Throughout the movie Joy, it was nearly impossible to not give the person next you a fist bump after every win she had. Her lack of experience in entrepreneurship created room for so many errors and mistakes that could have been avoided if she had prior experience. For instance, she took advice from anyone giving it and in return dealt bigger problems. The main lesson I took away from this movie was that having a team is great but not every member of the team will be rooting for you. In Joy's situation, she had a team with her sister, father and his girlfriend, ex-husband, and best friend. It was obvious that Joy's sister Peggy, was an opposing member. She was terrified of Joy becoming successful and leaving her behind, so she took the first opportunity she had to get involved with the company. She traveled as a "representative" to speak with their producer and the production firm took advantage of them. They convinced Peggy to agree to the price change that Joy would've never approved and then stole the patent. After getting bailed out, Joy had to file for bankruptcy. In addition, Joy's father would be her greatest supporter one day and then an adversary the next. When things were going good, he was a great team member, but the second things stopped he started telling her to quit. In one of the final scenes he apologized to her for making her think she was something more than than she was. Fortunately her friend and ex husband were there because the others would have rather seen her broke and falling apart.
I think the reason that Joy continued to keep these people around was because they all had something in common. They all held a similar opinion on the "market". Joy was born into a family of unsuccessful people where they all expected Joy to do the same (except the grandma). It was a cycle of low expectations which in a weird sense made the family so much closer. I believe that they looked at the market as unfair or one in a million and because of this they relied on each other so much. First, they all in one way or another depended on Joy's father's failing autobody shop. It payed for the mortgage on Joy's house and gave Peggy a source of income. The scene where Joy asked her father about the gun range deterring business was where I made my assumption. His response clearly showed that he cared so little about his business future that he wouldn't even call on an illegal gun range. Second, in the end when Joy had her breakdown and told her daughter that the world breaks your heart, I think that was her way of saying the market was unfair. Finally, once she got what she wanted out of that meeting at the hotel she said "I guess that's just business though".
I used the reading from chapter 1 when making these assumptions because it is obvious that so many people are "skeptical" of what we call the market. I'd be willing to bet that Joy's opinion on the market was completely different in the end of the movie. However, it is also likely that her family kept the same one.
Furthermore, I believe the aspect of hidden adversaries has a negative affect on society. I will use the movie to demonstrate: most of Joy's struggles came from her "team". In fact, one of the biggest things she had to overcome was her upbringing and the path she had to follow. She was never given a chance to branch out and pursue her passion and talents. Instead, she was forced to stick around to keep the family together and aid all of them when hard times hit. In our lives, there are several examples of how this is harmful to our society. One of my favorite examples is the rap industry because if you were to start streaming a famous American rap artist it is likely that you would hear about the artist making it by and for himself. For instance, in Drake's song "Thank Me Now", Drake had a famous line directed towards Kanye West saying "Your idols become your rivals". This is one of the many examples in the industry that not everybody wants you to win. Ultimately this aspect makes our society selfish and less likely to work together. As a result, we have fewer stories like Joy Mangano's. This brings me to my next point.
Society continues to support the idea that nobody wants you to win. Similar to music, when I am on social media it is very common to find a post that says something like "Do it for yourself, no-one else cares". When I see this stuff it makes me wonder what experience that individual had to come up with this outlook. I know that when I was in high school and hanging out with my friends and their parents they used to love to hear me talk about my wins and losses. Now, when I come back on holidays or on break, they despise to hear about my success in college. When they would ask how I've been doing, you could just see the disappointment in themselves when they realized I was accomplishing bigger things. So, now I make sure to just keep my victories to myself when talking to them.
In conclusion, the interaction between this aspect and society is extremely harmful for all parties. It puts entrepreneurs in a mindset that they can only count on themselves and that society wants them to fail. Although this can be used as motivation, when times get hard, this mindset can be very defeating. The truth is that there are some people who want you to win and you should use those people. Moreover, society should not envy or oppose the success of entrepreneurs because as we all know entrepreneurs make this country great. Referring back to what we discussed in class, entrepreneurship gives driven people the opportunity to create a better lifestyle for themselves and create more value for our society!
