Viewing in the Virtual Cloister: "The Pursuit of Happyness"

I ordered and watched the recent film, “The Pursuit of Happyness,” because a friend told me how much she had enjoyed the true story, how she thought this was the star’s, Will Smith, best role she had seen, and because it is set in our new home, San Francisco, with which I’ve already fallen in love.

The true story of a young African-American husband and father in San Francisco in the ‘80s, who is stuck in the grind of low-income employment, “The Pursuit of Happyness” shows real human nobility in the protagonist’s commitment to his son, his own dignity and self-worth, and his refusal to give up despite facing one set back after another.

I agree with my friend about Will Smith; his acting is assured, never overplayed, entirely believable. It also really is great to see the now-familiar cityscape as the setting of this film, especially Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, a place long-famous for its commitment to justice and social outreach.

But there are some overarching problems with this good film. The character is smart (he solves the Rubik’s Cube rapidly, impressing an HR man with an investment firm), and diligent, even indefatigable. With no critique of our economic system and the increasing gap between rich and poor in this country, the film becomes an unquestioning update of the Horatio Alger stories.

For those of us within the Christian Church, a move like “The Pursuit of Happyness” can encourage “band aid” behavior at best, and at worst a blaming attitude towards all the poor who don’t have the moral gumption and smarts to rise.

I’m writing this from St. Vincent’s Hostel in New Orleans, where we begin our pilgrimage to Taize’ from the Diocese of California. Katrina relief workers are here in this former orphanage, as well as the near-homeless.

The rebuilding work is necessary, but the most stunning thing I have heard from the Church since the disaster that was Katrina and the government’s failure has come from the Bishop of Louisiana, the Rt. Rev. Charles Jenkins.

I heard Bishop Jenkins say that he pledges himself to not only help rebuild New Orleans, but to rebuild it on a foundation of justice, questioning and challenging the structures that created the widespread, acute poverty the apocalypse of Katrina revealed.

It is a commitment like that, so needed, and so courageous, that needs to be formed and lifted up by our popular arts, in ways unlike the reductionist, misleading meta-story of “The Pursuit of Happyness.”