Reese Witherspoon's Outliers: The Story Of Success

Have you seen a movie that starred Reese Witherspoon? Did you like it? Did you think she played her part perfectly? Time Magazine named her one of the most influential people of 2015 because “She is no longer a talented and famous actress. She is an icon… She’s impatient that Hollywood won’t generate the kind of quality roles she wants to play, so she creates quality roles by creating quality movies. That resourcefulness is what makes her someone I not only admire, but someone who inspires me. And that is influence.” (Time.com) This is what makes her such an iconic and influential person, because she creates what roles she wants to play. Reese Witherspoon is truly successful because she had an extraordinary opportunity to act behind a camera,
and she took that chance. She took control of her Hollywood life and made brilliant movies that Hollywood didn’t make. Her impatience drove her to her success. Born on March 22, 1976, Laura Jean Reese Witherspoon in New Orleans, Louisiana. The daughter of a physician and a nurse, she was a debutante and attended Harpeth Hall private school for girls. At such a young age and the age of , grandmother’s have a lot of influence on their grandkids. Grandkids look up to their grandparents, because they are so wise and full of knowledge. It was the same for Mrs. Witherspoon - Toth, her biggest influence was her grandmother. “My grandmother was a huge influence on my life. She was always really well put together. She didn’t have a lot of money, but, she was always really well put together, she always looked good.” (Youtube.com) Since Witherspoon looked up and honoured her grandmother so much, that drove her to have confidence and to always put your best foot forward. Always give 110% of your effort. The influence of her grandmother drove Reese to start her own production company named Pacific Standards, in 2012, which starred both movies, Gone Girl with three different awards and Wild with a nomination for the Golden Globes of 2016.
Reese Witherspoon fits into Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of extraordinary opportunities for success, because at the age of fourteen, she was given a star role in an audition she was supposed to be an extra character in.
According to Malcolm Gladwell in his 2008 non-fiction book, Outliers: The Story of Success, extraordinary opportunities is when a person sees or is given an opportunity to do something and they take the opportunity, run with it and make the best out of it. In addition to extraordinary opportunities, Reese Witherspoon fits into that category because she answered a call in a newspaper to be an extra and was suddenly the lead role in the major film. “On a bit of a whim in 1991, Witherspoon answered some calls for extras in her hometown newspaper. She wound up with the lead in her first feature film, “The Man in the Moon” at just 14 years old.” (Biography.com) In seizing that opportunity in the newspaper, Reese took a chance and she got the lead in her first movie, therefore fitting into Gladwell’s concept of extraordinary opportunities for success. No normal 14 year old ends up getting the lead role in a feature film, unless that auditionee has an innate talent for acting. At 14 years old, you are being promoted from eighth grade to freshman year of high school. That’s not an everyday thing; that’s what makes it an extraordinary
opportunity.
In addition with extraordinary opportunities, Reese Witherspoon fits into Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of cultural legacy because she comes from a family line of having money.
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of Success, “So his parents took him out of public school and, at the beginning of seventh grade, sent him to Lakeside, a private school that catered to Seattle’s elite families.” (Gladwell 51) This direct quote about Bill Gates, corresponds with Reese Witherspoon’s success because both Witherspoon and Gates had parents that had money, so that was not a problem. The title of chapter one in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers: The Story of Success is entitled “The Matthew Effect”; which actually comes from the the book of Matthew in the New Testament of The Bible. “For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath” (Gladwell 15) This direct quote from Outliers means, people who have, will continue to have and people who do not have, will continue not to have. This direct quote and Gladwell’s concept of cultural legacy goes hand in hand, because Reese Witherspoon’s parents had money, now Reese has money, and Reese’s kids will have money and so on and so on. As the daughter of a physician and a nurse, money was not a problem for the Witherspoons.“The daughter of a physician and a nurse, Witherspoon grew up in Nashville, Tennessee where she was a debutante and attended
Harpeth Hall, an all-girls private school.” (Biography.com) The average teenager has parents that go to work, make money and the kids attend a public high school, elementary or middle school, and everything is normal, but when comparing a non-average teenager, the difference is that the parents make more than the average income, and then children attend a private all-girls or all-boys school and the children are most likely to be a debutante or a beau and grow up in a major city, such Nashville, Tennessee or Seattle, Washington. Reese Witherspoon is successful according to Gladwell’s concepts of success because she has always had resources and will continue have those resources.
Another concept from Malcolm Gladwell’s book that applies to Reese Witherspoon is the 10,000 hour rule; in order to be even remotely good, invest ten thousand hours. On page 39 in Outliers: The Story of Success, Gladwell states, “The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.” (Gladwell 39 - 40) This direct quote kind of corresponds with Reese Witherspoon at the Fear No Art Red Carpet Interview. “It was a very extensive process, where we went for seven months to country boot-camp and learned to play instruments, had vocal coaches…” Seven months is exactly 5,110.1 hours, another seven months could equal 10, 220 hours. That is above expertise level.
From reading Outliers: The Story of Success I have gathered that if someone wants to be as successful as the next person, money plays a big role. If someone has money then, there are less problems to worry about. Being in the wealthy class of the economic class is not a necessity but it would definitely benefit. I would not recommend being in the the lower class of the economic class. The higher part of the middle class is where it would be really helpful. I also took from Outliers, if an opportunity is present, take it and run. If there is one thing I learned from Reese Witherspoon it would be to always keep a positive mindset, stay focused and be nice. I learned to keep a positive mindset when a critical argument was written about a movie Reese starred in, Hot Pursuit. According Richard Roeper, Mrs.Witherspoon-Toth last movie was trash. ““Hot Pursuit” features one of the worst and most forced performances of Reese Witherspoon’s career, an irritating performance by Sofia Vergara (whom I love on “Modern Family’) and a seemingly endless parade of lazy and arbitrary plot twists and turns.” (Richardroeper.com) From this trash talk, Reese Witherspoon did not retaliate back, but instead ignored it. That is what I learned to do about the negativity, and to keep a positive mindset. Reese Witherspoon’s success and Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of success relates to my future success because as a desiring actress, I have learned to always keep a positive mindset and be optimistic and if an opportunity passes by chase it and do not give up.
Reese Witherspoon’s impatience on quality movies in Hollywood drove her to her success, as well as her grandmother’s influence. In order to be truly successful, invest ten thousand hours, have a cultural legacy of some sort and take an opportunity if it passes by.