The Search for Fatherly Approval

                In both Catch Me if You Can and October Sky both our main characters, Frank Abignale (Catch Me if You Can) and Homer Hickman (October Sky), are searching for their father’s approval.

In Catch Me if You Can, Frank Abignale is literally faking his way through numerous careers because he is just trying to find something that will gain his father’s approval. Frank becomes an airline pilot, opened up numerous checking accounts and used fraud to gain millions of dollars. He then later “becomes” a surgeon and a lawyer all through fraud and “educational” movies. However, he never fully earns his father’s approval (at least from what I saw).

On the other hand, we have October Sky with Homer Hickman (our main character) whose story is a bit different than that of Frank’s. In October Sky, Homer shows that he is not only very stubborn, but also very determined. If Homer sets his mind to it, he will do anything in his power to succeed. In October Sky, Homer decided to become a rocket scientist. He is a typical high school student that is living in a coal mining town/community. His dad is a hard to get along with/ hard to please coal miner. As Homer develops his love and knowledge for rockets, his dad becomes less and less pleased with him and instead develops a vision of Homer becoming a head coal miner. As father and son, they are not on the same page. As Homer becomes more and more successful with his rocketry, he learns and launches numerous rockets. However his father isn’t so pleased. Eventually, Homer does get his father to become involved and he does earn his father’s approval.

In both movies, there is one main goal and that is to earn fatherly approval. One does and one doesn’t.