I love Will Smith. And I loved his new movie, Pursuit of Happyness.
Like Blood Diamond, it falls into a new category of movies I’ve developed, called Amazingly Important and Well Made, But Really, Really Hard to Watch.
Because they’re true, and feature the needless suffering and struggle that result from unjust systems, and it’s painful to keep watching as things get worse and worse for people trying to live honest lives and care for their families.
Chris Gardner’s story in Pursuit of Happyness shows how easily people can fall through the cracks when they’re living paycheck to paycheck and barely making it, even when they’re working and doing their best to care for their children.
How divorce can mean a sudden, unexpected loss of crucial income, or a car necessary to earn a living can be impounded or sudden illness or theft can mean the difference between living in a home and fighting to get into a shelter.
And how sometimes doing what needs to be done to make a step up, to change a life and make professional progress can be more of a short-term setback than taking a long-term, low-wage job. Because sometimes the internships and trainings are unpaid, so, without support, the six month training that could bring a family out of poverty and into progress becomes unattainable and impossible.
So I couldn’t help but appreciate Chris Gardner for telling his story, and Will Smith for bringing it to life. It’s an important story, and one that we should see and understand visually, because it’s happening all the time, every day, in every city we live in.
But I must admit that while I found it very moving that Chris was such a powerful father figure for his son, I did still find myself wishing that Chris had been a Christine.
That this story could have been seen through a woman’s eyes, since in the majority of cases, these stories are those of women. Nationally, 85 percent of custodial parents are women, who, on average, earn $24,000 annually. In Washington, D.C., 30 percent of women-headed families live in poverty. Nationally, it’s 27 percent.
I guess I just hope that the many who see this movie will keep in mind–as they watch this story of the daily struggle that low-income, single parents go through to move themselves and their children to better lives–that typically this is a woman’s story.
That movies are usually made because they’re unusual, and not about the realties we see every day.
