The American Dream
In the early 1950s, the American dream was a dream shared by the entire nation. The stereotypical family included a mother, father, two children and a pet, all living in suburbia, USA. Every day the father would leave for work in the morning, and mother stayed home, cooked, and cared for the kids. Each family included a boy and a girl. The boy would have his hair neatly parted down the middle, and the girl in pigtails. At night, everyone would sit around the dinner table and discuss what had happened in the day gone by. But during the last fifty years, Americans realised that their dream of a perfect life was completely different. Comic entertainment, such as The and American Beauty depicts how such a vision has turned into a laughing matter.The Simpsons was the first cartoon series to send up this so called 'American Dream'. The family consists of Homer, a husband, father, safety inspector at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, bowler, beer drinker, astronaut, small business owner and dreamer, and makes it all look easy. Marge, a happy homemaker and mother of three. Bart, a misunderstood. Wrongly pegged as an underachiever and troublemaker. Lisa, who is only 8 and already reads at a 14th grade level, and has written a number
The 1950's view of the American Dream, consisting of a happy family living in quiet little town in a pretty little house with a white picket fence, has almost been completely overthrown by the view of acquiring as much money as possible whilst putting in as little effort as possible. He becomes an astronaut, navigates a Navy nuclear sub, meets the President, becomes a world-famous artist, tackles and captures James Bond, and performs with Smashing Pumpkins. The movie starts to gel when Lester Burnham sees his daughter Jane's best friend Angela, the hot blond cheerleader. So perhaps this is the American Dream, at least from the man of the houses' point of view. The Simpsons successfully confronts the questionable reason of the 1950s American dream, and portrays it as being the ability to have fun with life yet still earn a substantial wage. After Lester decides to take charge of his future, he enthusiastically tells his daughter how he quit his job and blackmailed his boss for $60,000 that day. Burnham is doing practically nothing apart from breaking the law and tossing hamburgers, but still earning enough to afford a beautiful house, expensive car and money to support his family. The scene works comically because Burnham doesn't care that he is breaking all normal laws of adulthood. American Beauty is a dark look at the final year of the late Lester Burnham. Finally they both still find time to enjoy the more 'controversial' sides of life. American Beauty gives us an idea of what some modern Americans probably view as the American Dream. He has a well paying job at a magazine, a beautiful wife and daughter and a large house in suburbia. Some may argue that Homer Simpson lives out the American Dream in every day of his life. However in Burnham's narration throughout the film, we learn that he is not happy in his relationship with his wife, his job is going no where and he has not spoken to his daughter in months.
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Acceptance Essays
