The American Dream in Film and Television

The American Dream during the 1950s was the belief in opportunity for success, everybody was created equal and everybody had an equal opportunity to have a career, raise a family and live successful and comfortable lives. The American Dream is an idea that suggests anyone living in the United States has the potential to live a happy and successful life; as long as you work hard you can achieve anything. The American Dream is just that a Dream, it isn’t reality, that successful life is far fetched. In the films Avalon, Quiz Show, The Apartment, A Face in the Crowd and Tin Men, they all have the same ending, chasing that American Dream and losing their jobs. Some people think that the American Dream represents the desire to live a better life than the previous generation did, and there is a legitimate opportunity for this to happen, as long as you work hard enough. This is especially true in the case of the Avalon movie. The desire of many parents for their children is to lead happy lives. This is especially true among immigrants, because many of them fled their native countries, which were difficult to live in, to live in the land of opportunity.

The impact and power media had on the American people during the 1950s, was extremely effective once advertising was introduced. Television did what the radio couldn’t, it showed the products. By seeing the product this changed advertising because it now made it visual and was extremely effective in sales. Part of the American Dream involved homemakers, wives stayed home, cleaned, cooked while their husbands went to work. The media advertised housewives using appliances to do their cooking and cleaning, with a smile. This created an image of women living in the fifties. The number of w...

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...r you, or against you.

There are those who take and those who get took. In the film the Apartment, Baxter is a single man working and making sacrifices in order to move up the ladder at work. Baxter went from working in the Ordinary Policy department to second Administrative Assistant, to Assistant Director. It wasn’t easy, Mr. Baxter let upper management walk all over him, he took the blame for things, and he covered up for people, gave up his apartment so upper management can use it how ever and when ever they wanted to. He put other people’s happiness before his. All he wanted was to become promoted, make more money and thought that would bring him happiness. At the end Mr. Baxter quits and becomes a human being, he stands up for himself and no longer allows anyone to use his apartment. He finally realizes money isn’t everything and it can’t buy you happiness.