ntasy, the fantasy itself is a utopian response to her real-life fears of powerlessness which "Europe" connotes to her.
             Rusty's fantasy. The next fantasy in the scene belongs to the Griswalds' teenage son, Rusty. He enters a nightclub where outrageously-dressed and coifed Europeans are dancing. He's wearing an outfit too fashionable for him, with "Rusty: The European Tour" printed on the back. As he makes his way further onto the dance floor, then a crowd of women surrounds him the fantasy ends.
             Like Ellen's, Rusty's fantasy is grounded in his gender role, man-as-agent-of-action. However, Rusty seems to feel that he needs to perform only a minimum of action – simply showing up. If he does that, the text implies, he will have his pick of women to choose from. Here we see the converse of Ellen's fear of powerlessness, since the text assumes that Rusty, as a male, is empowered to choose the object of his desire. But if Rusty's fantasy is a utopian response to a situation in his "
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