Hunting: Interpersonal Communication Concepts Good Will Hunting

¶ … Hunting: Interpersonal communication concepts

Good Will Hunting is the story of a working-class young man who possesses an extraordinary mathematical gift. Over the course of the film, Will must overcome practical and psychological barriers to be able to realize his true potential. He must review his self-concept as a 'blue-collar' guy and instead entertain the possibility that he deserves to attend an institution of higher learning. With the support and aid of a teacher, he becomes capable of doing so. Will must reevaluate his current self-conception, the social roles offered to him by his immediate environment, and find different sources of social comparison to model.

At the beginning of the film, Will makes a joke to his best friend Chuckie about beating up on some 'smart kids' for fun. Will does not see himself as a genius. He works as a janitor, and everything in his life -- from his friends to his family influences -- have pointed him in the direction of working with his hands, rather than his mind. For Will, doing physical work is 'real work,' particularly since intellectual activities have always come easily to him. He solves a complex problem on the chalkboard of an MIT classroom without effort, but because his math skills have never been valued, he does not see himself as special or worthy of aspiring to a university education. Only after his blue-collar friends become convinced of his unique genius and urge Will to move out of his neighborhood and seek a new life can Will begin to shift his self-conception. Pressures to change, just like pressures to conform, must come from without, not just within.

The film dramatizes how society creates certain social roles that we are all expected to perform. It is assumed that a janitor does not have a higher-level intelligence and that a mathematics professor could never have swept a floor in his life. In America, there is a tendency to assume that one 'deserves' one's occupation, but the film shows how psychological barriers and economic and social circumstances can cause us to find ourselves passively inhabiting social roles, and that role selection is not solely rooted in innate ability. The apparent social roles we are offered are highly influential in constructing ourselves and it can be difficult to question and challenge them because of the investment we make in them.

Being offered different venues of social comparison enable Will to finally decide to change his life. His therapist McGuire helps Will to understand that Will can still be true to his working-class roots while still moving on with his life. Before, Will thought he could either be soft and intellectual like the college boys he saw drinking in the bars and could easily beat up, or he could be hard, masculine, and anti-intellectual like his friends. Therapy gives Will a new source of exterior modeling which changes Will's internal life and resolves his social conflicts.