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 The American Dream and
Contemporary Hollywood Cinema
This page intentionally left blank
The American Dream
and Contemporary
Hollywood Cinema

J. Emmett Winn

continuum
NEW YORK • LONDON
2007

The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc

80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038

The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd

The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX

www.continuumbooks.com

Copyright © 2007 by J. Emmett Winn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, pho-
tocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the pub-
lishers.

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd., King's Lynn, Norfolk

ISBN 0-8264-2861-4
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Winn, J. Emmett (John Emmett), 1959-

The American dream and contemporary Hollywood cinema / J. Emmett
Winn.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13:978-0-8264-2861-5 (hardcover: alk. paper)
ISBN-10:0-8264-2861-4 (hardcover: alk. paper)
1. Working class in motion pictures. 2. Social classes in motion
pictures. 3. Motion pictures—United States. I. Title.

PN1995.9.L28W56 2007
791.43'652624--dc22

2007012465
I dedicate this book to my maternal grandmother, Ila Belle Williams
Gandy (1890-1969). A widow, she raised eight children by sharecrop-
ping through the Great Depression and the Second World War in the
poverty-stricken rural South. She and many other men and women like
her are true twentieth-century American heroes.

V
This page intentionally left blank
 Contents

Acknowledgments ix

1. The American Dream, Upward Mobility,

and Hollywood Film 1
The American Language of Class 5
Understanding the Resiliency of the American Dream 6
Defining the American Dream 6
The American Dream, the Self, and Hollywood's
Contemporary Era 7
Rhetorical Assessment of Filmic Value Systems 9
Rhetorical Analyses of the American Dream in
Popular Culture 11
The Themes of Upward Mobility in Contemporary
Hollywood Cinema 12

2. Moralizing Mobility 14
Working Girl 14
An Officer and a Gentleman 24
Flashdance 31
Saturday Night Fever 36
The Enduring Nature of the American Dream 40
Moralizing Mobility 42
Working-Class Heroes and the Working-Class Life 43

vii
viii The American Dream and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

3. Moralizing Failure 44
Wall Street 45
The Firm 50
Someone to Watch Over Me 53
The Flamingo Kid 57
Breaking Away 62
Maid in Manhattan 67
Good Will Hunting 77
The Morality of Failed Mobility 83
Class Acceptance 85

4. Moralizing the Material 87

Pretty Woman 89
Mrs. Winterbourne 98
White Palace 103
Titanic 106
Passion Fish 110
The Fisher King 115
The Rhetoric of Cross-Class Relationships 121

5. The American Dream and Contemporary

Hollywood Cinema 126
Analysis of Conclusions 131
The American Dream Is Sacrosanct 132
The Dominant Class Is Not Immoral or Exploitative 133
Working-Class Values Are Lauded 135
Class Is Not Social in America, It Is Individual 138
Social Justice 139
The Problem of Political Indifference 144
A Critical Media Pedagogy 146
A Final Movie 150

Bibliography 152
Index 161
 Acknowledgments

I just don't know where to begin. It has become cliche to write that a
monograph such as this is the result of many direct and indirect influ-
ences and that the author owes thanks to many more people than can be
listed. Yet, the fact remains true; and I will do my best to acknowledge
those most central to this work.
My mother, Roger Lee Gandy Winn, and my father, Albert T. Winn,
have always been supportive of my endeavors and patient with my ups
and downs. I am more grateful to them than I can properly express; and
this book is certainly a result of their patience, kindness, and love for five
decades.
I am fortunate to have many good friends who have encouraged my
pursuits and stuck with me through good times and bad, and I am
thankful to them all. But I must mention John and Kathy Tamblyn,
Chuck Smith, and Dave Horton as indomitable cohorts.
In performing research for this book, I benefited greatly from
resources provided by Auburn University's Department of Communica-
tion and Journalism, especially in the form of graduate student assistants.
Among these fine folks, Jennifer Penry, Danielle Williams, and Sam
Brumbeloe were especially helpful; and I thank them wholeheartedly.
Likewise, I have had many wonderful teachers and colleagues who
have variously inspired, nurtured, supported, advised, guided, and com-
miserated with me for many years. Chief among them are Marsha Van-
derford, George Plasketes, Mary Helen Brown, Timothy R. White, and
Kim Golombisky. Thank you all so much.
Moreover, I owe a great debt of thanks to David Payne, who directed
my doctoral dissertation, which comprised my earliest work on the topic

ix
x The American Dream and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

of film and the American Dream. David's apt intelligence and incisive
rhetorical skill gave my early ramblings the form and direction they
sorely needed. I can never fully thank David for his time, insights, and
unselfish help with this project.
Without a doubt, this book would not have been possible without the
generous help provided by Auburn University's College of Liberal Arts'
Humanities Grant for Summer Salary, which provided me with several
months to compile, complete, and refine the manuscript into a form
worthy of submission to publishers. The College of Liberal Arts, under
the direction of Dean Anne-Katrin Gramberg, is a model academic
organization that provides many excellent resources and opportunities
to its faculty and staff for personal and professional growth and success.
Most especially, I thank my best friend, teacher, most valued col-
league, and spouse, Susan Brinson. Susan's positive mark is on every
page of this book, and she has been an inexhaustible source of help and
support. I'm unbelievably lucky to share my life, my life's work, and my
love with this exceptional person.
 CHAPTER 1

The American Dream, Upward Mobility,

and Hollywood Film

The American Dream is a cherished belief in American society. The

United States is considered the land of opportunity despite one's race,
color, creed, or national origin, an idea that is acknowledged in many parts
of the world, especially in America. Most Americans believe that the
American Dream allows individuals to succeed without being burdened
by unfair limitations. Even a poor person with few resources can, through
hard work and perseverance, achieve success. In this way, the American
Dream is an egalitarian vision that is free of social constraints.
The American Dream is entrenched in American popular culture.
Books, movies, TV shows, and songs express the basic ideals of the Amer-
ican Dream and, in turn, continually communicate it to a receptive audi-
ence. This book focuses on the American Dream and its representation in
popular contemporary Hollywood film. It is not surprising that the
American Dream has been in film since its early years in the United
States. The rags-to-riches Horatio Alger and Cinderella tales that leapt
into early cinema were already popular stories readily adaptable to the
new technology. Cullen (2003,5) explains that the American Dream long
ago moved from print culture to "the incandescent glow of the mass
media, where it is enshrined as our national motto."
Discussing the American Dream in contemporary Hollywood
movies, however, requires a concrete vocabulary that elucidates its fun-
damental ideas; and mobility is the most basic aspect of the American
Dream of success. Birdsall and Graham (1999, 195) point out that

1
2 The American Dream and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

"mobility is at the root of the American Dream" and that the American
Dream fundamentally means the ability to move upward through class
levels. Cullen (2003, 8) calls upward mobility one of "the most familiar
American Dreams . . . a dream typically understood in terms of eco-
nomic and/or social advancement/' This is in keeping with the ideals of
the dream and with the basic assumption that the American Dream is
about people bettering themselves. Despite this, the level or measure of
success cannot be quantified in specific economic terms. A poor home-
less boy raised in an orphanage until he is a young man who works hard
and rises to a position as a supervisor in a factory job is just as much
about the American Dream as a young woman who turns her love for
making clothes into a business that makes her one of the most recog-
nized and wealthy designers in the world. The difference in income levels
between the factory worker and the fashion designer is large, yet both are
success stories that uphold the ideals of the dream.
Mobility in the American Dream is about a person who elevates him-
self or herself as a result of hard work and individual endeavor. This
mobility is not measured in strict economic terms, for it is about more
than just money—it is about people making better lives for themselves.
A poor boy who turns to illegal drug dealing in order to make huge sums
of money may vastly improve his income level, but he has not achieved
the American Dream. The dream is a move up, a positive change in
social level, a better life. It is the mobility inherent in a shift from the
ranks of the poor to the middle class or from the working class to the
professional upper class.
In the United States, the idea of social classes is a conundrum.
Although most Americans feel comfortable saying that they are middle
class, they do not think of the United States as a classed society. In fact,
on closer inspection, the American Dream is inherently indebted to an
idea that social classes do not exist in a concrete way in the United States.
The American Dream is based on the idea that America is a free society
unconstrained by social limitations such as castes or classes. Pogrebin
(1987, 144) explains this complex belief by stating that in "American
society almost everyone identifies as 'middle class' and then claims that
class doesn't matter." The basis of this dual nature is the social mobility
 The American Dream, Upward Mobility, and Hollywood Film 3

at the heart of the American Dream. In order to be socially mobile, there

must be some way of measuring the change or the movement. The con-
cept of social classes is a practical way to discuss this change. Most
Americans think of themselves as middle class; and, in fact, terms such
as "high class" and "low class" are in common use in America. Therefore,
the accepted idea that there are permeable social classes through which
movement is possible in the United States is a common way of talking
about social mobility and about how it is understood by most Ameri-
cans. Americans recognize that classes are apparent in U.S. society but
believe that a person's affiliation with a class is not fixed. Further, Ameri-
cans feel that class affiliation is not predominantly important because
most Americans feel that the United States is mostly one large middle
class.
Perception and reality conflict since the United States has one of the
largest income gaps between the poor and the wealthy of any industrial-
ized nation (Mantsios 1992; Mishel, Bernstein, and Allegretto 2005).
Surprisingly, the gulf between the rich and the poor widened signifi-
cantly during the 1990s (Miringoff and Miringoff 1999). Despite the
economic boom of the 1990s, real-dollar weekly wages have been declin-
ing since the early 1970s (Miringoff and Miringoff 1999); and since
2001, "the wage growth of many workers has continued to slow and is
now falling behind inflation" (Mishel, Bernstein, and Allegretto 2005,9).
Moreover, the United States has the "worst record" of child poverty of
the industrialized countries (Miringoff and Miringoff 1999, 80). These
steady economic losses for the last thirty-five years leave Americans in a
situation that is in stark contrast to the cherished belief in the American
Dream of success. The richest 10 percent of families own over 70 percent
of American wealth. Perhaps even more telling is that the top one-half
percent hold over 35 percent of the wealth (Mantsios 1992). Sawhill
(2000, 27) states, "The distribution of income in the United States is,
according to all the evidence, less equal than in other industrialized
countries." DeParle (2004, 327) explains that it is "the growing income
gaps that increasingly define American life."
America is not a huge middle class. Zweig (2000) points out that the
majority of Americans are working class. Ehrenreich (1989) suggests
4 The American Dream and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

that the working class makes up 60 to 70 percent of the population. Fiske

(1987,214) states, "[I]n our society power is distributed along the axes of
gender, class and race," and the privileged profit to the detriment of all
others. While the belief in a classless America endures in the American
Dream, the very stratification that it denies unfairly affects the majority
of Americans. Zweig (2004, 1) explains that "Euphemisms about the
middle class and consumer society are no longer persuasive when chief
executives pay themselves tens of millions of dollars while their employ-
ees are thrown out of work with ruined pensions." The traditional rheto-
ric suggests that all Americans are pulling together to make the United
States better for everyone. But as Zweig further points out, "When huge
tax cuts go the richest 1 percent... while workers suffer the burdens of
lost public services, people wonder if we're really all in this together." In
fact, Wright (1996) explains that the advances in working-class jobs of
the past are disappearing:

The "good jobs" that have traditionally provided the way up for Amer-
icans, offering opportunity to purchase homes and to send children to
college, while giving health and pension protection for retirement
years, are rapidly becoming relics of the past. Now "temporary" jobs—
those with no benefits, no security, and minimal wages—are the way
of the future. (518)

Ehrenreich (2005, 217) explains that these problems also affect the
middle class: a[M]iddle-class Americans . . . have been raised with the
old-time Protestant expectation that hard work will be rewarded . . . .
This has never been true of the working class And now, the sociolo-
gists agree, it is increasingly untrue of the educated middle class." Finally,
Scott and Leonhardt (2005,1) make the point succinctly: "Americans are
arguably more likely than they were 30 years ago to end up in the class
into which they were born."
With the classic American Dream economically outdistancing
most working-class people, Americans might question its veracity;
however, the American Dream is resilient. Americans admit that social
inequalities exist in the country and that they lead to the unfair distri-
bution of resources; but these same individuals consider "their class
 The American Dream, Upward Mobility, and Hollywood Film 5

inferiority as a sign of personal failure, even as many realized that they

had been constrained by class origins that they could not control"
(Lears 1985, 578).

The American Language of Class

The everyday vernacular of social mobility is fluid and encompasses sev-
eral different aspects of class in the United States. Class identity in Amer-
ican society is not just determined by economics, income, or birth status,
as in other countries. In America, social class distinctions abound in
lifestyle choices, cultural tastes, and social, secular, and religious affilia-
tions. The privilege of those who identify themselves as upper class is
based on cultural taste and educational level as well as on economic cap-
ital. How one dresses, what one eats and where, how one entertains one-
self and others, one's civic involvements, how one speaks, one's leisure
activities, and professional affiliations mark social class affiliation and
taste cultures beyond income level. All these widely varying markers dif-
ferentiate Americans between high class and ill bred; they separate red-
necks, hardhats, and good-ole-boys from the well-bred, the cultured,
and the eccentrics; they label people as ignorant or educated, stylish or
cheap, mannered or uncouth, respectable or trash, and all the nuances in
between. Social class markers and class distinctions are understood and
employed in everyday socialization, stereotypes, prejudices, jokes, club
memberships, and employment decisions. These subtle and overt dis-
tinctions inform Americans' understandings of their own and others'
social class affiliations. Although many of the common class-based terms
are used pejoratively, in this book, I follow Gans's use of such terms as
upper and lower classes not as judgments, "but as rough indicators of
positions in a socioeconomic hierarchy that has cultural implications"
(1999,7).
Given Americans' complex understanding of social class and key
belief in the unfettered opportunity for the social mobility promised by
the American Dream, it is important to investigate how these ideas are
communicated in a coherent fashion to the point that the American
Dream is a defining characteristic of the country's national identity.
6 The American Dream and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

Understanding the Resiliency of the American Dream

How does the American Dream continue to thrive in an America where
it is increasingly difficult for working-class people to achieve upward
mobility? One powerful way is its continued glorification in American
popular culture. Carey (1989) explains that the media play an important
role in society's communication and understanding of reality. The pur-
suit of the American Dream is a common plotline in Hollywood films.
For example, Working Girts simple rags-to-riches storyline is the basic
plot for dozens of Hollywood films. When the broader ideas of the
American Dream are considered, many more Hollywood films are
intrinsically based on this national credo. Given the ubiquitous nature of
Hollywood motion pictures, it is apparent that the American Dream is
alive and well in cinematic fare.
This book explains how contemporary Hollywood cinema reaffirms
the preeminence of the American Dream. Critical theorists have long
argued that the capitalist media prefer a hegemonic view that focuses on
the wealthy, yet the enormous change in the disparity between the ultra-
wealthy in the United States and the vast majority of Americans begs
that the relationship between the media and social order be further
explored ("Income gap," 2000; Miringoff and Miringoff 1999; Mishel,
Bernstein, and Schmitt 2001; Mishel, Bernstein, and Allegretto 2005;
"Poorest" 1997; "Rising tide" 1997; Shapiro 1995; Weinberg 1996). Her-
bert (2005, A19) argues that the divide between the rich and all other
Americans is becoming "an unbridgeable gap."

Defining the American Dream

The American Dream assures that no class system hampers an individ-
ual's advancement, even though many Americans experience structural
class limitations daily. At least partially because of the American Dream,
Americans accept this contradiction. Fisher argues that myths such as
the American Dream function to "provide meaning, identity, a compre-
hensive understandable image of the world and to support the social
order" (1973, 161). Furthermore, Fisher explained that the American
Dream is two myths: the materialistic success myth and the moralistic
 The American Dream, Upward Mobility, and Hollywood Film 7

myth of brotherhood, arguing that "the egalitarian moralistic myth of

brotherhood" involves "the values of tolerance, charity, compassion and
true regard for the dignity and worth of each and every individual"
(1973,161). The materialistic myth is concerned with "the puritan work
ethic and relates to the values of effort, persistence, 'playing the game,'
initiative, self-reliance, achievement, and success" (Fisher 1973, 161).
Fisher shows how the values of the dual myths of the American Dream
can, and do, support both the myth of upward mobility and a belief in
the importance of all Americans despite their social backgrounds (the
classless basis of the dream).

The American Dream, the Self, and Hollywood's Contemporary Era

This book focuses on the American Dream and its representation in
popular contemporary Hollywood film. I approach the study of the
American Dream from a perspective that sees film as one of the available
resources that aid people in understanding their place in the world; indi-
viduals use narrative discourse as a way of understanding and coping
with their problems. Erikson (1968) points out that in trying to under-
stand personal identity, the importance of what we wish to be and what
we have to work with predominates. In other words, the act of under-
standing identity is about how we negotiate who we are and what
resources we have at our disposal for that negotiation.
I investigate what films communicate about the American Dream
and its related social mobility. To do so, I explicate the morals that bring
about success and failure for the characters in the narratives, and what
the films offer individuals to help them understand their place in the
American Dream. This research asks what contemporary Hollywood
films communicate about Americans' needs to cope with success and
failure in terms of the conflicting myths of a classless American society
and the American Dream of upward mobility.
The present analysis is concerned with upward class mobility and
identity as they relate to social order and demonstrates one way that
rhetorical studies can advance social and cultural critique. This study
contributes to the work of "rhetorical studies as a form of discursive
8 The American Dream and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

challenge to a variety of political, academic, and cultural-spheres" (Ros-

teck 1999, ix). Burke argues that humans use dramatic resources to con-
struct and maintain their identities and their understanding of their
relationship to others in society, and demonstrates how dramas depict
human motives and invite audiences to evaluate those motives. By com-
bining societal myths with individual motives, filmic narratives provide
significant equipment for living that may aid viewers in evaluating their
own and other people's motives in an effort to make sense of their situa-
tion (Burke 1941/1973). Fisher and Fillory (1982, 343) explain that
through dramatic narratives we "do on occasion come to new beliefs,
reaffirmations of old ones, reorient our values, and may even be led to
action. We know... fictive forms of communication may have rhetorical
intentions and consequences."
Payne (1996, 3-4) uses dramatism to explain that "film is a highly
transformative world, where mythic and idealized powers of transfor-
mation are depicted, enacted, and highly personalized and where com-
parison, contrast, synthesis and merger of our symbolic vocabularies for
identity change are crafted, revealed, and disseminated to the public at
large." Filmic narratives that overtly portray characters grappling with
class issues and succeeding in achieving upward mobility provide a way
for individuals to understand their own struggles and class identities.
Cinematic narratives are used as texts because film presents a remark-
able resource for observing social definitions, myths, and cultural scripts
about American society. In films, issues concerning the American Dream
form the broad spectrum of economic, cultural, and educational capital
that U.S. audiences recognize as social groups and social classes.
Film scholars generally agree that the contemporary era of filmmaking
began in the later 1970s. This designation was motivated by changes in the
movie industry caused by the advent of new technologies and business
practices, an emphasis on blockbuster filmmaking, and related narrative
styles and formulas. Because the concept of social class in the United States
is not rigid, this book focuses on a contemporary view of the American
Dream rather than one that was represented in films of past eras, such as
1930's film noir, the screwball romantic comedies of the 1940s, or other
earlier films. The selection of films is limited to mainstream Hollywood
 The American Dream, Upward Mobility, and Hollywood Film 9

narrative texts that achieved box-office success, received critical acclaim,

or stand out because of some other unique quality. In other words, for-
eign films, labor films, films that are made specifically to address class
issues, documentaries, and experimental/abstract films have not been
considered. The result of these selection criteria is a group of main-
stream narrative Hollywood films that are widely recognized and
acclaimed popularly and/or critically through a period of over twenty-
five years. In this book, I analyze: Saturday Night Fever (1977), Breaking
Away (1979), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Flashdance (1983), The
Flamingo Kid (1984), Wall Street (1987), Someone to Watch Over Me
(1987), Working Girl (1988), Pretty Woman (1990), White Palace (1990),
PassionFish (1991), The Fisher King (1991), TheFirm (1993), Mrs. Win-
terbourne (1996), Good Will Hunting (1997), Titanic (1997), and Maid in
Manhattan (2002). The bulk of the films are from the 1980s and 1990s
because these decades have been defined by social scholars as a time in
which working-class and poor Americans suffered significant economic
setbacks due to corporate greed, downsizing, and the shrinking of the
middle class (Eisler 1983; Ehrenreich 1989; Higgins 2002; Jeffords 1994;
Mantsios 1992; Samuelson 1999). The confluence of these social issues
and changes in the film industry make this era a vital and productive
period for a contemporary look at film and the American Dream. Social
inequality is a significant theme in American life and one that invites
close rhetorical scrutiny. The significance of these texts lies in the fact
that the movies, their directors, and actors are popularly and critically
acclaimed, and that the films have been widely seen in theaters and on
broadcast and cable television and continue to be popular rentals in the
video market.

Rhetorical Assessment of Filmic Value Systems

Narrative discourse provides a significant way for individuals to under-
stand and cope with their everyday lives (Burke 1935/1984b; Campbell
1982; Fisher 1987; Jameson 1981). Scholars have established a significant
link between the communication of societal myths and social values via
filmic narratives as a significant focus of rhetorical studies (Aden 1994;
10 The American Dream and Contemporary Hollywood Cinema

Brinson 1995; Brummet 1985, Frentz and Farrell 1975; Frentz and Hale
1983; Frentz and Rushing 1978; Payne 1989a, 1991, 1992, 1996; Ras-
mussen and Downey 1989,1991; Rushing 1983,1986,1989,1991; Rush-
ing and Frentz 1978, 1980, 1989; Solomon and McMullen 1991).
Ideological assumptions are ensconced in the media, myth, and culture
(Hall 1979; Jameson 1991). In their analysis of ideology in contempo-
rary Hollywood film, Ryan and Kellner argue that ideology is "an
attempt to placate social tensions and to respond to social forces in such
a way that they cease to be dangerous to the social system of inequality"
(1988,14). Rushing and Frentz (1978) have argued that many films pre-
scribe specific value changes as ways of improving situations and life
problems. They present the social value model, which explicates two
types of value schemes. They term the replacement of one value system
with another "dialectical transformation" and use the term "dialectical
synthesis" to explain the fusion of competing systems.
Rushing (1983) has expanded the social value model to illustrate
other methods of change by investigating the historical development of
the American Western film genre. In doing so, Rushing illustrates dialec-
tical reaffirmation, where the tension between two value systems is
restated and expanded upon; dialectical emphasis, where one value sys-
tem is featured over a competing value system; and dialectical pseudo-
synthesis, where "the two disparate paradoxical elements are brought
together . . . glossing over their inherently contradictory nature" (26).
Further, Rushing (1985) demonstrates rhetorical transcendence in an
analysis of the popular film E.T. Rhetorical transcendence occurs when
the conflict between values can be transcended via a higher principle.
Continuing in the tradition of explicating how films rhetorically
prescribe patterns of value change, Rasmussen and Downey (1989)
investigates Agnes of God and articulates the concept of dialectical dis-
orientation. Dialectical disorientation "emerges from conflict between
two antithetical but complementary life worlds and results in a para-
doxical acceptance of the uncertainty and ambiguity of the human
condition" (Rasmussen and Downey 1989, 66). Brinson (1995)
advances the rhetorical use of the social value model by incorporating
the structuralist principle of mediation and illustrates this move by
 The American Dream, Upward Mobility, and Hollywood Film 11

demonstrating how the film Mississippi Burning communicates the

myth of white superiority.

Rhetorical Analyses of the American Dream in Popular Culture

Fisher and Pillory (1982) employ Fisher's (1973) rhetorical explication
of the American Dream to analyze the play Death of Salesman and the
novel The Great Gatsby. They conclude that these dramatic narratives
argue that "self-knowledge and acceptance are higher values" (361) than
material success and suggest that films should also be investigated as sig-
nificant sources of dramatic narratives concerning the American Dream.
In that analytic vein, McMullen (1996) works from the tradition of
rhetorical analyses of film and Fisher's (1973) work on the American
Dream to investigate Kramer vs. Kramer. McMullen (1996, 35-36) finds
that "the film reinforces the patriarchal grounding of the American
Dream. Specifically, it envisions an affirming synthesis between materi-
alism and moralism for men but excludes women from that same real-
ization." Hoerl (2002, 261) argues, "Recent references to the American
Dream in popular books and magazines suggest that the myth has lost
its egalitarian edge," implying that the American Dream myth needs
reaffirmation to continue to function ideologically. For example, in an
analysis of media coverage of the Columbine High School shootings,
Hoerl finds that news coverage reflected "broader anxieties about the
declining status of the American Dream myth" (2002, 260). To repair
this ideological rift, Hoerl (2002, 263) argues that "journalists' explana-
tions for the . . . shootings suggests that news media coverage of the
tragedy restored legitimacy to the American Dream by framing [middle-
class suburban] adolescent youth as inherently evil monsters."
Scholars contend that the media, particularly the commercial visual
media, act as our contemporary myths. Hirschman (2000), in an analysis
of films and television shows, argues that these media offerings are the
mythology of American culture. More specifically, Hirschman (2000,
157) asserts that by the 1980s, "American culture began settling down to
do business— In short, it was back to basics time: time to reassert basic
cultural categories of good and evil, male and female, and God and
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