I Am Sam- Stigmas

I Am Sam- Stigmas

“I Am Sam” is a movie about a man named Sam Dawson and his daughter, Lucy Diamond Dawson. Sam is a man who was born with a mental retardation, who has a daughter and names her, Lucy Diamond Dawson. Sam works at Starbucks restocking, cleaning tables, and handing the customers their order. Regardless of his condition he manages to raise his daughter Lucy and take care of her with the income he receives working at Starbucks and with the help of his neighbor Annie Cassell and his friends, Brad, Joe, Ifty, and Robert, who are also mentally delayed. Lucy grew up and was doing very well with her father, up until she was starting to notice that her dad was not like all the other dads in her school. She was starting to feel embarrassed of her dad because her classmates would call her dad retarded and laugh at him. At that time her father Sam was arrested and was accused for dealing with a prostitute. Soon the officers realized and notice his condition and they let him go, but unfortunately grabs the attention of a social worker, Mrs. Calgrove. On Lucy’s seventh birthday, her dad Sam tries to surprise her and invites her classmates for her surprise birthday party. In that surprise party, Mrs. Calgrove, shows up to discuss the matter of him and his daughter. He does not realize the purpose of her visit yet, because he was excited about surprising Lucy, and invites her in and tells her to yell surprise when Lucy walks in. When Lucy finally walked in, she finds her dad arguing with one of the parents for pulling on his son, without any harm intended. She calls him “Daddy” and seems confused about what is going on, that’s when one of her classmates yells out that she tells everyone that she was adopted by him. Unfortunately, Mrs. Calgrove witnesses that and takes Lucy away from him.

According to Scheafer, “The interactionist Erving Goffman coined the term stigma the labels society uses to devalue members of certain social groups.”(p.107). In Sam’s situation he was stigmatized (negatively labeled) based of his mental condition. Social services believed that he was unable to raise Lucy the right way because of his condition. There are three types of stigmas, abomination of the body, blemishes of individual character, and tribal. Sam situation fits one of these categories, blemish of individual character, which means that a person is stigmatized, based a perceived or alleged character flaw, in Sam’s case; his character flaw was being mentally delayed. When Sam was called into court he was told his rights by the judge and was allowed to see Lucy two days a week for two hours and had to be monitored at all times he was with her. When Sam realizes that this was serious he is determined to get Lucy back.

Sam was well aware of his condition and what he was labeled by society. He knew that everyone thought he didn’t have the mental capacity to take care of his seven year old girl, when he has a mind of a six year old boy. Goffman continued his theory that when someone is aware of their stigma they find a way to manage it. He noted that there are three basic ways of managing stigma, hide the stigma, distancing themselves from the stigma or try to correct, and embrace or accept the stigma. Sam embraced his stigma, and he wanted everyone to know that he could take care of Lucy with his love and