The Frontline documentary “Two American Families” produced by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), portrays the life of two typical middle class families living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Frontline Video, 2013). This follows the life of the Neumann family and the Stanley family as they pursue the ideal type of life, The American Dream from 1991 through 2011 (Frontline Video, 2013). Although, the pursuit for their fantasy quickly turned into a fight for economical struggle (Frontline Video, 2013). These struggles were all brought upon by the new shaping economy (Frontline Video, 2013). In the beginning of the documentary, the Neumann family seemed well put together (Frontline Video, 2013). Urbanization opened many factory jobs. Mother But with the Stanley family as well (Frontline Video, 2013). The Stanley family consisted of Jackie, the mother, Claude, the father, two daughters, Nicole and Omega, son Keith, and two twin boys, Claude and Claude (Frontline Video, 2013). With a large family such as the Stanley 's, financially supporting everyone in it is difficult with a stable economy, let alone during a period of struggling (Frontline Video, 2013). During this time, the middle class was in poverty, meaning people in poverty originally, are far financially worse (Frontline Video, 2013). The father, Claude, was a pastor (Frontline Video, 2013). The mother, Jacki, made efforts to find work (Frontline Video, 2013). She spent most of her time helping her husband run the church (Frontline Video, 2013). She seemed confident and strong (Frontline Video, 2013). She inspired people to live to their full potential and enjoy life (Frontline Video, 2013). However, this was just an act (Frontline Video, 2013). Jackie didn’t want anyone to be worried about her or have a negative outlook based on her experience (Frontline Video, 2013). It upset her deeply when she would have to turn for help from others just to get some food to feed her family (Frontline Video,
The Neumann children even offered to sell their personal items to help their parents.Not only that but divorce became a thought in their family as things weren’t being fixed. In the video, the children in the Stanley family are shown doing yard work as a business. Although the ideal type to this is most likely that they won’t make that much but it’s still a hope. They were happy to be doing the “dirty work” (Gans, 1971) as it would help their family pull through the crisis. While the Stanley family was pulling, the Neumanns were having troubles (still around 1990s) as their children were being set with the norm of having their parents or one of their parents never home. At this time, socialization between the kids of both families and their parents decreased, dramatically affecting how they learned, thought, talked, and translating ideas to
In the novel The Bread Givers, there was a Jewish family, the Smolinsky family, that had immigrated from Russia to America. The family consisted of four daughters, a father, and a mother. The family lived in a poverty-stricken ghetto. The youngest of the daughters was Sara Smolinsky, nicknamed ?Iron Head? for her stubbornness. She was the only daughter that was brave enough to leave home and go out on her own and pursue something she wanted without the permission of her father. The Smolinsky family was very poor, they were to the point of which they could not afford to throw away potato peelings, and to the point of which they had to dig through other people?s thrown out ash in order to gather the coal they needed. They could not afford to buy themselves new clothes or new furniture.
A little girl dreams of a white wedding with white doves flying over the ceremony and the fairy-tale honeymoon. Only then to come home to the yellow house in the country, with the white picket fence included. Everyone has daydreamed about their future and having the “perfect” house, with the “perfect” car and the “perfect” marriage- everyone wants to live the “American Dream”. There are many people that believe that the “American Dream” is a concept that they are entitled to and expected to live. Then, there are those who believe that you should use the opportunities that America offers as a stepping stone to earn and create your own “American dream”. However, as time goes on the mainstream idea of “living the American Dream” has changed. This change is mostly due to the ever-changing economy, professions, and expectations of the American people. Throughout the book Working, by Studs Terkel, we meet many diverse groups of people to discover the people behind the jobs that allows American society to operate and how their choice of a career path has changed their lives.
The mother is a selfish and stubborn woman. Raised a certain way and never falters from it. She neglects help, oppresses education and persuades people to be what she wants or she will cut them out of her life completely. Her own morals out-weight every other family member’s wants and choices. Her influence and discipline brought every member of the family’s future to serious-danger to care to her wants. She is everything a good mother isn’t and is blind with her own morals. Her stubbornness towards change and education caused the families state of desperation. The realization shown through the story is the family would be better off without a mother to anchor them down.
Veterans coming home in the fifties would find that everywhere they turned something was being marketed with them in mind. Automobile makers and home developers capitalized on the idea of the “American life” and how appealing it was to so many soldiers. One subdivision in particular named, “Green Acres,” was especially glamorized, and was advertised in such a way that any red blooded American would love to raise a family there. Extra rooms, large yards, and room in basements for play areas made these houses ideal for beginning families. “Green Acres” came off as luxurious and large, but affordable to the average middle-class fami...
The main point one might gather from Goldberg’s discussion of America is that Americans need to slow down all aspects of their lives, need to take the small components of life and make them significant. Goldberg sees an impatience in Ame...
Having a harmonious family is a part of the American Dream. In The American Dream, written by Jim Cullen, a soldier wrote to the newspaper that he would “relate to” their “wives and children, parents and friends, what” they “have witnessed…” (Cullen, 114). Willa Cather introduces Rosicky’s family, which emphasizes on close relationships and positive community impacts in “Neighbor Rosicky”, and F. Scott Fitzgerald suggests that Charlie wants his role as a father back in “Babylon Revisited”. Even though both Cather and Fitzgerald value intimate families in integrity, they have different attitudes toward life.
Solitary Nation is a documentary film produced by “Frontline”. It takes place in a maximum-security prison in Maine and reveals the everyday experience of prisoners and correctional officers in the isolation section of the prison. The prisoners refer to this division of the prison as “seg”; an abbreviation for segregation. The inmates are locked in their cell for twenty-three hours each day with an hour designated for exercise or recess outside. However, during their hour of recess, each prisoner is confined to a cage outside or workout in. The producers of the film capture the inmates discussing their experiences within the isolation unit throughout the documentary. The vast majority of inmates enter isolation believing they will be okay;
Looking back on the death of Larissa’s son, Zebedee Breeze, Lorraine examines Larissa’s response to the passing of her child. Lorraine says, “I never saw her cry that day or any other. She never mentioned her sons.” (Senior 311). This statement from Lorraine shows how even though Larissa was devastated by the news of her son’s passing, she had to keep going. Women in Larissa’s position did not have the luxury of stopping everything to grieve. While someone in Lorraine’s position could take time to grieve and recover from the loss of a loved one, Larissa was expected to keep working despite the grief she felt. One of the saddest things about Zebedee’s passing, was that Larissa had to leave him and was not able to stay with her family because she had to take care of other families. Not only did Larissa have the strength to move on and keep working after her son’s passing, Larissa and other women like her also had no choice but to leave their families in order to find a way to support them. As a child, Lorraine did not understand the strength Larissa must have had to leave her family to take care of someone else’s
The film American Winter is a documentary based in Portland, Oregon. It followed several families on their struggle through hard times that lead to each family facing a different problematic outcome. Some families lost their jobs, others lost their homes, and all fought to feed their families. The film went against the grain of the image that many people associate lower class and poor families with. Each family was making ends meet, living fairly comfortably until a rough patch hit, and were then struggling to keep the electricity on in their homes, if they still had them. American Winter generally focused on the failures of the families, and left some questions unanswered; however, the film still portrayed an accurate depiction of poverty in today’s world by showing the lack of the “American dream”, the dwindling aspect of meritocracy, and the challenges of poverty on both parents and children.
The “American Dream” was originally centered around the pursuit of happiness, but during this time was contaminated by greed and corruption. Americans were blinded by materialistic wealth, prosperity and fame. America, once the land of equal opportunity, now became engrossed in becoming successful by any means necessary. In turn, moral values and family ties took a backseat and were no longer the center of society. The poor were exploited by the rich for their own personal gain. The author describes this era and characters objectively, while allowing us to interpret the characters’ motivation on our own. By doing so, we get a better sense of the difference between their social classes and their way of
shows an African-American family struggling to get out of the poverty line, which is stopping them
Throughout Society, many families have seen struggle and lived through poverty. The economy is not always thriving which takes a toll on people who suffer through unemployment or low wage jobs. The Frontline documentary, “Two American Families”, is the perfect example of struggle in the United States. It shows the lives of two struggling families and their efforts to survive. Two essays, “The Sociological Imagination” by C. Wright Mills, and “The Uses of Poverty: The Poor Pay All” by Herbert J. Hans, support the analysis of the video strongly. They express many ideas that relate to the world and struggle throughout society. Also, there are many sociological terms that depict the events that occurred in the documentary.
The entire thought of the American Dream is to have a house, auto, and a family. The effect in the economy had a speedy impact on the typical American family. The Late twent...
The union of my parents stands at 37 years. My parents migrated to The United States to better themselves and their families. Their struggle to obtain the “American Dream” instilled family values, and showed my siblings and myself a direct link to education and work. During my childhood, my mother was the first woman to show me what tenacious means. She stood front and center to save her family from becoming victims of society. In order to move her family out of the ghetto, she worked three ...