Driving Miss Daisy

 Driving Miss Daisy

    Driving Miss Daisy is the story of an unlikely friendship between two people from very different backgrounds, Miss Daisy, and Hoke Colburn. This film takes place from 1948 - 1973 and is set before, during, and after the Civil Rights Movement. While exploring racism and depicting antisemitism in the South. 

    The first Character is Miss Daisy or Daisy Werthan who is a 72-year-old, widowed, retired schoolteacher who lives alone in the deep south of Atlanta, Georgia, trying to maintain the one thing she has left, her independence. Our other main character is Hoke Colburn who is a 60- year- old African American, poor man hired by Miss Daisy’s 40-year-old son Boolie. Hoke is known as a kind-hearted man who proves his noble intentions many times.

    Boolie hires Hoke as a chauffeur because one day, Miss Daisy drives her 1946 Chrysler Windsor into her neighbor's yard. Now that Miss Daisy must be driven around, Boolie wants to have a talk with Hoke before he starts the job to let him know that Miss Daisy might be hesitant and may not appreciate Hoke’s efforts right away, because of how much she values her independence. However, she cannot fire Hoke since Boolie is the employer.

    At first, Miss Daisy refuses to let anyone drive her, but Hoke convinces her to be driven so she reluctantly accepts the first two trips. Daisy and Hoke's relationship gets off to a rocky start, but they eventually form a close friendship over the years, one that outshines racial prejudices and social expectations.

    Miss Daisy really didn’t like this arrangement to begin with, so she tries to get Boolie to fire Hoke after discovering a can of salmon missing from her pantry; but before Miss Daisy could confront Hoke about the missing can, Hoke admitted to being hungry and eating her salmon and shows her the new can he bought to replace the eaten one with.  

    As Miss Daisy and Hoke spend more time together, she gains appreciation for his many skills and even teaches him to read for the first time using her past teaching experience and resources; Together they both face many difficult hardships. 

    Miss Daisy realizes she’s a victim of prejudice after she faces antisemitism, when her synagogue where she attends services is bombed, presumably the Ku Klux Klan; Hoke faces racism in multiple ways because black living in the South still encountered racial prejudice and encouraged it. Which meant he was not allowed to have an education and highly paid jobs which meant he could only be a member to the lower class. But more than that, he and all the other African Americans were considered criminals just because they were black. 

    An example of Hoke facing racial prejudice would be him not being allowed to use the public bathroom because it was a law back then, so he must pull over the car because he couldn’t stop earlier at the service station restroom. In this scene Hoke forces Daisy to confront her own failings when he points out her tendency to treat him like a helpless child for wanting to stop to use the bathroom. Daisy was oblivious to the fact that Hoke, because of his race, couldn't use the restroom where they stopped earlier.

    Daisy thinks she's enlightened and unprejudiced. She eventually attends a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., and insults Hoke when she asks if he wants to go on the way there as a guest but only for the car ride. Offended by this, Hoke tells her that she may think things are changing but nothing really is. While Daisy is at the dinner Dr. King's speech talks about good people who sit back and allow blacks to be mistreated, Daisy feels ashamed and guilty by this. She now realizes what Hoke has been trying to make her understand.

    As the film progresses and their friendship grows, Miss Daisy learns a lot from Hoke and Hoke learns a lot from Miss Daisy. In one scene she even gives Hoke a “gift” but specifically told him to not call it that, and said it was a tool to help him learn how to write better. Also, we see their friendship progress because usually Miss Daisy, forbids Hoke to help her with the garden, However, at the end of the movie, right before Miss Daisy starts displaying signs of dementia, they are working in the garden together. This scene shows the evolution of their relationship and how they have formed a lasting friendship. At one point she even calls him her best friend.