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SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
THE DESIGN SCHOOL
FOUNDATION IN NATURAL AND BUILT ENVIRONMENT
NAME: LAU WEI LING
STUDENT ID NO: 0315389
FILMS SELECTED: MOVIES BASED ON TRUE STORIES.
- THE GREAT DEBATERS
- THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS
WORD COUNT: 996
ENGLISH 2 (ENGL 0205)
WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: COMPARE – CONTRAST ESSAY
LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA
SUBMISSION DATE: 18th
APRIL 2014

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Prewriting
Thesis statement: The Great Debaters and the Pursuit of Happyness are similar in the
characteristics of the main characters, experiences of the main characters, storyline and
fictitious elements.
1. Characteristics of the main character.
o Brave and courage
o James accepted to go on the stage at 14 years old to debate when his
teammates insist him to.
 Dare to accept challenge.
o Chris never gives up on his dream to become a stockbroker and pursuit his
happiness in his point of view.
 Brave to encounter all the obstacles.
2. Experiences
o Bullying and Oppressing
o James is Negros that faces inequality at the era.
 Lynching, fight in the town.
o Chris was asked to do trifle things by an authority
 Move car, make coffee.
3. Storyline
o Improvement (Underdogs to Successful)
o James won the debating championship
 Black debating team won the White high rated team.
o Chris got a position in Dean Witter after the interns.
 Achieve his dream.
4. Fictitious elements
o Both have fictitious elements in the true stories
o Intensify the story and climax
o They did not debate with Harvard but the University of Southern
California.
 Harvard is well known at 21th century.
o Chris did not do any rubiks cube trick to impress Jay.
o Chris was paid by the company for internship training.
Conclusion: Both of the movies are inspiring and motivating even though they are
similar in the characteristics of the main characters, experiences of the main characters,
storyline and fictitious elements.

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The Great Debaters and the Pursuit of Happyness.
My friends used to say that I have a face of a stone. However, movies based on true
stories can always make my tears rolling in my eyes and emotions running high. Movies
based on true stories are movies that portray real life events. To my eyes, true story movies
are popular among the audiences as true story movies are believable to some extent.
Moreover, the true story movies have a better tendency to move the audiences’ hearts. For
instance, true stories are authentic and able to relate to the audiences’ real life. No doubt that
the truthful stories will always touches the deepest part of my soul. Often times that there are
true story movies that are related to historical facts and biographical story of a person. To
begin with, I had chosen two of the popular movies that based on true stories: “The Great
Debaters” and “The Pursuit of Happyness”. Both of the true stories measure some degree of
similarities when it comes to characteristic of the main character, protagonist’s experience,
storyline and fictitious elements.
Firstly, the characteristics of the main character, James and Chris are quite
comparable. Both of them illustrate the bravery attributions. When James is trusted to join the
championship debating competition, he accepts the situation and prepares himself although
Mr. Tolson would not allow his performance beforehand. James proved that he has the
courage to give a try to speak right on the biggest stage without any prior debating experience.
As for the other hand, Chris is brave to make choice for a better change of the future. He
dares to walk up and speak to Jay, a stockbroker in the story. Courageous he is to pursuit his
own happiness by making his way to dream and becomes a stockbroker. From the two
characters, it is obvious that they are brave to face problems and challenges in their life when
their life gives them lemons. Even they might fear, they will still hold on to their dreams and
work out the solutions

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To continue with, I found that the main protagonist also have similar experiences in
the true stories which are bullying and oppressing. The protagonists of the Great Debaters
belong to black people that were not admitted admission to the state universities in America
as the universities were considered as white university. Besides that, they are also threatens
by lynching of a black people in the film due racism issue at that era. Moreover, the New
York Times (2007) said that the victory of Wiley team is not officially acknowledge even
they win the national championship. The reason behind this happening is because the debate
team consists of members which are Negros. Inequality was experienced by the group of
people in the era. While for the Pursuit of Happyness, Chris, as the only black among the
interns, is always directed by a senior worker in Dean Witter that uses his authority to help
him with some personal trifle. For example, even when Chris trying to refuse, Freagus still
insists Chris to park his car. From here, we can notice that they had unfair experiences
happening on them. Whether bullying or oppressing, both of them have similar experiences
in the movie.
Thirdly, I could tell that both of the movies based on true stories have similar
storyline in comparison. They have alike story developing that perceive the fact that two
main characters are underdogs that overcome the odds in their life. The storyline of the Great
Debaters starts with James is innocent and unclear about the status of Negros. Then, when
James witnesses a fight broke out in the town cause by racism, he do not know how to react.
On the contrary, he can speak and debate for himself, his kind and injustice at the end of the
film. On the other side, Christopher is a salesman that is almost broke from the starting of the
story. He is shown as a person who can’t even pay for a parking ticket. However, he
eventually works out his way to become a successful stockbroker and live with his son
happily-ever-after. From here, it is clear in mind that both characters begin to gain maturity

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and grew to become a successful person to overcome the highs and lows independently in
their life.
Besides that, the scriptwriters of the movies also added fictitious elements to both of
the movies to enhance watching experiences. The daughter of Hamilton Boswell (2008, p.1),
who was a former debater in Wiley College, reveals that there’s some distortion on the story.
The Wiley College did won the debating championship against a prestigious university
debating team but unfortunately it is not Harvard, it was the University of Southern
California. On the other hand, Chris in the Pursuit of Happyness is described in the movie as
a person working with internship without any pay. In contrast, Chris was paid $1,000 a month
by Dean Witter in real life (Questioning the story, 2014, p. 4). Both of the fictional elements
were added to intensify the toughness of problems in their life journey of the two protagonists.
Therefore, the stories are much better with fictions in the plot to move the audiences.
As a conclusion, the Pursuit of Happyness and the Great Debaters are similar in the
characteristics of the main character, protagonists’ experiences, storyline and fictitious
elements. Even the two movies are similar in some aspects, they are both remarkable stories
that will open my eyes wide. Movies based on true stories are motivating and always concern
our real life. I like the both of the movies as they taught me important values. For instance,
the two movies inspire me to be more determined to achieve the goals in my life. Great
movies are the movies that could bring resonance with the audiences and further influence
them to be a better person. I do believe that I have a lot to learn when I watch movies based
on true stories.

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References
Beil, L. (2007, December 5). For Struggling Black College, Hopes of Revival. The New York
Times. Retrieved from:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/education/05wiley.html?_r=1&
Boswell, E. (2008, January 5). 'The Great Debaters': Why Wasn't History Good Enough? The
Globe Newspaper. Retrieved from:
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=bd4739cf29b29cb
13e297967e8a97a95
Hales, L. (2008, February 1). ‘The Great Debaters’: Challenging racism then & now.
Retrieved April 7, 2014, from Workers World website:
http://www.workers.org/2008/us/the_great_debaters_0207/
Questioning the story. (2014) Retrieved April 14, 2014, from Chasing the Frog website:
http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/pursuitofhappyness.php