Emily Dolegowski

Mr. Phillips
Honors Cultural Media Literacy
22 May 2016
Dolegowski 1
The Obliteration of Working Class Stereotypes in Good Will Hunting
The film Good Will Hunting, directed by Gus Van Sant, tells the story of a young,
working class man named Will Hunting. It follows his life as a janitor at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, where he eventually discovers he is more than just a janitor; he is a
complete genius. However, in order for him to learn to use the gifts of his genius he must first
overcome his dark past and the inner demons that haunt him, and therefore the film follows his
journey through therapy. In modern society, the working class tends to receive blame for their
less fortunate circumstance; blue collar folks are stereotyped as unintelligent and indolent, and
there is a notion that if only they worked a little harder and some wit, they would quickly rise
through the ranks of the socioeconomic ladder. However, in the film Good Will Hunting, such
ideas are challenged. Through the development of Huntings friends, the acknowledgement of
the gap between socioeconomic classes, the characterization of Will Hunting, and the thought
provoking conversations Hunting has with his therapist, Van Sant manages to completely
obliterate the stereotypes that characterize the working class as lazy and unintelligent.
In his time outside of working as a janitor, Hunting hangs out with his fellow blue collar
buddies, whose struggles to rise on the socioeconomic ladder are apparent, despite their hard
work. They come from an impoverished part of town, and unlike the young Harvard and MIT
students who surround them, they are shown as not having been able to better their economic
status because they have not had educational opportunities to better themselves (Smusick).
The cycle that the young men have become trapped in is extremely apparent to them; when
Hunting is presented with the opportunity to truly make something of himself, his best friend,
Chuckie, refers to this opportunity as a lottery ticket, a metaphor that shows that Chuckie sees

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breaking out of the working class cycle as a near impossibility. Furthermore, the film explores
the tension in society that can be found between the working class and the upper class, a daring
move that is seldom explored in media. There are two economic cultures that are depicted
throughout Good Will Hunting. The two economic cultures are wealthy, educated citizens (e.g.,
Lambeau) and poor, working class citizens (e.g., Hunting). Throughout history there have
always been differences in social classes, but in recent years the gap between high-class
citizens and low-class citizens has been growing drastically (Smusick). The films
acknowledgement of the idea that the United States is not a classless nation works to further
expose the struggles of rising up the socioeconomic ladder; if the society was truly classless,
upward mobility would be a matter of just working to move across a spectrum, not a nearly
impossible attempt to jump from rung to rung. Through the development of Huntings best
friends as characters and the acknowledgement of the gap between social classes, Van Sant
shows that due to unequal opportunity and the near impossibility of upward mobility, hard work
is not enough to break out of the working class.
Will Huntings character alone makes a statement that shatters the stereotype of working
class citizens being unintelligent. In the film, Professor Lambeau, who works at MIT, writes
challenging proofs on the board outside of his classroom for his students. Hunting discreetly
solves these problems, however on one occasion he is caught doing so. Soon after, Hunting is
incarcerated for fighting, and he is released on the conditions that he meets with Lambeau to
practice his math skills and that he attends therapy. It quickly becomes apparent that Hunting
can easily beat the best mathematics professors on the faculty; he is able to solve proofs in
mere minutes that took professors years to solve (Leeper). Throughout the movie, Hunting
continues to be characterized as an avid reader with a photographic mind, however, he has far
more book knowledge in math, history, politics, art and literature than any of the students he
encounters at Harvard and MIT, two of the country's premier universities (Karten). His abilities

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to mentally surpass those who would be considered some of the nations most gifted shows that
he is the polar opposite of unintelligent. Through the characterization of Will Hunting, Van Sant
expels the possibility of generalizing working class people as responsible for their circumstance
due to their lack of intelligence.
This begs the question, if not indolence or a lack of intelligence, what is it that holds
Hunting back from achieving greatness? This question is answered in the film through the
aforementioned therapy sessions that Hunting attends with Lambeaus former roommate, a
community college psychology instructor and therapist named Sean McGuire. Hunting sees five
therapists before Lambeau finally introduces him to McGuire, and this is due to his reluctance to
open up to one; in order to avoid the conversations that should take place in a therapists office,
Hunting develops the ability to turn psychiatrists into raving animals in minutes (Leeper).
Although he tries to chase away McGuire the same way, McGuire continues to see him and
refuses to give up. Through these therapy sessions, we eventually find out that Huntings
reluctance to embrace the opportunity at MIT is based partly on class pride (it would be
betraying his buddies and the old neighborhood) and partly on old psychic wounds. And it is
only through breaking through to those scars and sharing some of his own that McGuire, the
counselor, is able to help him (Ebert). This help comes when Hunting finally exposes the secret
that has plagued him: He is an orphan who was later abused by his surrogate father and
therefore has carried a chip on his shoulder since boyhood (Levy). This devastating reality
shows a reality of the cycle of poverty; poverty is the single best predictor of child abuse and
neglect (American Humane Society). This point is furthered in a parallel reality that Huntings
therapist faces; McGuire grew up in the same neighborhood as Hunting, and also faced a
childhood riddled with abuse from his step-father. McGuire, unlike Lambeau (his wealthier
counterpart) went on to teach at a community college while Lambeau received a position at MIT.
This doubled plot line communicates an extremely strong message about a true evil that is

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commonly found in poverty and it makes the idea that the conditions the working class face are
the result of a lack of intelligence and hard work almost laughable. By providing a realistic evil
as the demon that holds Hunting back from upward mobility, Van Sant further removes the
blame from working class people for their circumstance; by developing the story into one of
plaguing child abuse, Van Sant completely destroys the notion that the working class holds itself
back with its lack of hard work and intelligence.
Good Will Hunting completely explodes the stereotypes characterizing the working
class as indolent and unintelligent. Van Sant shows the young working class men as trapped in
a cycle, in which receiving an opportunity for advancement seems as likely as winning the
lottery; no amount of hard work alone can lead to socioeconomic advancement. Van Sant
honestly acknowledges the gap between classes, and therefore makes a profound statement
about the difficulty of upward mobility. Through the characterization of a protagonist that has an
exceptionally intelligent mind, Van Sant destroys the stereotype that the working class simply
lacks the intelligence for socioeconomic mobility. Lastly, Van Sant daringly explores the reality of
child abuse, which more commonly plagues lower class families, and by doing so he provides
one taste of the compendium of evils that hold back the working class. By providing the
audience with a true perpetrator of the poverty cycle, he further obliterates the idea that laziness
and lack of intelligence plague the working class and hold them back. In his masterful
destruction of these stereotypes, Van Sant makes it clear that he is one of the few directors
who truly understands and doesnt condescend to blue-collar America (Levy).

Works Cited
"America's Children: How Are They Doing?" Child Abuse and Neglect Are Still Prevalent in
America. American Humane Association, n.d. Web. 21 May 2016.

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Ebert, Roger. "Good Will Hunting Movie Review (1997)." All Content. N.p., 25 Dec. 1997. Web.
21 May 2016.
Good Will Hunting Cover. Digital image. IMDB. IMDB, 9 Jan. 1998. Web. 22 May 2016.
Karten, Harvey S. "Good Will Hunting (1997)." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 21 May 2016.
Leeper, Mark R. "Good Will Hunting (1997)." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 21 May 2016.
Levy, Emanuel. "Review: Good Will Hunting." Variety. Variety Media, 01 Dec. 1997. Web. 21
May 2016.
Nanos, Janelle. Will doing Math. Digital image. Good Will Hunting: An Oral History. Boston
Magazine, Jan. 2013. Web. 22 May 2016.
Russell, Cliodhna. Will and Sean. Digital image. Good Will Hunting Is on in 22 Cinemas Tonight
with Cash Going to Suicide Charities. The Journal, 26 Aug. 2014. Web. 22 May 2016.
Smusick. "Good Will Hunting." Good Will Hunting. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 May 2016.
Swenson, Brad. Will as a Janitor. Digital image. BlackBloxBlue. N.p., 25 Jan. 2015. Web. 22
May 2016.