Many people would ask what makes African American psychology unique? Well about many perspectives African American psychology is designed and organized just like any other study thoughts. What might make it unique perhaps are the experiences of black people. Many movies and literary texts will often bring out a black American life as one full of struggle and passion. In many occurrences, the struggle and passion are what influences all the other concepts of a black American life. This essay is a review of Tyler Perry’s film Good Deeds as a perfect film that depicts African American psychology.
African Americans have gone through a lot of experiences much of which have influenced African American psychology. They are characterized by having distinctive thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, experiences feelings, interactions, and attitudes. The uniqueness of African American life is what has influenced the development of many theories in black psychology. While many psychologists will argue that several concepts and theories that are used in African American psychology can be used to study the psychology of all humans, Afrocentric scholars insist of the theories only applying to Africans.
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Good deed is a perfect movie that reveals the struggles and passion of African American people. It reveals passion has what drives African American to struggle. The movie perfects depict the life of middle life African Americans and the low life African American. A perfect depiction of passion is that of a single mother struggling almost homeless to bring up her beautiful daughter. This particular woman in the movie is called Lindsey, and she works on the support staff of Wesley‘s business. While Wesley is a middle life businessman, who seems to be living just a perfect life he is unhappy but not as unhappy as Lyndsey, a single mother with no home who can barely feed herself. When the two come into contact, the scene is priceless, eliciting confusion, a combination of anger and surprise and hope. We hope that Wesley will help Lindsey, when Wesley talks to Lyndsey in rather caring but harsh manner, we get angry because he doesn’t know the kind of life she’s leading. We are then surprised that the middle life seems unaware of what is happening around them.
Lyndsey says that she’s living the real life while people like Wesley don’t even know the price of milk. Her character is characterized by rudeness nastiness and being abusive towards everyone. Anyone upon meeting her will judge her that way. But according to psychology behavior is sometimes influenced by what someone has gone through in life. Human beings always want to be satisfied, to feel wanted and relevant in the society. On the contrary, Lyndsey is not satisfied with her life, she is struggling to make her daughter happy, and her life looks like a big mess. She can never get the inner satisfaction with her life in chaos. She has channeled all her frustrations to anger towards everyone around her. On the other hand pleasure in life is not just material things but achieving happiness something that Wesley is struggling with. He lives a life dictated by his father and mother. His mother raised him to be a gentleman and his father a businessman, and that is all he is. Due to that, he has never had a chance to dictate his life; he lives a life he’s been chosen for. He later finds his happiness through giving.
The author of the story behind Good Deeds is trying to convey a message of giving and the passion that drives people to what they do. The central message of the film is that in life happiness is not all about how much you have but how much you are willing to share with other people. It is no doubt that the concept of giving in life has been preached by many and is, in fact, a culture of many. It is fulfilling to give, and it brings happiness to see other people happy because you made them happy. Making other people happy is not all about giving but also understanding why people behave the way they do. For instance, Lyndsey didn’t want to be an angry woman she is just a soft woman struggling to have a life. The film evokes emotion and anger that calls for action. Upon watching the films, one would feel like there would not be complete without having passion. One would think they do not know life because they have never struggled. It is like enlightenment where you get a glimpse of two types of battles, a struggle to live day by day and a pursuit of happiness.
Good deed is a good film where one can learn a life lesson or a psychological lesson. It sure depicts black psychology through the struggles of the characters in the film. In the file, we can see that African American struggle is not just for material things such as clothing and housing but for inner things which are abstract like happiness. Though Afrocentric scholars will say that this kind of psychology applies to blacks only, upon watching the film, you will bear witness that all humans indeed have struggles and everyone is looking for something. The film also perfectly depicts that African American behavior, thoughts, feelings and attitudes all bring out some of the struggle and is all passion driven.
Reference
Perry, T., Hall, P., Areu, O., Newton, T., White, B., Union, G., Rashad, P., ... Tyler Perry Studios (Firm). (2012). Tyler Perry's good Deeds . Santa Monica, Calif: Lions Gate Films.
