Relations of Power: The Pursuit of Happyness

Michael Foucault’s concept of power is interesting.  In Brenda Allen’s book, “Difference Matters”, she relays Foucault’s term, “Relations of power” (Allen, 2011, p.25).  This implies that power is derived through and defined by interpersonal networks.  Foucault further wrote that, “We define our relationships and how we should behave in relation to each other in terms of power differences and similarities” (p.25).  

  

Gabriele Muccino’s film, “The Pursuit of Happyness” was inspired by the life story of Christopher Gardner, a homeless single father whose intelligence, likability, and perseverance lead him to become a CEO at a prominent financial institution.  It was also these attributes that were the foundation of Gardner’s network that he builds throughout the movie.  This network becomes his “relations of power” which, ultimately, leads to his success story.  This powerful movie has many great quotes, of which one of my favorites is: “You got a dream, you gotta protect it.  People can't do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can't do it.  You want something?  Go get it.  Period” (Muccino, “The Pursuit of Happyness”).

Cited

Allen, B. (2011). Difference matters: Communicating social identity (2nd ed.). Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press.

The Pursuit of Happyness [Motion picture on DVD]. (2006). USA: Overbrook Entertainment.

Persepolis - The Search for Cultural Identity

In the movie Persepolis, a young Iranian girl manes Marji tells her life’s story about growing up in a very cosmopolitan family in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.  I feel that her story depicted her inner struggle to define her cultural identity.  Luckily, Marji’s family was very intellectual and allowed her to explore her own path in life.  While many of her fellow countrymen were being conditioned and programmed by a ruthless dictatorship, Marji found her own voice (unfortunately, this also got her into trouble several times throughout the film). 

The Islamic Party came into power and began systematically exterminating any opposition.  Sadly, even the women began to adopt the hegemonic ideals of female oppression.  Eventually, Marji’s parents sent her abroad to study in Vienna.  She had difficulty integrating into European culture, but never lost herself.  Ultimately, not being able to successfully assimilate into western the ethos, Marji returned to her home country where the years of war and oppression had changed both the landscape and the people that she once knew.  Marji felt like a strange in Austria…and now in her home country.

Xiao-Dong Dai wrote in his paper, Intercultural Personhood and Identity Negotiation, that identity is often dichotomized into both individual identity and collective identity.  “Cultural identity belongs to […] the collective identity.  It is the identification with a perceived acceptance into a group that has shared systems of symbols and meanings as well as norms/rules for conduct” (2009, p. 1).  Marji had great difficulty coming to terms with her own cultural identity, sometimes straying off of her path.  However, her faith and family were always her true north and guided her back to a path of open-mindedness.