The American Dream

            After watching a clip of the Pursuit of Happiness in class, it made me realize how important the idea of the American dream is for people.  In the clip Will Smith’s character, Chris Gardner, tells his son that he will probably never be a great basketball player.  After seeing his son have a disappointing reaction he tells him to never let somebody say that you cannot do something.  This clip, along with the entire movie, basically says it does not matter what sort of background you come from you can still be successful in life.  The more I thought about this movie and other movies that give a similar meaning, it helped me make a connection between this message and society’s fascination with reality TV.  I realized that the message that both the Pursuit of Happiness and certain reality shows convey are not so different.  As it stated in one of the articles for this week, one of the aspects of Reali-tv were that these shows had nonactors.  Yet, so many of these “nonactors” have become famous through their Reali-tv programs.  For example, when Jersey Shore first began all of the cast members were just ordinary everyday people.  But, after the show took off these people became rich, famous, and successful.  This is similar to other reality show cast members such as the Kardashians, the girls from Teen Mom, and Jon & Kate.  In my opinion, both the movie and these shows give a similar message that ordinary everyday people can become rich and “successful”.