Stereotypes In Driving Miss Daisy

In general, negative pre judgment of people, usually because of ethnicity, or religion, and their marginalization from full contribution in society, have always been subjects to many discussions and controversies, especially for civil rights’ activists and movements. In “Driving Miss Daisy”, the director Bruce Beresford and the screenwriter Alfred Uhry portray this ethnic prejudice and discrimination more subtly than one might fear, delicately exploring and exposing. While including some concepts like friendship and ageing, “Driving Miss Daisy” entertains and narrates the racial tension in the South of the US in the mid-twentieth century. The movie, therefore, enables audiences to live the difficult moments endured by some ethnicities, especially

Blacks and Jews. An analysis of the movie “Driving Miss Daisy” acknowledges the harsh cultural perspectives and predicaments faced Blacks and Jews in the mid-twentieth century.
PLOT
The pattern of events in “Driving Miss Daisy” spans a quarter-century relationship between a rich Southern Jew widow (Miss Daisy Werthan) and her indomitable Black driver (Hoke Colburn). As the movie opens, Miss Daisy still lives in proud self-sufficiency, with only her cook Idella to help out. One day she drives her car over the wall and into the neighbor's yard, and her son Boolie insists she is not capable of driving. Over her protest, he hires the uneducated African American Hoke. Thus starts a war or conlict of wills that continues, in one way or another, for twenty-five years, as two stubborn and proud old people from different ethnicities learn to exist with one another. For the first week at his job, Miss Daisy refuses to let him drive her. He spent the whole time sitting in the kitchen. Eventually Miss Daisy agrees to be driven. When Miss Daisy finds out at that cemetery that Hoke is illiterate, she teaches him how to read. As Miss Daisy and Hoke spend time together, she gradually gains appreciation for his many skills. After Idella dies, Hoke assists with the cooking and the two plant a vegetable garden. Miss Daisy realizes that she is also a victim of prejudice after her church attack. But the American society is facing radical changes, and Miss Daisy attends a dinner at which Dr. Martin Luther King gives a speech. She initially invites Boolie to the occasion, but he declines, and proposes that Miss Daisy invite Hoke. However, Miss Daisy only asks him to be her guest during the ride to the dinner. She ends up attending the event alone, with Hoke disrespected by the presentation of the invitation. Hoke arrives at the house one morning to find Miss Daisy confused, agitated and showing signs of dementia. Hoke calms her down. Shortly after, Miss Daisy tells Hoke that he is her best friend. That’s the turning point or climax that accelerates the resolution. From that moment, the movie unfolds rapidly. Boolie arranges for Miss Daisy to enter a retirement and nursing home. Hoke, now retires. Boolie and Hoke drive to the retirement home to visit Miss Daisy, now 97. As Hoke feeds her and remember with pleasure the time he spent driving her, the image of a car drives away to mark the end.
CHARACTERS
Hoke is sixty years old when the play begins. He is an unemployed, uneducated African American like many in the South. He has worked as a driver and deliveryman previously. He exhibits a lot of patience with Daisy and tolerance of her barely disguised prejudices. He never hesitates to speak up to her, always, however, in a respectful manner. When his integrity and moral are at stake, he speaks up for his rights. His honesty teaches Miss Daisy how to be a more humane and normal person. Hoke also develops as a result of her friendship, for instance, when Miss Daisy teaches him to read at the cemetery. Furthermore, the financial security Hoke obtains over several years brings him more self-confidence and self-respect. He can be easily be called the main protagonist, since everything revolves around him, especially from the moment Boolie hires him. He is very dynamic in his role play.
Daisy on her own, is a seventy-two-year-old widow living alone when the movie starts.

She is an independent and rich Jewish lady who hates being called wealthy and loathes the idea of servants. ''I don't have any privacy,'' she tells to Boolie. ''It's like having children in the house.'' In a study about prejudice, stereotype and affect, (Gorgijn, Finchilescu, Brix, Wijnants, & Koomen, 2008) argue that “there was a significant correlation and between prejudice cultural stereotypes: more prejudice was related to the perception of a more negative cultural stereo- type… it seems that the relationship between cultural stereotypes and prejudice is based on valence rather than content.” Daisy uses initially her emotions to make a judgment on the African American ethnicity. Her character role appears at first as antagonist. She protests to Boolie to hire a driver, she refuses to enter the car. She opposes any action that can mean change. Ageing bringing some changes, Daisy in a moment of clarity after manifestations of dementia, calls Hoke her friend. Her character therefore becomes therefore dynamic. She is also a victim of prejudice, which in reality, is the antagonist in “Driving Miss Daisy”. The remaining protagonists also suffer from that

prejudice.
Boolie, his wife Florine, and Idella are all supporting protagonists in “Driving Miss Daisy”. Boolie is forty when the play opens. He is the one that helps unfold Daisy personality in the exposition. He suffers also from prejudice, especially when he mentions that he has been for two years on a waiting list for admission into a school because of his ethnicity. Together with his wife Florine, their role play remain very static. Their behavior pattern is predictable and they resist any change. Idella is the African American housekeeper who is hardworking. Unfortunately, her passing away from heart attack, reveals her poor and unhealthy living condition.
SETTING
By setting the film in the suburbs of Atlanta in Georgia in the late 1940s or early 1950s, Alfred Uhri helps the viewer to unfold a moment in the history of the US characterized by prejudice, discrimination, and cultural bias against some ethnicities. The significance is prominent when we realize that it is the period that spans the civil rights movements in the country. There is surely no coincidence in the play when, Miss Daisy and Hoke (both considered outsiders by the society) attend a ceremony where Martin Luther King delivers a speech. Furthermore, Alfred Uhry sets the play in the South that represents the long battle for civil rights, especially for the Blacks. No doubt that by choosing outsiders in the society, Alfred Uhry exposes and explores conflicts to convey more meaning to the play.
THEME
The personal and social conflicts of its characters are at the center of Driving Miss Daisy. These result mainly from the mixture of southern and Jewish cultures, a theme that captivates the attention of Alfred Uhry. The movie is a reflection of the civil rights movement in Atlanta, and many of the tensions that mark the developing relationship between Hoke and Miss Daisy, highlight the changing world around them. As Hoke begins to test and push the boundaries of his social and working relationship with Miss Daisy, she begins to realize not only her only prejudices, but also those of the traditional Christian community in which she lives. Miss Daisy also experiences conflicts with Boolie that further illustrate the theme of change within the South. As a representative of the “Old South” and its tradition, Miss Daisy is highly resistant to change. Boolie, by contrast, is a succesful businessman who, along with his wife, exemplifies the transformation of the South from the agricultural to an industrial culture. He owns all of the latest technology, decorative lights during christmas, and a hi-fi stereo system that plays music that the whole neighborhood hears. Boolie constantly tries to push this newer, more technologically advanced way of life on his mother, who refuses it all.
SYMBOLISM
There are many symbols in the play. One of them is Miss Daisy’s cars. She protests persistently to Boolie against hiring a driver, though she has a car crashed. Driving her own car represents freedom, freedom taken away by Boolie when he hires Hoke. Even when she is inside the car, she is telling Hoke how to drive. By setting the movie in the South the screenwriter remembers that South stands as site of actions appealing to changes that need to be made about prejudice, bias, and cultural differences. Alfred Uhry is probably thinking of a universal culture where a mosaic of people transcends ethnocentrism to live together. Hoke is the prototype of African American the mid-twentieth century, uneducated, treated with low respect, and humiliated on a daily basis. Daisy and Hoke represent the servant-employer relationship that continues no matter what. It is the symbol that reflects the manner that society is stratified. Boolie, as well as his mother, represents also discrimination and rejection from the society, the Jews suffered, especially after the Second World War. Daisy and Hoke are also the symbol of friendship and what it stands for, especially in old age. Research by Rosemary Blieszner (2014) suggests that “friends, rather than relatives, tend to have a greater effect on feeling happy and having a positive outlook.” In addition, while Miss Daisy and Hoke stand for old age people, Boolie and his wife Florine are the stereotype of the young generation that strives for anything new, and ready to switch for modernity (new technology and cars).
OPINION
Driving Miss Daisy is a pathetic and touching tale of an unlikely friendship that harbors many thinks to like or dislike. The last scene of the movie is very appealing to mankind. Regardless of the differences people may have and/or encounter, there is only one universal culture: mankind. In her new elderly home, Miss Daisy sends away her son Boolie to charm the nurses so that she can enjoy the company of her driver. Hoke naturally feeds her with the pie when he realizes how difficult it is for Miss Daisy to carry food to the mouth.
COMPARISON OF DAISY AND HOKE
“Driving Miss Daisy” remarkably is about Daisy and Hoke. The movie covers a quarter century relationship or “friendship” between Hoke and Miss Daisy. On one side is Miss Daisy, the rich Jewish widow who thinks of oke and Idella as kids, ''It's like having children in the house.'' On the other side is Hoke, who knows far more of the real world than Miss Daisy and remains unsurprised by Daisy’s behavior. Among other things, she teaches him how to read. He teaches her about the world he inhabits, which, when the privileges are removed, is not so different from hers. Daisy is almost impossible to deal with in the first years, but Hoke plays her as if he were a benign angler. She finds fault everywhere. Hoke agrees with her and then goes on, in his resolute way, to show her up with such maddening delicacy that she cannot find fault. Because she is Jewish and he is black, both are outsiders. In one scene, two white Alabama cops intimidate them on a deserted country road, wondering loudly why Hoke is driving such an expensive car, and why Miss Daisy has such a funny-sounding surname. Hoke and Daisy marginalization leads them to a friendship of equals.
SUMMARY OF THE MOVIE AND LESSONS LEARNED
“Driving Miss Daisy” affectionately covers the relationship between a wealthy, strong-willed widow and her equally indomitable Black driver, Hoke. Both employer and employee are outsiders, Hoke because of the color of his skin, Miss Daisy because she is Jewish in a White dominated society. At the same time, Hoke cannot understand Miss Daisy's inability to grasp the social changes that are sweeping the South in the 1960s. Nor can Miss Daisy perceive why Hoke's "people" are so indignant. It is only when Hoke is retired and Miss Daisy is confined to a home for the elderly that the two fully realize that they've been friends and kindred spirits all along. As lessons, “Driving Miss Daisy” makes the simple point that combating prejudice, cultural bias, or ethnocentrism can sometimes mean confronting a part of ourselves that we would rather pretend does not exist. For Miss Daisy, it's as simple as admitting that Hoke is not just her driver, but her best friend. The movie therefore appeals to a cultural self-assessment, necessary in a transcultural arena where people acknowledge and celebrate their differences.
CONCLUSION
“Driving Miss Daisy” is an excellent window into the predicaments of people affected with cultural prejudice. Travelling along for twenty-five years with Daisy and Hoke, emphasizes the importance of concepts that include cultural identity, self-awareness, independence, pride, friendship and ageing. As nurses, it is necessary to understand how culture, presence, trust, and friendship can help improve the standard of caring practice. Nurses’ objective is to also add new quality of life to patient, in a holistic approach, just like Hoke and Daisy’s friendship sparks off admiration, hope, and freshness to their elderly years.