A Study of Family Issues in Pursuit of Happiness by Gabriele Muccino

Pursuit of Happiness

Pursuit of Happiness is about a family living check by check, just trying to get by. The husband Chris, that sells bone scanner machines. He had bought into these machines, thinking they would be a big hit, but not knowing that not many hospitals would be interested, because of the X-Ray machine, that was very similar. The wife/mother left, being stressed and not believing in her future with Chris, and their son Christopher. After her departure, it only went downhill. They became homeless, and had to move into a motel down the street. For a few months, Chris could still afford to send Christopher to a day-care, which a Chinese lady was in charge of, but later he could not, and had to take Christopher to work with him. After having been kicked out of the motel, and having nowhere to live, they were forced to sleep in a subway bathroom. After this incident, they stayed in a homeless shelter most of the nights. In the midst of the craziness he called life, Chris signed up for a free internship with a stock business, and had gotten top intern, which got him a job with the business. After he had got the job, he had good pay, and Chris and his son lived well.

This movie can connect well with family issues, marriage issues, wealth problems, and poverty. Chapters 7: Social Class, 10: Race and Ethnic Stratification, 13: Crime and the Legal System, and 14: Marriage and Family, both correspond with the movie Pursuit of Happiness. Chapter 7 talks about social class, such as lower, middle, and upper class; depending on how much money you have. The main character, Chris, lives a poor life, in the “ghetto”, with his child, after his wife leaves, trying to make a living. He is in the lower class, but after winning a competitive internship, and being offered a job, he starts making good money, and starts to raise in social class. Chapter 10 talks about race and this deals with the movie because Chris, his son, and his wife are all African American, which might have interfered with him getting a job, or selling the amount of bone scanners he needed to sell. Chapter13 is about crime, and how society deals with it, and also the way the legal system is set up. In the movie, there are various scenes of robbery, or in a specific scene, where one of Chris leaves his bone scanner with a homeless person outside of a building, because he is late for a meeting and can’t take it inside, and the person ends up stealing it. Chapter 14 speaks of marriage and family issues, which is the main happenings, mostly in the beginning of the movie. Their family had issues from the start of the movie, and only gets worse. Chris isn’t bringing in much money, and his wife is already working two jobs, and after she leaves, they aren’t able to pay the rent on time and get kicked out of their apartment. The entire movie is connected with much sociology content, which can help connect the movie to real life situations. The movie Pursuit of Happiness relates to sociology also through social equality. It thrives for this through the movie. Social equality is when everyone has completely equal treatment and opportunity. With social equality, there would be no separating by race, gender, religion, and social class. By doing so, it relates to all of the spoken of chapters in our book. In this movie, Chris Gardner is criticized of by his race, and social class. He has to live in a homeless shelter many nights, not being able to correctly feed his child, or give him what he needs. After being accepted for the internship, he does as much work as he possibly can and works as hard as he can so that he can win and get a job promotion. He stands up for himself, after being thrown in jail and not being able to go home and take a shower before his big meeting, and shows the business men that he has what they want, in courage and in confidence. By doing this, he gets the job, and is in better hands for his future, and his son. Sociology is built within this movie, especially since it is focused around society and the government. Bring poor, having a low income, having a slow job, and other things that can help make you have more and harder trouble with the world is what this movie is based on. It is especially centered on how one man can make a difference for a whole family, when taken to the extreme. By him getting out and earning what he got, and deserving every bit of it, it shows us that there is hope.