Analysis American culture value through the film The Pursuit of Happiness The reason why the Hollywood films are popular, besides its wonderful plots, the characters in the films could always reflect the special American cultural values to audiences. The American spirit such as individualism, heroism, religious and pursuit of freedom are all reflect in the Hollywood films. However, the American dream is a unique American culture and has inspired many Americans to rely on personal struggle to make their dreams come true. Films from different culture have their different cultural values, in turn, the different cultures have reflect and strengthen their own culture values in their films, so that audiences could get to know the mainstream American culture values from Hollywood films. Hollywood as the largest American film media has created many motivation films to express the importance values of American dreams to the world. The film The Pursuit of Happiness (2006) by Gabriele Muccino is a very classical Hollywood biographical film which is based on Chris Gardner’s life story. The film talks about how a homeless man success from the hardship and finally became a famous investment expert through his struggle step by step. The narrative of the main character Chris’s story refers to the key aspect of American Dream which is the equity opportunity of everyone in the society. It has showed the thought that happiness will come to everyone as long as we do not give up and make unremitting endeavor to our dreams. Moreover, the film has represented the special personality trait, religion culture, and the social history of American to the audiences. Culture is not only a social phenomenon, but also a historical phenomenon. The components of culture include beliefs, values, customs, and knowledge. Moreover, culture also serves as a guide to people’s behavior. The American Dream refers to the pursuit of wealth, freedom and equality of opportunity, which is trying to make people believe that everyone has the right to enjoy the equal opportunity in United States and there is no priority for anyone. No matter what kind of skin color and poverty of this person, he could become success as long as he works hard to achieve. The American Dream was origin from seventeen century, when the England first came to United States; they have changed the land to a heaven that could make all dreams become possible. And later on, these thoughts were written into The Declaration of Independence in order to ensure the realization of the democracy and freedom in the country. For Americans, the freedom and equity have already become a way of life and institution, and there are many history stories of how a famous people success in their life. For examples, Theodore Roosevelt, even he has disability but also become the president of the United States through his personal efforts; the stories about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
In the film, the Americans’ frank, sincere, warm, and self-confidence could reflect from the film character, Chris. He is a positive self-motivated person that never complains about life and put all his efforts to get rid of adversity. In the film, his wife left him because of his poverty, he always got rejected from his customers so that he could not get incomes for his rental; he brings his son to the church for shelter but fail, so they have to stay at the subway station’s restroom for overnight, he never gives up. Beside from that, Chris also use his own experiences to educate his son, there are many motivated dialogues between his son and him. For examples, he said to his son that “You have a dream, you got to protect it” “Don’t ever let somebody tell you, you can’t do something. Not even me” “People can’t do something themselves, they want to tell you can’t do it” (2006). These dialogues make the film feel more inspire to audiences and also show the unique culture of America which is never give up the dreams. Chris shows his optimistic, perseverance, and persistence in the film and this is perfectly deduce the individualism of American. The key meaning of individualism is to believe that everyone has their own value and should pay attention to self-control and self-development. One of the characteristic of Americans is that they are admired and trust to individual struggle, which means they rely on themselves to realize self-values. There is a scene in the film that when Chris sent his son to a Chinese nursery, he saw the misspelled of “Happiness,” which was “Happyness” on the door; he said to his son “There is no Y in happiness, there is I” (2006). This is what the film trying to tell the audiences that happiness should create by our own and with no reason. It is very interesting to use such a scene to express the film theme of pursuing happiness. To Americans, pursuing happiness is the goal in people’s life. The film title The Pursuit of Happiness was come from The Declaration of Independence, which has the principle of “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” (US Declaration Ind.) Chris was doubted about the principles in The Declaration in the film, as he ran into lots of despairing situations. He thought that “Maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue; maybe we can actually never have it” (2006). Nevertheless, he was success to get his job because of his perseverance and endeavor at the end of the film. The American’s religion culture also reflects in the film, audiences could see that religion is the pillar of their spiritual life. For instance, there is a scene in the film that Chris brought his son to the hospice choir when he felt exhausted from work and life. People in different ages and skin colors were hymned together in the church to temporarily forget their pains. The anthem lyrics in the film “Lord, don’t move that mountain; give me strength to climb it. Please don’t move that stumbling block, but lead me. Lord, around it, my burdens, they get so heavy, seems hard to bear, but I won’t give up. No, no. Because you promised me, you’d meet me at the altar of prayer. Lord, don’t move that mountain. Please don’t move that mountain, but give me strength to climb it” (2006) is just like a hammer on the audience’s heart that sufferings in life are going to make people stronger. After the choir, the scene follow Chris gradually calm down and his son fell asleep quietly, it was showing the power of the religion to audiences. In America, religion, especially Christian, has large influence on their belief, attitude and behavior; it can control the American’s political, cultural and family life. The components of traditional values such as equality, freedom, love and help each other, sympathy for the weak, be self-respect, and also respect for others are all come from their religious faith. It could be seen that Christian is not only a kind of belief; but also a kind of culture, way of life, ethics, and values among the society. Actually, the film also shows the American social reality such as poverty and colds between people to audiences. For instance, when Chris jumped out of the taxi in order to escape the 18 dollar fees, the scene that so many people line for the shuttle in front of the church every day and the time when Chris went to sell his blood for living. On contrast, the film has also described the luxury life of the rich. They live in the high class villa and driving luxury sport car, and watching the sport games in the exclusive VIP room. It is very vividly to reflect the serious gap between the rich and the poor in today’s American society. Moreover, the relationship among the people has become more and more indifference in the society. Such as Chris’s friend ask him to repay him 14 dollar when Chris was suffering the most difficult period; due to Chris could not sell out his instrument and does not have money to pay the rent, the landlord evicted Chris and his son from the rental room in a cold winter night. These facts are showing to audiences that the American dream has already begun to distort, and have become a phenomenon that people are willing to abandon everything in order to get more money for them. As an ideological significance film can inspire young people to constantly struggle towards to make their dreams come true. However, The Pursuit of Happiness also reflects the process of chasing the American Dream is becoming more and more difficult nowadays. For most of the people in American, the American Dream is gradually break in reality. In modern American society, in order to realize their American Dream, except for the intelligence, diligence and perseverance, the extraordinary personality characteristics, the knowledge of a certain field talent, and know how to catch the right opportunity are also become a requirement. Just like Chris, he was born in poverty and with only high school degree, which puts him into a very disadvantage situation in the competition of his job. If he did not catch the good opportunity, he could not even get the chance to interview.

References
Muccino, G. (Director), & Smith, W., Black, T., Blumenthal, J., Lassiter, J., Tisch, S. (Producer). (2006). The pursuit of happiness[DVD]. United States: Relativity Media, Overbrook Entertainment, Escape Artists.
The Declaration of Independence. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://archives.gov/exhibits/
charters/declaration_transcript.html