of the whole American Dream thing in the first place. For as much as this film tries to take a “serious” look at the hardships of poverty and the sacrifices less fortunate people must make in their attempts to become millionaires or even just to not have to sleep in a subway station bathroom anymore, the whole thing is a fucking lie. Regardless of what happened to Chris Gardner, the larger truth of wealth, poverty, and economic disparity in this country (and do not even let’s get started on the World At Large, in which millions of people are starving to death and have no access to drinking water, much less medical treatment or education) is that it’s nearly impossible to move between economic classes, and that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t try and that we shouldn’t applaud them when they succeed, but it’s not like people are poor just because they don’t run as much as Chris Gardner was always running.
The Hunt For The Worst Movie Of All Time: The Pursuit Of Happyness | Videogum
Thank you Tumblr (Bluebears and everyone else) for introducing me to the Hunt For the Worst Movie of All Time because now I HAVE BEEN VALIDATED!!
I disliked The Pursuit of Happyness so so much. For the reasons in the quote above but also for perpetuating the idea that “YOU ARE POOR BECAUSE YOU DON’T TRY HARD ENOUGH!!” and “poor people are just lazy, see, Will Smith ran a lot and slept in cardboard boxes and became extremely rich; I don’t know why those welfare queens cannot do the same”.
It’s the perfect “documentary” to extoll the benefits of compassionate capitalism. Just no.
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