I Don't Want the World, I Just Want Your Half and Other Problems With "The American Dream"

I have an odd relationship with the American Dream, insomuch as I am not sure of what that relationship is. Perhaps it would be accurate to say that the American Dream is like an uncle whom, I will admit, I like very much while also recognizing that I only see him about once every six or seven months, when I choose to travel back home, across the country. Which is to say, I can’t really tell if I just like the version of the American Dream that I choose to see, on my own time, under my own circumstances.

This struck me as I was re-watching Citizen Kane recently, and as many themes as that film has, the one that has always stuck with me was its fairly strong critique of the materialism that seems part and parcel of said Dream. Kane is a tragedy, ultimately, but while Charles Foster Kane’s rise and fall is the explicit tragedy, the underlying causes of that tragedy are implicitly capitalism, and its empty promises of power and love. In the end Kane dies surrounded by his palace, but ultimately nothing else. What’s been bothering me though lately, in regards to my relationship with the Dream, is that I recognize the honesty of that tragedy. Its truthfulness is why the film remains one of my favorites, and yet I can’t say with any certainty how that truthfulness makes me feel.

I like a lot of movies that have that anti-consumerist bent. I think Fight Club (while falling short of a “great” film, and possessing, albeit, confusingly antediluvian gender politics) was subtly genius for sneaking a pretty barbed critique of modern American consumerism (Brad Pitt has a pretty funny speech in there about Ikea) into a Major Motion Picture. I love American Psycho (a rare example of a film so completely blowing its source material out of the water) because it’s really funny when viewed with an audience that appreciates black comedy (as a quick anecdote, I remember watching the movie with a girlfriend in high school, having told her that it was a “comedy, but sort of a dark one”, and look, that sort of thing should have been right up her alley, but she was really more disturbed by it than anything and afterwards said something along the lines of “why would you think that was funny?” all accusing-like and making me feel like an awful person. I have, since that time, met many people who have been able to assure me that the movie is in fact funny, and I am also an awful person, so she wasn’t all wrong), but I also connected with its criticism of American consumer and corporate culture. Christian Bale’s warped yuppie figure is strangely prescient in a society that so clearly can see themselves being violated by Wall Street bankers. And despite what our textbook would have us believe, I remain convinced that George Bailey is at least a socialist at heart, and that’s probably the only part of It’s a Wonderful Life that I like (I didn’t grow up watching that movie so I don’t have that rosy nostalgia that everybody else seems to bring to it. My family watched Die Hard around Christmas).

So, my point is that part of me connects to the rejection of the American Dream vis-à-vis materialism and consumerism, and owning everything all the time. But there’s a larger part of me that doesn’t even see the American Dream as necessarily having anything to do with those things. My American Dream has more to do with a country that gives second chances, that doesn’t necessarily believe that individualism has to mean stepping on top of other people, a country that sets its people—every single one, regardless of race or creed--to wander freely though its vast and almost limitless expanses. I suppose part of that freedom is the freedom to buy a lot of stuff if you so choose, but I don’t know when or how exactly that became the de facto Dream. The myth of American meritocracy? I know it doesn’t hold up under harsh light, but it’s still a good myth and one that we should be striving to achieve.

But all of that is selective. I'm cherry picking the values I think America should be associated with while ignoring the actual reality of the situation. Maybe that's why I like those movies though. They all critique certain aspects of the system but are, by and large, products of the system. Products that could not be par of any other system. It can all seem sort of twisty, but reality is messy and dreams even more so. The American Dream, in all of its interpretations and differences, is no different.