Show_Me_the_Money

Show Me the Money - Money as Matter, Means and Measure The movie I chose for my final project is “The Pursuit of Happyness.” I chose the movie because it features Will Smith and his real-life son Jaden Smith. The film is based on the true story by self-made millionaire Chris Gardner. The movie features the challenges of finding the American dream and the different measures one is willing to go through to improve themselves and their family no matter the consequences. Through the course of this paper I will discuss the roles of money as a matter, a means, and a measure. This movie is based on the true story of Chris Gardner, a man living in San Francisco with his wife and son. Financially, times are tough, money is tight, and Chris has a really bad job. The family is behind on their bills, the rent, and his wife Linda is reaching the end of her rope. The movie title implies that Chris pursuit is finding happiness; however, the choices he makes that set everything in the rest of the movie into action are strictly the pursuit of money and how he can improve the life for his family. The spelling of happiness in the title of the movie is wrong, but it is wrong on purpose. In the movie, Chris sees the spelling of happiness spelled incorrectly on the wall of the daycare center where young Chris is cared for. Several times Chris points out the misspelling to the Chinese man that the painting on his son’s daycare wall is spelled wrong. He comments on this several times throughout the movie. He seems often irritated by the misspelling, but by the end of the movie the word seems to be a sign of his own pursuit of happiness. Matter The movie opens with Chris trying in vain to sell a bone density scanner to a doctor at a hospital. He is a salesman traveling around to hospitals trying to sell the machines. The machines are expensive and not too many hospitals need them, making them an extravagance that not many hospitals want to waste money on. Chris invested his life savings to purchase the machines and continued for years to invest in the product by keeping them in his apartment and trying to sell them. If Chris can sell two bone scanners a month he can afford to pay rent and buy food to feed his family. The problem is that he is cannot sell the machines and his wife eventually leaves and he is left homeless along with his son. Although it is apparent the role of money in the movie, or the lack of money in this case, I do not believe to Chris Gardner money functioned as a physical matter in this movie. If that were his main goal he would not have continued to invest in selling the useless bone scanners and found some type of job that would pay his bills and support his family. When Linda decided to leave and go to New York with her family, Chris insisted on keeping their son instead of letting him go with her where there was family to help care for him. Chris struggle with his finances and trying to make money is one of his main goals, but I do not believe he thought money brings happiness. Means The next day Chris is in the park and sees a man getting out of a red Ferrari in front of a brokerage firm. He asks the man what kind of work he does. The man tells him he is a stock broker. Chris asks him if he had to go to college to do the job. The guy tells him that he would have to be good with numbers and people. Chris knows he is good at numbers and people and decides to go into the building. He does not want to take the bone scanner in, so he sees a hippie looking girl playing a guitar leaves and leaves the machine with her. I got a chuckle when he asked her, “Can you watch this for me' You can’t sell it anywhere, heck I can’t and it’s my job. Thanks.” At this point of the movie, he is directed to an office where he asks how to apply for a job. He applies for an internship in a six-month stock broker training program. The problem with the internship is there is no pay involved. The internship is highly competitive with 20 people in the program and only one person will get the job. This is a perfect example of money being used as a tool for trade. Although there is no pay for six months, if Chris can get the job the trade-off will be a good income. An unpaid six-month internship is not the most effective trade at this point for Chris, and will not solve his immediate problem of the ability to support his family. Chris does not look at the opportunity in the terms of money, but more as a way to be a responsible father, despite the difficulties that come with it. It would have made more sense at this point for Chris to find a job, even a bad one that would help pay for a place to live and food to eat, but Chris is someone who follows his dreams to better himself. An important fact to remember is although Chris worked free while training to be a stockbroker; he still continued to work the other job of selling the bone density machines on the weekends. Throughout the movie money seems to be the common denominator; however I do not believe to Chris the pursuit of money was ever his goal. I believe money as means to Chris was the ability to provide for his son, to be there for him, because his father was not there for him. The lack of money and the ability to support his family is why Linda makes the choice to leave Chris. She never supports his choices but rather spends most of her time talking down to him and being unsupportive. This is an example of money issues causing a separation between the characters in the movie. The distinction between rich or poor is evident throughout the movie evident by the man in the park with the expensive automobile to Chris waiting in line at the homeless shelter for a spot to sleep at night. This movie shows how people without money and influence are often mistreated and oppressed by those who do have money and power. Despite the conditions, Chris Gardner continually proves the meaning of good relationships, even with people who treat him badly. He shows the value of knowing his strengths and using them, even in unusual ways. His positivity turns into single-minded determination as he proves persistence and vision as a means to an end as he pursues his idea of happiness. Measure To Chris Gardner I do not believe that money is his pursuit in this movie. What he wanted was the ability to provide a good life for his son. Although money is assigned as value throughout the movie evidenced when Chris is locked out of his motel room because he is could not pay the rent. Another example is the unpaid internship at Dean Witter. Even though he has no one to help him care for his son while he is training, he still decides to go to school because the training will eventually offer him the ability to provide better for his son. The executives at the brokerage firm sent a message to the person they were looking for with the internship by not offering an income during the training; that message is anyone willing to work hard and complete the training while not being paid is someone worth investing their time and energy in. That investment of money cannot be measured in this instance. Conclusion “The Pursuit of Happyness” was an overall good movie that portrayed the basic points of money as a matter, a mean, and a measure and how it affects our everyday lives. The end of the movie shows Chris repair the broken bone density scanner while little Chris sleeps. The next day he is able to sell it to a doctor, getting rid of the final machine. The next day Chris takes the test for finishing the internship. As he enters the elevator, another intern asked him if he really finished the test or did he need to be somewhere else. Chris tells the man that he needs to be somewhere else, but he did finish the test. He asked the intern how he thought he did on the essay question that was on the back of the test. The intern asks “Essay question''’ He then runs out of the elevator. The following day Chris is called into the interview room, where he is facing all of the same men he did on the day of the interview when he was wearing a wife-beater and covered in paint. He smiles and says “I decided to wear a shirt today since it was the last day and all.” One of the men smiles at him and tells him to wear a shirt tomorrow too, and then asked him to come to work for Dean Witter (The Movie Spoiler, n.d). At this point Chris nods happily, tears in his eyes. At last Chris is able to enjoy what he has worked so hard for. He leaves the firm and goes straight to his son’s daycare. The movie ends with Chris and his son walking down the street, while little Chris is telling him Knock-knock jokes. A man passes by and Will Smith looks at him for a second. The man is the real Chris Gardner. The movie ends, after telling the audience that Chris Gardner went on to own his own investment company and makes millions of dollars (The Movie Spoiler, n.d). This movie to me was not so much about money but about perseverance and motivation. His motivation was not about how much money he could make but more so providing a better life his son. The premise is happiness is the pursuit and achievement of one’s goals displayed when Chris walks out of the brokerage firm after winning the job and says; “Now this part of the story…this part is called happiness.”