Final Paper: The American Nightmare
Posted by briancheever91 on November 16, 2007
The American Nightmare
Everybody knows about the American dream, and lots of time has been spent debating about whether or not there is a specific American dream. The American dream been narrowed down to being rich and famous. That’s it. Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you that their idea of the American dream is being rich and famous.
Boy, it sure would be great to be rich and famous, wouldn’t it? Having all the money you’ll ever need, being able to buy anything you want, and having people approach you on the street to tell you how awesome you are? Sound great? Sure. But there’s one major drawback that can emerge from the American dream, and that is, the American nightmare. Okay, I made it up, but if you think about it, the American nightmare is very real. I’ll explain. When you sleep, you dream, and if it goes wrong and becomes scary, unpleasant, or downright embarrassing, it’s a nightmare. When being rich and famous isn’t enough to keep you happy when a problem arises, you’re living the American nightmare. It can only arise when rich and/or famous, because you can’t have a nightmare without dreaming.
There are many examples of the American nightmare. They’re everywhere. You ever read those old murder mysteries? The ones where some rich guy or rich girl is killed, probably by poisoned tea, and the disillusioned detective gradually reveals that the butler did it? That’s the American nightmare summed up metaphorically. Chances are, unless you’re rich enough to have a butler, he won’t be the killer if you are murdered. But if you are rich enough, you’d better watch yourself.
In a way, being rich and famous is a nightmare in itself. You have the paparazzi on a ceaseless quest to destroy your life with “incriminating” photos, and if you make one mistake, the press is all over you. You become a laughing stock. Look at Tom Cruise. One of the richest, most famous people on the planet, and everyone hates him because he’s a Scientologist. Not to mention, when he and his rich and famous wife gave birth to their daughter, the press wouldn’t leave them alone.
The definition of a disturbing American nightmare comes with Anna Nicole Smith’s death. How scary is the idea that if you’re rich and famous, and die with an illegitimate kid, that nobody would care about you, but instead be entertained by the media circus surrounding the baby’s mysterious father? It also creates a lot of trouble for the baby. Some day that kid will be a teenager, and find out that he was the subject of a large media phenomenon. How embarrassing. Being the spawn of Anna Nicole Smith, that’s worse than “naked in a dream” embarrassed.
Nightmares are often synonymous with ghosts, ghouls, witches, and the undead. While generally, the American nightmare only involves things that are very possible, a brilliant 19th century horror author, Edgar Allan Poe, painted a literal picture of the American nightmare. His stories usually involve people who are rich, often of royalty which renders them famous, who if they somehow manage to make it out of the situations alive, suffer fates worse than death. And many of them involve the supernatural. Take “The Masque of the Red Death” for instance (okay the story isn’t set in America, but it’s a great example of what the American nightmare could be). In the story, a horrific plague called the Red Death is sweeping the nation, and a rich, famous prince believes he could keep people safe. He organizes a fun, rich person’s masquerade ball within the “safe” confines of his castle, and everything goes great. However, you could suppose that the Red Death was pretty pissed off at the abundance of fun, safety, and the high decibel level of the clock chimes. The Red Death himself ends up crashing the party and laying waste to it. Only a rich person could have organized something as formal and fun as that particular masquerade ball, and everything goes wrong in ways beyond any human imagination, with the exception of Edgar Allen Poe, who, to put it nicely, was seriously in need of professional help, or at least whatever qualified as professional back then.
Also qualifying as American dream monsters are talk show hosts. You become a subject of a joke in one of their monologues, you officially are living the American nightmare, because you obviously did something to deserve it. As far as the American dream goes, they are totally lucid. They are in control of the quality of their lives. As long as they don’t get jacked by the IRS, or get killed, they have little if any chance of being made a fool of. That’s because it’s their job to make fools of people. “Mad” magazine is the only thing that could touch them, but (unfortunately) nobody reads “Mad,” so they’re safe.
The American dream is often described as being poor, or simply not very well off, and becoming rich and famous, or simply very well off. And that depiction of the American nightmare is well summed up in the classic, epic novel “Les Miserables.” Also, not American, but just that has nothing to do with this.
In the book, a man named Jean Valjean is poor, starving, and unfortunate enough to live in a world where stealing a loaf of bread is such a horrible offense that it warrants a five-year prison sentence. He learns this the hard way. After serving his sentence, plus an extra fifteen years for trying to run, he skips out on his parole and manages to achieve the impossible, by becoming the mayor of a small town, and being rich and famous. This is where the fame part bites him. An inspector, who guarded him in prison, has nothing better to do than spend his life chasing a man who skipped being paroled for bread theft. I’d hate to see what the book would have been like if Valjean had committed murder.
What this says is that fame brings the past back to haunt you. If you did something horrible to a person that only you and that person know about, watch out if you become famous, because your chances of being blackmailed are very high, especially if you’re rich. In Valjean’s case, he just had the rotten luck of being born in the worst possible time and place to be poor.
The American nightmare is tragically common among most people living the American dream. In fact, everything you just read is a lot of words for the overall point; fame and fortune isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Aside from being widely loved and recognized, and being able to buy whatever you want, more bad can come out of it than good. And sometimes, the bad doesn’t even need to be a direct result of fame and fortune. Look at “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” If you haven’t seen that show, stop reading and go watch all the episodes right now. Anyway, the main character, Larry David (creator of “Seinfeld”) is rich and famous, but his life sucks simply due to the worst luck imaginable.
If being rich and famous is living the American dream, then the American dream is a truly painful and difficult thing. You just might be better off living an average life. Now I’m going to go to bed and think of ideas for a screenplay so I can write it and sell it for a fortune.
