“If income inequality were a sport, the residents of 740 Park Avenue in Manhattan would all be medalists. This address boasts the highest number of billionaires in the United States”, which is posted on the preface of Park Avenue. Over the past four decades, income disparity amongst American citizens has soar. The American Dream—the equal opportunity for prosperity and success, achievable for all citizens through hard work—is disintegrating without end. In the film, the Director Alex Gibney uses New York's most famous boulevards: Park Avenue as a starting point to needle with describes the rapid growth of the inequality gap between each class. No. 740 Park Avenue in Manhattan is the highest density residential gathering billionaire in the “As more and more income goes to the very top, that changes the way our politics work; it changes the way our society looks. There’s been a reinforcing cycle. Those at the top have done well. They’ve invested in policies that are favorable to them, and they’ve done even better, and then they’ve churned a lot of that money back into politics.” Then, in the beginning part of the film, I found there is a big flaw when Mr. Gibney pushes to demonstrate that the wealth breeds hardness and cynicism. A large portion of the country’s wealthiest individuals is likewise its most liberal, but he disregards that for an unstable looking study including the board game Monopoly. Then it talked about that parents in the Bronx would be glad for their children to have good health, security, playing space and an education, however the open doors are regularly reducing, whilst the kids at the highest point of the social ladder are being readied to succeed to the earth. Moreover, be that as it may, the film's implicit charges against the extremely rich people went much further, connecting them to American ills, for example, imbalance and confined social versatility. The expressed thought was to contrast Manhattan's elegant Park Avenue and another road of the same name in the close-by South Bronx, where hardship is overflowing. Yet, after a brief introductory If they can afford it, let them be. If I could afford it, I would have it, at least a lot of it. The problem is when they manipulate the system to protect and expand their direct costs in other people, and even have the courage to point their dirty hands on the poor say that this is to blame we just put them on bail out of the crisis they created they don't need to be greedy and reckless behavior. The problem is that when they sit around and complain about the economic uncertainty, they refuse to hire anyone, even if they just record the record-breaking profits. The problem is, when the big oil is receiving our tax subsidies, it is accused of health care and food stamps, “making people dependent on the government”. Who cares if who is rich or if they live a luxurious lifestyle, just don't try to play the victim, and do so, make sure you return what you can for those unlucky. There is nothing wrong with success. All in all, Park Avenue is a captivating documentary that shows how money can corrupt power in this society between high class and low class, and states that the higher the wealth people are, the higher chances of manipulating order they would
When most people were young, he or she would sit by the window and wonder off imagining of what their future would hold. Most people have the same vision called the American Dream. The American Dream is a façade that money is entirety and can make a person feel content. In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, that American Dream is portrayed through the character Billy Pilgrim. According to Vonnegut, “He married his fiancée, finished his education, and was set up in Ilium by his father-in-law. Ilium is a particularly good city for optometrists because General Forge and Foundry Company is there. Every employee is required to own a pair of safety glasses, and to wear them in areas where manufacturing is going on” (24). According to society, Billy Pilgrim would be considered a successful individual, for his life was set up for him by family, including a well-paying job and a family. Although the American Dream seems like the perfect life, money truly cannot buy anyone’s happiness. Billy was a prime example of someone who had it all but was still struggling to accept his life as a whole...
Throughout the novel, East Egg demonstrates time after time the shallow underbelly of New York’s upper side. The inhabitants of this section of the city are what are known as the “old money”, meaning they come from families with money passed down through generation upon generation. Nick Carraway demonstrates unto the reader the grandeur of the area when he says, “Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water…” (Fitzgerald 5) referring to the homes opposite the bay of his. The people who occupy these homes, such as Tom and Daisy Buchanan and Jordan Baker, have never had to work a single day in their lives to secure and maintain their lavish and luxurious lifestyles, and will never have to because of the money that their families have procured throughout the generations. People here are reckless, and tend to not want to take responsibility for their actions. Jordan demonstrates...
The American dream was at one time the idea of visionaries and people willing to sacrifice everything to achieve the best life possible. But like everything in life, things begin to lose their luster. As seen in the film Revolutionary Road, this American dream is more of an idea of comfort. Quite relatable to a participation trophy, people are content with doing just enough to never leave their comfort zone. There isn’t much risk in owning a home in the suburbs with a wife, two kids, and a pet dog. Although, with a life like that you will often never experience the pain of catastrophic failure or the loneliness in going against the grain everyone else chooses to follow. But without the opportunity to fail, how you can you ever feel like you won? The cookie cutter life previously described also has no opportunity for
In the book “They Say I Say”, Brandon King writes an essay bringing multiple perspectives on what Americans golden way of living is. The “American dream” is what most American citizens all strive for. Early settlers came in to try to achieve “the dream”. Those who already lived in America choose to stay because of its grand possibilities. The United States of America is the only place in the world where you have the rights to freedom of speech. What is the American dream? It used to be said that you could come to America and go from rags to riches; you could come with nothing and achieve everything you ever wanted. Take a second and think. We all ponder upon, is the so called “American dream” dead or alive? This has been a steamy topic
“It was if there was a social moat that divided these two New Yorks.” This quote from the movie The Central Park Five, explains the divide between the poor part of New York, such as Harlem, and the upper class areas. This divide was caused by an economic crisis that changed the social dynamics of the city. This change allowed for consequences such as the injustice of the Central Park Five and the causes of this injustice can be explained by three different theoretical perspectives: the Structural Functionalist Perspective, the Symbolic Interactionist Perspective, and the Conflict Perspective.
One person may see that the increase taxation on the poor and the decrease taxes on the wealthy is not an issue because the wealthy pay a lot of taxes already. However, many people don’t realize the fact that, yes, the wealthy are paying a lot of taxes because they make more money, but they can afford to pay more. Recently, in a CNN article, more than forty millionaires want their taxes to increase, which proves the fact that the wealthy have plenty of money to give back to the community. In addition, their just going to keep getting wealthier and wealthier by the
The book asks two questions; first, why the changes that have taken place on the sidewalk over the past 40 years have occurred? Focusing on the concentration of poverty in some areas, people movement from one place to the other and how the people working/or living on Sixth Avenue come from such neighborhoods. Second, How the sidewalk life works today? By looking at the mainly poor black men, who work as book and magazine vendors, and/or live on the sidewalk of an upper-middle-class neighborhood. The book follows the lives of several men who work as book and magazine vendors in Greenwich Village during the 1990s, where mos...
West Egg is where the “middle class” live. Residents are wealthy, but they’re much rowdier than their East Egg neighbors. They throw loud, eccentric parties and “they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks” (45). Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway are both residents of West Egg. Their homes, however, are completely different in size and grandeur. Nick described his house as “. . . an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month” (9-10). The neighbor, later revealed to be Gatsby, is of higher class than Nick, even though they live in the same region due to the size of his home, and his riches. The citizens of West Egg, like Nick and Gatsby, don’t come from wealthy families. Their “non-pedigree” status stops them from getting what they want. For example, Daisy gets tired of waiting for Gatsby to get back from war and acquire wealth, and she marries Tom, a very rich man with family history, instead. The residents of West Egg are stuck between the poverty they escaped and the status they want to achieve, this ...
Park Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in all of New York City, home to the ultra rich, the top tier of the American upper class, the 1% (Park Avenue). Those who reside on Park Avenue not only have vast amounts of wealth, but an immense amount of influence that has turned the tables in their favor. But, if you go a couple of miles north of Park Avenue and cross the Harlem River, you arrive at the other side of Park Avenue, otherwise known as the Bronx, one of the poorest districts in all of New York (Park Avenue). Here you see the real hardships average Americans must navigate through in order to put food on the table and provide shelter for their families. 40% of the 700,000 residents who live in the Bronx live in poverty making less than $40 a day (Park Avenue).
The American Dream, as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary, is the belief that everyone in the United States of America has the chance to be successful and happy if they work hard enough. This idea is one of the major reason why America is the place most people from all over the world want to travel to in order to pursue the American Dream. The American Beauty is a movie that tells a story of what it takes to pursue the American Dream. In the movie, many sides of the American Dream were depicted by different characters in different ways but with similar experiences involving the cost and challenges of pursuing success. Jane is a young lady in the movie who suffered from a dysfunctional family. The lack of love in her home, which was due to her parents’ drive for success, did not only make her an unhappy girl but also led her into seeking love and attention in the hands of a drug dealer.
Youth have a certain quality and charisma that has made making films about them not only an interesting endeavor but also fundamental to cinema (Shary, 2002). Representative of hope and change, children are viewed as the future. Youth culture, with its ‘here today and gone tomorrow’ kind of dynamic, suggests that children are also the future of film. For decades the film industry has relied on young audiences for patronage and also looked to youth for inspiration and just the kind of material that makes a relevant and refreshing script (Shary, 2002). Youth-oriented film has subsequently become a genre all its own (Shary, 2002). A history of American youth cinema would indicate no different. It is thus interesting to explore youth-oriented films and how films across time, namely Lolita (1962), Marathon Man (1976), Rain Man (1988), Kids (1995), and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), have depicted youth culture, specifically the theme of “Coming-Of-Age.”
In Francis Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, the city of New York possesses a “transitory” and “enchanted” quantity, which “for the last time in history” rivaled man's “capacity for wonder” (182). New York City, a symbol of American greatness and the American dream, contains very unamerican class distinction: those whose families have been prominent and rich for decades function as a de facto aristocracy, looking down upon and controlling (through vast wealth) the poor. These class distinctions are mirrored by geography, dividing up the maps into regions by wealth. The parallelism of the region and the residents results in the region symbolizing the residents. Through analyzing both the residents and the description of the region, a holistic understanding can be gained about the residents of Valley of Ashes, East Egg, and West Egg.
When delineating between first and second generation American Independent cinema directors there is a fine line separating the two generations. This line usually lies somewhere in the early 80’s when the term ‘American Independent Cinema’ first began to emerge. Many other things that were pertinent to the American Independent Cinema movement also arose such as the emergence of video as a media form. There is a strong distinction in the change of dynamics between film school in the first and second generation of American Independent filmmakers as well. Reichardt exemplifies a strong relation to the second generation, executing these ideas in her films such as Wendy and Lucy and Old Joy.
The history of American civilization is the story of the rise and fall of the great American Dream. ‘The Progressive Era’ and ‘The Great Depression’ were the two prominent phases of American Civilization. The progress era witnessed the ideals of harmonious human community largely operative to bring the Dream of prosperity to core reality. The poverty, stagnation, pessimism and imperfection were considered un-American words whereas the depression decades shook ‘greatest society on the earth’. The ‘chosen few’ of ‘promise land’ realized poverty stagnation pessimism and imperfection which were inbuilt in its structure.
The American Dream is the belief that anyone can rise from rags to riches. The movie, Gran Torino, does an excellent job demonstrating the achievement of the American Dream. The movie demonstrates these ideas through Thao Vang Lor, and Walt’s Gran Torino. Thao fulfills the American Dream in the movie and the car serves as a symbol of the dream for both Thao and Walt. Thao is a classic example of a boy being able to rise from unfavorable circumstances toward a future with many opportunities.