Driving Miss Daisy The 1989 film Driving Miss Daisy, presents a story of a 72-year-old woman Daisy Werthan, who after wrecking her car is introduced to Hoke Colburn by her son who hired him as a chauffeur to drive her around. The film shows the evolution of their relationship from Hoke being an unwelcome newcomer, to her feeling that they are best friends. Within this 25 total years of bonding the films also shows many of the common concepts and factors that affect aging in individuals including ageism, racism, the experience of life crisis, cognitive factors of aging, and some social psychological concepts. Ageism and Racism Ageism is defined as “Negative stereotypes about old age.” These stereotypes often affect how we deal with older people and give an impression about a whole group of people just based on one common characteristic – their age (Introduction). In the film this can be seen between the interactions of miss Daisy and her son, Boolie. After Daisy backs her car over a ledge, her son decides to hire a chauffeur for her to keep her from having any more accidents. Much of his interactions with his older mother take up an authoritative stance in which he decides what needs to be done for her and tries to play the role of …show more content…
She is visited by her son and Hoke, and is very excited to visit Hoke. As they talk and discuss how they are doing, both agree that they are simply “doing the best they can” as that’s all one can do. Although she seems well in the moment of visiting Hoke, it is shown that she is weaker as Hoke must help feed her since she is too shaky to do so herself. Having to go to a retirement home is often the one of the main indicators of a loss of control over personal or home life, and it is this loss of control that is often attributed to depression and physical decline in old age (Schulz,