Out Takes

26 Nov 2016

The American Dream on the Big Screen

Arts, TV & Film

For this episode of Out Takes, as we come to terms with the result of the US election and the rhetoric in which it is couched, we take a look at the way that the American Dream is represented in Hollywood cinema.

From the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema and films that found America as a land of equal opportunity and prosperity to more recent re-imaginings of mid twentieth century American suburban angst, we take a look at films that establish, challenge, and more broadly represent the American Dream.

Our guests are Dr Aaron Nyerges, a widely published lecturer in American Studies at the US Studies Centre at Sydney University, and Dr Stephen Rowley, whose text Movie Towns and Sitcom Suburbs: Building Hollywood’s Ideal Communities, examines how cinema deploys the suburban landscape as a metonym for the American dream. Nyerges and Rowley help us unpack what the American dream actually is, and how it has been represented, established and undercut in Hollywood cinema.

Essential viewing: The Great Gatsby (2013, Dir. Baz Luhrmann) and Revolutionary Road (2009, Dir. Sam Mendes)

Hungry for more: Armageddon (1998, Dir. Michael Bay) and Pinocchio (1940, Pd. Walt Disney)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:47 — 22.8MB)

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