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Video summarizes the pros and cons of the American Dream 

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Video summarizes the pros and cons of the American Dream 

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Conversations w/Great Minds P2 - Prof Robert D. Putnam - The American Dream in Crisis

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My guest for tonight's Conversations with Great Minds is one of the world's leading political scientists. Currently the Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University - Robert D. Putnam, who has been called "the most influential academic in the world." He has advised three U.S.

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Part 4: Evaluation of Americans and the American Dream

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Part 4: Evaluation of Americans and the American Dream

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When one first hears ¨the American Dream¨ they think of many positive things that they can achieve by hard work and commitment, it sounds great and has many benefits, but it also can take everything from people to achieve it. Some people might think of it as a myth, since they have seen so many people fail than actually achieving it. Even students in college can say, “You can always work hard, but if you aren’t given the opportunity or you don’t have the funds to be able to continue working hard then you never get the chance to get out of where you are,” (Pinsker Teenagers Are Losing Confidence in the American Dream). There is hope, but it is also very difficult for many to get what they want.

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In La La Land they chase the dream until the end

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In La La Land they chase the dream until the end

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La La Land

(Damien Chazelle, 2016)

Rating: 5/5

Reviewed by Dave Lancaster

Summary: Tipping its hat to Hollywood's finest musicals, La La Land is a nostalgia trip that forges exciting new ground. A masterpiece in this or any age.

La La Land is a salute to those who chase their dreams and it succeeds so well that it makes you evaluate your own. It is a film of such energy and love that it feels like the equivilent of a cinematic embrace.

In crafting La La Land, Whiplash writer/director Damien Chazelle has responded to the golden era of musicals with a film for all time and has deservedly become the youngest person in Oscar history (32) to win Best Director.

Chazelle's film tells the story of Seb, a jazz musician who yearns to open his own club and reignite the fire underneath a neglected genre of music, and Mia who is desperate to make it big as an actress and be taken seriously while she does it. Both are nostalgic and fiercely determined but success may well be their undoing.

As Seb and Mia, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone (with a few prior onscreen pairings under their belts and in the audience's subconscious) have established themselves as this generation's Fred and Ginger or Bogart and Bacall. They, like La La Land itself, are instant vintage.

This is a film that revels in that kind of old school Hollywood feel when the top billed stars were chained to their studio contracts and became beacons of the movies they appeared in. La La Land doesn't just nod in the direction of Singin' in the Rain, An American in Paris and A Star is Born but joins them in that calibre of classic.

The music, choreography, love story, performances and Los Angeles setting is all sublime but what gives the film its staying power is its undercurrent of melancholy. La La Land isn't just a song and dance. It's a beating heart. Its melody with both haunt and inspire you.

Be sure to pick up Lionsgate's Blu-ray that contains hours of bonus material including early demos of the songs, featurettes and director's commentary. The enthusiasm for this project that is documented here is contagious.

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La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016) Rating: 5/5 Reviewed by Dave Lancaster Summary: Tipping its hat to Hollywood's finest musicals, La La Land is a nostalgia trip that forges exciting new ground. A masterpiece in this or any age.

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How do you define the American Dream?
In my opinion the American Dream today is to be able to have opportunities that will influence families in the future. Originally speaking, I am an immigrant, and in my country I did not have the chances to achieve many things as I did here. I am better educated here, and I have faith based on passed experience that when I graduate I will have a chance to find a job and start working. According to Carla hale the American Dream, ¨Is that the one about owning a home, sending your children to college, a one-income family, retiring at 65, and traveling to see the world after that? I DON'T THINK SO! It sounds wonderful and too good to be true. How about just purchasing/owning a home, not in California's Central Coast, but where I can afford? There are no jobs. We both work, as does our daughter, and she works five days a week and is paying for her college, and taking four classes. My dream of home ownership is slipping away; although owning (and hopefully succeeding) in business ownership is a lot closer than home ownership¨ (Hale Lompoc). Hale was trying to convey the idea of having a true dream that one actually wants to achieve, and will work toward achieving it. Hale also makes a point that not everyone needs to have a huge dream that might not be achieved with so much work, her dream was simple such as going to college and raising her daughter good. That is similar to my American Dream because I am not asking for much other than having a good job and my family safe. I am willing to commit all my time and energy to achieve this dream because I truly want it to happen. Cindy Lemon makes a great point when she remarks, ¨The only sure solution to this problem is for American households to become more educated and thus more competitive in the work force and to just say "no" to the materialistic mentality. We need to look at ourselves and our values and ask, 'do we really need to live in homes that are over 3,000 square feet?' All that said, I do think the American dream is still achievable¨ (Lemon Alta Loma). The American Dream can be greatly influenced by culture, society, and technology, and that is resembled in Lemon´s point, because many people seek the greatest instead getting what they need. In my culture for example, if there´s more then we get it cause more is best, and I constantly see my family trying to change that and getting what fits us and what we need not what we want. In my opinion the Americxan Dream is not easy to achieve, but is a must if one is seeking to live a ¨perfect¨ life according to his/her perspective of life, everyone that worked hard deserves to live that life that they have dreamed of.

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Part 2: Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, and the American Dream

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Part 2: Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, and the American Dream

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How does Fitzgerald define the American Dream?
The American Dream presents a pretty bright view of the American society that ignores problems like racism, misogyny, and income equality. The 1920s in particular was a very remarkable time because of the increase of immigration and also the change of women's role in society, because in 1919 the right to vote was won. The economy was great in the 1920s and gave everyone hope to become rich, but in 1929 the economy crashed, which was predicted in the Great Gatsby that was released in 1925, it was just like one of Gatsby's parties. In a brief summery of the eight chapters, things do not turn the way we want in the novel because the novel ends with nick shocked from how underachieved the American dream was. ¨But I didn't call to him for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone--he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward--and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock¨ (Fitzgerald 11). For the audience´s first sight of Gatsby we see him reaching for the green light, which can be interpreted as Gatsby´s meditation of the American dream, the concept of reaching for something greater than ourselves. At the end of the book Gatsby does not try to reach for it anymore when he and Daisy became closer, indicating that he has reached his goal, but then Daisy leaves him making Fitzgerald suggest the idea that nothing lasts even our dreams. ¨His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete¨ (Fitzgerald 61). This moment especially connects Daisy with all of Gatsby´s dreams, to his American Dream. This then sets for the Great ending of the book, when Daisy left Gatsby and could not stand the pressure and she left with the known businessman Tom Buchanan for a better life. Despite her own feelings, Gatsby´s death is followed by his failure to get Daisy and to achieve his American dream. This attempt and fail of the American Dream was resembled in America in 1920 when the economy was at its highest rates and then the economy crashed in 1929, so that American Dream of wealth was also not achieved just like Gatsby could not get Daisy until the end.

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The American Dream of the United States is a national ethos that is made out of a set of ideas that include: democracy, rights, liberty, opportunity, and equality. Freedom is expressed through success and opportunities for hard working families in society with only few barriers. According to James Truslow Adams the American Dream is that, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement" regardless of the social class and race (Adams 1931).
“...there will be sleeping enough in the grave....” (Franklin The Autobiography).
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined" (Henry Speech to the Virginia Convention).
“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph" (Paine The American Crisis).
"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison" (Thoreau Resistance to Civil Government).
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly" (MLK Letter from the Birmingham Jail).
“If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man" (Thoreau Civil Disobedience).