Blog Post #11

I think a really good example of this is in the movie “The Pursuit of Happyness” because it shows several real life struggles that people go throw when they can barely make ends meet, and have a child to be concerned with as well. I realize this movie is actually about the poverty that the male character experiences but I would like to focus on the female character, Will Smith’s wife. In the movie, it shows her as clearly working more than eight hours per day, and making very little money for her time. It shows what kind of labor a poor, unskilled women does. And it also does a very good job of portraying her as tired, haggard, and stressed out. Constantly, they are making imperative decisions about what bills to pay with the little money that they do have. Several times the parents argue over not having the money to pay all the bills. They had to make the decision to not pay the parking tickets in order to pay for day care. Also, they were about 3 months late on rent because of their needs for food and water. This movie also does a good job showing the type of child care that many low income children receive – low quality. In the movie, the father gets angry at the provider because she allows them to watch TV nearly all day. Eventually, the wife gives up and leaves her child alone with her husband but before she left, she portrayed a true women in poverty. And the truth is, if her character was a real person, which I am sure it could be, she is lucky that she has two incomes to help her child rather than just the one. All of these things that her character experienced are things that happen in real life, to real people every day.