Vol. 15 No. 1 (2024): RefleXen Spring 2024
Articles

The Evolution of The Dream: Representations of The American Dream in Two Films from the 21st Century

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  • Jonas Normand Kristensen
Jonas Normand Kristensen
AAU Aalborg Universitet
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54337/reflexen.v15i1.8939

Published 12-09-2024

Copyright (c) 2024 Jonas Normand Kristensen

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Abstract

This paper debates the current state of the American Dream, once central to the identity of the United States, based on contemporary representations of the Dream that have taken root in the 21st century. These arguments are founded in the cultural analyses of Muccino’s The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) and Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), due to their diametrically opposing representations of the concept. Through these analyses, I find that the Dream has evolved from a debate on whether it could be real, to a debate on whether it should be pursued in the first place.

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