Kennedy Butler
EEE-2083
26 October 2023
Discussion Paper 7: Dallas Buyers Club
Entrepreneurship is risky. This is one of the first things that is ever said about entrepreneurship, but why is that? Is it because of society? Social pressure? What about rules and regulations? Or maybe differences of opinion? Perhaps it's literally a life and death sort of matter? The film, Dallas Buyers Club, tells the true story of a bull rider named Ron Woodroof. He is very much into the rodeo lifestyle with a lot of drinking and drugs, and the film quickly takes a turn when he finds out that he has been diagnosed with HIV and that he only has about a month left to live. As a result, he starts searching for research and answers anywhere he can find them by any means necessary to try and find a solution. This leads him to some doctors who have had their licenses removed and, furthermore , to the buying and selling of some “illegal” drugs that have not been FDA approved, but that appear to treat the symptoms of the persons with HIV. The film basically goes on to follow this process and the various doctors and authorities that try to stop Woodroof from selling these medications that are not yet FDA approved. This is entrepreneurial because, despite the controversy of the topic, Woodroof not only saw a need in his own life and searched to fill it as a consumer, but saw a need within the HIV affected community and found a way (at least, for a certain period of time) to not only create a business opportunity but help improve the lives of those affected by HIV, despite various attempts at pushback.
This film is interesting to me simply because it kind of opened my eyes to the world of the FDA and how it functions. This is not a topic that I really know that much about so it was interesting to me to see how this story unfolded and how that even with attempts at regulation, Woodroof still found a number of loopholes into selling these products to the market.
This aspect of entrepreneurship affects society in this way: not everyone in society agrees with or supports the efforts of the entrepreneur. In fact, in some cases, such as Woodroofs, members of society might be straight up against it and do everything in their power to stop it for various reasons, whether it be threats, safety reasons, bias etc. On the flip side, society in some ways both supported and stifled this aspect of entrepreneurship. For example, in the film, we see some characters that cross paths with Ron and agree with and support what he is doing (from seeing the hurt from HIV firsthand or from others around them), while others disagreed with the lifestyle, with the efforts to strive to do anything and everything to create a solution, so it seems to be like two very opposing extremes of relation to the entrepreneurial aspect in this film. That leads into the next point of the interaction of the two and what they look like. Honestly, this seems to be extremely rooted in a social type of environment. There are a lot of social type of societal issues that are at the root of how this aspect of entrepreneurship functions.
So my final thought: regulation is challenging but not impossible, but how does society affect the entrepreneurial market? To me, it depends on the issue at hand and whoever has the loudest voice.
- https://giphy.com/explore/the-rodeo
[Image Source]
(https://giphy.com/explore/the-rodeo)