After reading Cullen’s chapter on “The Dream of the Good Life (II): Upward Mobility” I really thought he brought up several good points. One I focused on even more, maybe because it relates to a lot of our lives, is his quote on the concept of underdog stories in American.
“For hundreds of years, American readers and writers have had tireless appetites for tales of poor boys (and, later, girls) who, with nothing but pluck and ingenuity, created financial empires that towered over the national imaginations and in some cases towered over the national landscape as well).”
(pg. 60)
It’s true. Everyone wants the underdog to win in many of the stories presented in American literature, and today, in American films. How often do the underdogs come out on “top” in some form (fortune, fame, glory). It has been a theme common to America for a very long time. There are countless films about the sports teams battling back with many underdog type problems, yet they still keep making those movies. Even movies like Star Wars, Babe or Disney films like Ratatouille all have that same kind of theme where minorities can raise themselves up and gain from that work.
This has the “newer” (II) American Dream written in every work. I have to wonder though, is this just an American concept which we like to hear or read, or is this an interesting topic for humankind as a whole? I do feel like we love to embrace this idea as our own in America, and yes it is a very American type of concept, but I think “heroic” (upward mobility) type stories have been written forever, in many cultures, even in ancient times.
No comments:
Post a Comment