Pretty Woman opens by contrasting the two groups of people that each main character belongs to. Edward is a wealthy man who buys businesses that are in trouble and then sells them in pieces to other companies. Vivian is a prostitute who lives in an apartment with her friend who is also a prostitute. Vivian cannot pay the rent because her roommate used some of their money to buy drugs. While they are on the street Edward pulls over because he is lost and Vivian gets in the care to show him how to get home personally. He is going to just let her go and work out getting back on her own, but then decides to hire her for the night, but not for prostitution. In the morning he decides to hire her as an escort for the week he is in town. She is not used to his lifestyle and makes mistakes, like not knowing when to use the correct fork at dinner. The money she asks from him seems like a huge amount to her and she even tells him that he could probably not afford it; she doesn’t realize that to him money is not at all an issue. He even gives her his credit card to buy nicer clothes. She is treated poorly by the people who work in the nice stores on Rodeo Drive because of her appearance.
***********************Spoilers******************************
Vivian manages to mesmerize most of the members of Edward’s upper class world. She even manages to mesmerize Edward, but she wants love from him, not just the occasional paid get together when he is in town. Vivian is treated very badly by Edward’s lawyer and friend when he finds out that she is a prostitute. However, Edward gets really mad at him for this and not treating her right. In the end, Edward realizes that he has fallen for Vivian. She has already decided that she is moving and does not want to be a prostitute anymore when he comes driving up to her apartment. This was the movie that I watched that dealt the least with poverty, but it did show the differences in the worlds of the rich and those of the poor.
A Raisin in the Sun (2008)
A Raisin in the Sun does a good job showing an African American family’s struggle with poverty in the 1950’s. The family lives in an apartment that is not very nice and doesn’t enough room for them. They share a bathroom with two floors of people and the little boy has to sleep on the couch in the living room. They do not have a lot of money, but, in the beginning of the story, they are about to get a check in the mail. They are getting the check because it is an insurance check because Lena Younger’s husband died. The dreams of his children depend on this check. Walter Younger wants the money so that he can start a liquor business with his friends. Beneatha Younger wants to be a doctor and the only way they can pay for her schooling is by giving her some of the money. Ruth, Walter’s wife, is going to have a baby, but they do not have the money for a second child in the family and they have no room left in their little apartment. Walter is not caring toward Ruth anymore and doesn’t seem to care about the child and Ruth decides to have an abortion.
The family also has to deal with racism. Lena goes to the market to buy groceries and gets treated badly.
****************************Spoilers************************
With the money that they received Lena goes out and buys a house. She bought the house in an area that has no black people and a white man comes to their house and says that he will pay them a lot of money to not move into their new house. Most of the movie Walter has been fighting his family for the money so that he can invest in his liquor store and eventually Lena decides to let him have the rest of the money, the part that she did not spend on the house. He does not spend any of it wisely. He does not set any aside for his son’s education, but spends it all on his liquor store investment and the man heading up the investment runs away with the money. However, they still move into the neighborhood and into their new house, the house that they are very happy about. So, while the movie has a sad ending because they lose the money, it ends on a happy note, the family moving out of what they feel causes misery and into a better home.
The family also has to deal with racism. Lena goes to the market to buy groceries and gets treated badly.
****************************Spoilers************************
With the money that they received Lena goes out and buys a house. She bought the house in an area that has no black people and a white man comes to their house and says that he will pay them a lot of money to not move into their new house. Most of the movie Walter has been fighting his family for the money so that he can invest in his liquor store and eventually Lena decides to let him have the rest of the money, the part that she did not spend on the house. He does not spend any of it wisely. He does not set any aside for his son’s education, but spends it all on his liquor store investment and the man heading up the investment runs away with the money. However, they still move into the neighborhood and into their new house, the house that they are very happy about. So, while the movie has a sad ending because they lose the money, it ends on a happy note, the family moving out of what they feel causes misery and into a better home.
Ballet Shoes
“DREAMS DO COME TRUE…
“We three Fossils vow to put our name in the history books, because it is ours, and ours alone…” With these words, three orphans, raised as sisters, embark on an exhilarating journey that takes them to the heights of the stage, screen and sky.
Pauline (Watson), Petrova (Yasmin Paige) and Posy Fossil (Lucy Boynton) are adopted as infants by eccentric explorer Professor Matthew Brown (Richard Griffiths), whom they affectionately call Great Uncle Matthew (or “Gum” for short). When “Gum” goes missing, his niece Sylvia (Emilia Fox) keeps the family together by taking in lodgers and eventually enrolls the girls in the Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training. This suits the ambitious Pauline, who longs to act, and Posy, a natural dancer, but Petrova, who yearns to become an aviator, has her own dreams of soaring the skies. The girls’ lives in show business are filled with triumphs and lessons learned until “Gum’s” surprise return provides the perfect happy ending for them all.”[1]
Ballet Shoes focuses on the fact that “dreams do come true.” However, this movie also deals with poverty. The movie quickly sets up the plot. A young girl, Sylvia, and her nurse go to Professor Matthew Brown because he is the girl’s last surviving relative and he reluctantly, at first, lets them live with him. The professor, known as Gum, leaves for years and brings back a baby whose parents have died. He then quickly leaves again and when he gets back he has another baby. Once again he quickly leaves, but this time he doesn’t come back and sends a third baby. Gum does not come back and eventually, as the children grow older, they run out of money. They are pulled out of school and have to rent rooms in their house to get money. The girls get enrolled in Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training because the head of the school will take in the girls if she gets part of their salary when they start working. Pauline gets a role immediately, when she starts to work, and can help the family out with some of their money problems, but Sylvia is getting sick. She has a bad cough and cannot afford to rest and to take care of it. She does go to see a specialist, but she needs more than that. She insists on hiding this from the girls and tries to hide the fact that they are poor, as well. Petrova is the next oldest and she also gets a job because there is no one else trying out for the role, she is not as talented as her sisters and does not care. Petrova just wants to earn money so that Sylvia can have a holiday and rest to take care of her cough. Posy, the youngest, gets to train with the head of the school, an honor.
The girls want to help out in any way they can because they know they are poor. They have to be taken out of school to be home schooled because they cannot afford to pay. When they get into the new school, they do not have the money to buy new dresses to audition in when it is time to work. There is the constant worry over Sylvia’s health and weather they have the money to help her. The family relies on the girl’s paychecks and the money they get from the boarders to get everything.
*******************Warning: Spoilers***********************
The big trouble all start on Christmas when Sylvia reveals to Patrova that they cannot afford to keep the house. Gum has been declared legally dead and there is no money left. Pauline gets a part in a movie, which is good, but the head of the school has a stroke and this upsets Posy a lot because she can no longer finish her training. While the family is at the premiere of the movie Posy runs away to try and get the professional ballet to accept her and train her. The family does not know where she has gone and is in a panic. However, when she arrives home she has great news. The ballet wants her to train in! However, the family does not have the money for this, but Pauline has been asked to sign a five year contract to act in Hollywood, so she accepts it and Posy will get to go. Nanny can go with Posy and Sylvia can go with Pauline to California, and this will greatly help her health. Everyone seems to be happy, but wait, what about Patrova? All she wants to do is fly planes, where will she go? She can stay right there because all of a sudden Gum, who is not dead, walks through the door and he knows how to fly planes. Sylvia is then proposed to by one of the boarders and they all go to the wedding, except Patrova and Gum who later fly above in a plane. It is a very happy ending and they all get to live their dreams.
This is not very realistic; many people in poverty do not get the chances that they get in the movie. However, the movie is about dreams and not poverty. It does do a good job at showing some of the everyday struggles of people who are living in poverty. They cannot afford schooling or medical care. They cannot always afford to buy new clothes and often live paycheck to paycheck. While this movie has a too happy ending, it also can show some struggles that many people in poverty face. At one point Sylvia says, “The world isn’t kind to girls who can’t support themselves.” She has seen that not many people really care about them and that they have to take care of themselves. Someone should have helped them, if it were not for Gum coming back at the end; these girls would have lost their home and everything.
[1] http://www.balletshoesdvd.com/info.htm
“We three Fossils vow to put our name in the history books, because it is ours, and ours alone…” With these words, three orphans, raised as sisters, embark on an exhilarating journey that takes them to the heights of the stage, screen and sky.
Pauline (Watson), Petrova (Yasmin Paige) and Posy Fossil (Lucy Boynton) are adopted as infants by eccentric explorer Professor Matthew Brown (Richard Griffiths), whom they affectionately call Great Uncle Matthew (or “Gum” for short). When “Gum” goes missing, his niece Sylvia (Emilia Fox) keeps the family together by taking in lodgers and eventually enrolls the girls in the Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training. This suits the ambitious Pauline, who longs to act, and Posy, a natural dancer, but Petrova, who yearns to become an aviator, has her own dreams of soaring the skies. The girls’ lives in show business are filled with triumphs and lessons learned until “Gum’s” surprise return provides the perfect happy ending for them all.”[1]
Ballet Shoes focuses on the fact that “dreams do come true.” However, this movie also deals with poverty. The movie quickly sets up the plot. A young girl, Sylvia, and her nurse go to Professor Matthew Brown because he is the girl’s last surviving relative and he reluctantly, at first, lets them live with him. The professor, known as Gum, leaves for years and brings back a baby whose parents have died. He then quickly leaves again and when he gets back he has another baby. Once again he quickly leaves, but this time he doesn’t come back and sends a third baby. Gum does not come back and eventually, as the children grow older, they run out of money. They are pulled out of school and have to rent rooms in their house to get money. The girls get enrolled in Children's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training because the head of the school will take in the girls if she gets part of their salary when they start working. Pauline gets a role immediately, when she starts to work, and can help the family out with some of their money problems, but Sylvia is getting sick. She has a bad cough and cannot afford to rest and to take care of it. She does go to see a specialist, but she needs more than that. She insists on hiding this from the girls and tries to hide the fact that they are poor, as well. Petrova is the next oldest and she also gets a job because there is no one else trying out for the role, she is not as talented as her sisters and does not care. Petrova just wants to earn money so that Sylvia can have a holiday and rest to take care of her cough. Posy, the youngest, gets to train with the head of the school, an honor.
The girls want to help out in any way they can because they know they are poor. They have to be taken out of school to be home schooled because they cannot afford to pay. When they get into the new school, they do not have the money to buy new dresses to audition in when it is time to work. There is the constant worry over Sylvia’s health and weather they have the money to help her. The family relies on the girl’s paychecks and the money they get from the boarders to get everything.
*******************Warning: Spoilers***********************
The big trouble all start on Christmas when Sylvia reveals to Patrova that they cannot afford to keep the house. Gum has been declared legally dead and there is no money left. Pauline gets a part in a movie, which is good, but the head of the school has a stroke and this upsets Posy a lot because she can no longer finish her training. While the family is at the premiere of the movie Posy runs away to try and get the professional ballet to accept her and train her. The family does not know where she has gone and is in a panic. However, when she arrives home she has great news. The ballet wants her to train in! However, the family does not have the money for this, but Pauline has been asked to sign a five year contract to act in Hollywood, so she accepts it and Posy will get to go. Nanny can go with Posy and Sylvia can go with Pauline to California, and this will greatly help her health. Everyone seems to be happy, but wait, what about Patrova? All she wants to do is fly planes, where will she go? She can stay right there because all of a sudden Gum, who is not dead, walks through the door and he knows how to fly planes. Sylvia is then proposed to by one of the boarders and they all go to the wedding, except Patrova and Gum who later fly above in a plane. It is a very happy ending and they all get to live their dreams.
This is not very realistic; many people in poverty do not get the chances that they get in the movie. However, the movie is about dreams and not poverty. It does do a good job at showing some of the everyday struggles of people who are living in poverty. They cannot afford schooling or medical care. They cannot always afford to buy new clothes and often live paycheck to paycheck. While this movie has a too happy ending, it also can show some struggles that many people in poverty face. At one point Sylvia says, “The world isn’t kind to girls who can’t support themselves.” She has seen that not many people really care about them and that they have to take care of themselves. Someone should have helped them, if it were not for Gum coming back at the end; these girls would have lost their home and everything.
[1] http://www.balletshoesdvd.com/info.htm
Rent
Rent is a musical that is about people living in poverty in the city. They struggle with drugs, paying rent, and AIDS. A group of friends form a strong bond and keep each other going and alive. The people who are wealthy and own the buildings were not lenient on those who could not pay their rents and just kicked people out. They did not care about the person, they just wanted their money. Drugs were a problem in the movie, as they are in today’s world. A young girl, Mimi struggles with drugs through the whole movie; she tries to stop a few times, but keeps going back to them. She is in a relationship with someone, Roger, who had struggled with drugs and each time she goes back to them he leaves her. There is an AIDS group that meets in the movie and a few of them die. The friends meet with the AIDS group, even though they do not all have AIDS. The group gets through their hard lives together and depends on each other.
****************************Spoilers**************************
After one of the friends, Angel, dies of AIDS the group seems to be breaking up. Roger leaves all together and leaves Mimi to battle drugs alone. One of the friends has a job now filming news stories and is making money. However, they are all still battling with poverty. In the end, Roger comes back only to find that Mimi is missing. All of the friends get together again to search for her and they eventually find her in a park. She is dying from a drug overdose. Roger sings a song for her and tells her that he loves her, but she dies. They are all devastated, but then she comes back and says that she followed the light and saw Angel who told her to listen to song and that she shouldn’t leave him. The friend who got a job filming news stories has been working on a documentary about poverty the whole time and he has finished it and they all watch it.
****************************Spoilers**************************
After one of the friends, Angel, dies of AIDS the group seems to be breaking up. Roger leaves all together and leaves Mimi to battle drugs alone. One of the friends has a job now filming news stories and is making money. However, they are all still battling with poverty. In the end, Roger comes back only to find that Mimi is missing. All of the friends get together again to search for her and they eventually find her in a park. She is dying from a drug overdose. Roger sings a song for her and tells her that he loves her, but she dies. They are all devastated, but then she comes back and says that she followed the light and saw Angel who told her to listen to song and that she shouldn’t leave him. The friend who got a job filming news stories has been working on a documentary about poverty the whole time and he has finished it and they all watch it.
Slumdog Millionaire
“Today is the biggest day in Jamal Malik’s life.
A penniless, eighteen year old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, he’s one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” But when the show breaks for the night, suddenly, he is arrested for cheating. After all, how could an uneducated street kid possibly know so much? Determined to get to the bottom of Jamal’s story, the jaded Police Inspector spends the night probing Jamal’s incredible past, from his riveting tales of the slums where he and his brother Salim survived by their wits to his hair-raising encounters with his local gangs to his heartbreak over Latika, the unforgettable girl he loved and lost.
Each chapter of Jamal’s increasingly layered story reveal where he learned the answers to the show’s seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really doing on the game show?
When the next day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out…”[1]
This movie does a great job of showing the viewer what life is like in India for those in the slums. It gives a gruesome, but realistic view of what poverty in India is like. Jamal is being investigated and each question he knows the answer to on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” goes back to things he experienced as a child in the slums. It was very creative the way these two were woven together. I was not aware that life could be so hard for people in the slums of India and this movie shed light on the hardships impoverished people face, especially in the slums of India. This movie has been criticized for not being realistic enough; there is no way that a boy from the slums would get on this show. However, I feel that the movie does point this fact out, that Jamal is very lucky. Just the fact that Jamal knew certain answers because they happened to be connected with his past is lucky, but the movie connects this with fate. Even throughout the movie he was very lucky in other ways as well, he seemed to just be in the right place at the right time at some times.
******************Warning: Spoilers*************************
This movie shows such sad details about life in the slums not many people will leave the theater with a happy feeling, even though the ending is very happy. Jamal’s whole reason for going on the show is to find his love Latika. Through a series of events they find each other and in the end everyone in the cast dances an Indian dance. Throughout this movie Jamal and Salim find people that are willing to help them.
At one point Jamal shows Americans the real India and a cop finds him starts to beat him. He tells the Americans, “You wanted to see the real India, well here it is.” The Americans make the cop stop and give Jamal money and tell him that that is really American help. It would be great if all Americans would stop and help those who are homeless all around them and be so considerate to those who are living in poverty all over the world and more Americans should stop worrying about themselves and help others.
[1] http://www.foxsearchlight.com/slumdogmillionaire/
A penniless, eighteen year old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, he’s one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” But when the show breaks for the night, suddenly, he is arrested for cheating. After all, how could an uneducated street kid possibly know so much? Determined to get to the bottom of Jamal’s story, the jaded Police Inspector spends the night probing Jamal’s incredible past, from his riveting tales of the slums where he and his brother Salim survived by their wits to his hair-raising encounters with his local gangs to his heartbreak over Latika, the unforgettable girl he loved and lost.
Each chapter of Jamal’s increasingly layered story reveal where he learned the answers to the show’s seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really doing on the game show?
When the next day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out…”[1]
This movie does a great job of showing the viewer what life is like in India for those in the slums. It gives a gruesome, but realistic view of what poverty in India is like. Jamal is being investigated and each question he knows the answer to on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” goes back to things he experienced as a child in the slums. It was very creative the way these two were woven together. I was not aware that life could be so hard for people in the slums of India and this movie shed light on the hardships impoverished people face, especially in the slums of India. This movie has been criticized for not being realistic enough; there is no way that a boy from the slums would get on this show. However, I feel that the movie does point this fact out, that Jamal is very lucky. Just the fact that Jamal knew certain answers because they happened to be connected with his past is lucky, but the movie connects this with fate. Even throughout the movie he was very lucky in other ways as well, he seemed to just be in the right place at the right time at some times.
******************Warning: Spoilers*************************
This movie shows such sad details about life in the slums not many people will leave the theater with a happy feeling, even though the ending is very happy. Jamal’s whole reason for going on the show is to find his love Latika. Through a series of events they find each other and in the end everyone in the cast dances an Indian dance. Throughout this movie Jamal and Salim find people that are willing to help them.
At one point Jamal shows Americans the real India and a cop finds him starts to beat him. He tells the Americans, “You wanted to see the real India, well here it is.” The Americans make the cop stop and give Jamal money and tell him that that is really American help. It would be great if all Americans would stop and help those who are homeless all around them and be so considerate to those who are living in poverty all over the world and more Americans should stop worrying about themselves and help others.
[1] http://www.foxsearchlight.com/slumdogmillionaire/
The Bicycle Thief
The Bicycle Thief starts by showing the poverty and the need for jobs. A large group of men who are out of work are standing around a man who is giving certain men jobs that they can do. However, the men tell him that they would be willing to do anything to get work. Antonio Ricci is the person who gets a job, hanging posters around the city. This requires a bicycle that he says he can get. It turns out that he had just sold his bicycle to get enough food to feed his family. They are living in poverty and are doing everything they can just to get enough food because Antonio is not working. Antonio’s wife goes around the house and takes all the sheets off the beds and they sell those to get money to buy another bike. The movie shows how many people are trying to sell whatever they own to get what money they can. There are huge piles of sheets and there are rows of bikes. Antonio gets the bike and therefore gets a job. However, almost immediately after starting to hang posters he has his bike stolen. Antonio’s life and work depended on a bicycle. Once it is stolen he can no longer work. They spend most of the movie trying to find the bicycle. He goes to the police, but they do not do much to help him, they just say that if he finds it himself they will have proof that it was stolen. Antonio does not seem to know how to deal with the loss of his bike and job. He knows that this will keep him in poverty. At one point he says, “You live and suffer to hell with it.” He seems that eventually he doesn’t care at all and takes his son to an expensive restaurant. However, while sitting there he again realizes how much he needs this job. Not many people try too hard to help Antonio. Throughout the movie it seems that people are doing whatever they can to get just enough.
**************************Spoilers**************************
The father and son fail to find the bike and Antonio feels completely helpless. He tries to send his son home ahead of him and then goes to steal a bike. He sees no other way to survive than to steal another person’s bike, but he gets caught. The man who owns the bike seems to see this man’s trouble and doesn’t take him to jail. The end of the movie shows just how hard it is to get out of the poverty. Antonio and his son walk home with no bike and the son looks at the father as if to say not only “I am disappointed in you”, but also this act makes the son realize that they do not have a way out and looks at his father as if to say “What do we do now.” What do we do know? It is probably a question people who are in poverty ask sometimes. Many people could have helped Antonio get a bike, but they do not. People who see this movie should want to help those who are in poverty and just need a bike.
**************************Spoilers**************************
The father and son fail to find the bike and Antonio feels completely helpless. He tries to send his son home ahead of him and then goes to steal a bike. He sees no other way to survive than to steal another person’s bike, but he gets caught. The man who owns the bike seems to see this man’s trouble and doesn’t take him to jail. The end of the movie shows just how hard it is to get out of the poverty. Antonio and his son walk home with no bike and the son looks at the father as if to say not only “I am disappointed in you”, but also this act makes the son realize that they do not have a way out and looks at his father as if to say “What do we do now.” What do we do know? It is probably a question people who are in poverty ask sometimes. Many people could have helped Antonio get a bike, but they do not. People who see this movie should want to help those who are in poverty and just need a bike.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
