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Love as Redemption

The American Dream Myth and the Celebrity Biopic

Mississippi State University, gsmith{at}comm.msstate.edu

This research documents the American Dream in two popular biopics: Ray (2004) and Walk the Line (2005). In both films, the American Dream, framed by the ideology of individuality, follows a particular trajectory: Struggle, individual effort, responsibility, and talent lead to material wealth, but the protagonists' immoral behaviors overwhelm them, thus creating a host of professional and personal problems. The relevance of racism and class struggle, long identified as significant barriers to upward mobility, is minimized for a more personal issue, psychological trauma, to explain their moral declines. Both films resolve the natural tensions between the material (individualism) and the moral (brotherhood) by introducing the Hollywood love story as an acceptable narrative for the lead character's redemption. The mythology allows for a more feminine narrative (heterosexual romantic love) as moral resolution, one that avoids the more complicated notions of brotherhood (racial and class equality) as part of the ideological equation.

Key Words: myth • American Dream • film • race • class

This version was published on July 1, 2009

Journal of Communication Inquiry, Vol. 33, No. 3, 222-238 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0196859909333696


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