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,
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
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