Investigating the American Dream in Pretty Woman 1990
Keywords:
American Dream, cinema, ideology, Pretty Woman, economic inequality, cross-class romanceAbstract
This article analyzes the portrayal of the American Dream in the film Pretty Woman (1990), set against the backdrop of widening economic inequality in the United States during the 1990s. The paper explores how Hollywood motion pictures communicate and preserve the belief in the American Dream despite stark economic realities faced by most Americans. Using Kenneth Burke's dramatistic method, the study examines film as a medium for conveying societal myths and social values. The article argues that Pretty Woman exemplifies a cross-class fantasy, where the romance between an ultra-rich corporate raider (Edward) and a poor street prostitute (Vivian) symbolically heals social class divides. This analysis demonstrates how the film rhetorically reinforces the American Dream's materialistic and moralistic myths, offering an idyllic view of economic well-being and moral goodness. The significance of this study lies in its investigation of how popular culture sustains cultural narratives that may not align with lived experiences.
(The abstract and keywords were prepared retrospectively for indexing purposes using AI-assisted tools and editorial review, based on the original article. They did not appear in the original publication.)
References
Braun, Denny. The Rich Get Richer: The Rise of Income Inequality in the United States and the World. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1991.
Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.
Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs. The Rhetorical Act. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1982.
Chetwynd, Josh. “Hollywood Rides Wave of prosperity.” USA Today 3 January 3, 2000, 7D.
Fisher, Walter R. “Reaffirmation and Subversion of the American Dream.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 59.2 (1973): 160-167.
Lears, Jackson. “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities.” American Historical Review 90.3 (1985): 567-593.
Miringoff, Marc, and Marque-Luisa Miringoff. The Social Health of the Nation: How America is Really Doing. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Mishel, Lawrence, Jared Bernstein, and Sylvia Allegretto. The State Of Working America, 2004/2005. Ithaca, NY: ILR/Cornell University Press, 2005.
Pogrebin, Letty Cottin. Among Friends: Who We Like, Why We Like Them, and What We Do with Them. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987.
Ross, Steven. J. Working-class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Rushing, Janice Hocker, and Thomas S. Frentz. “The Rhetoric of Rocky: A Social Value Model of Criticism.” Western Journal of Speech Communication, 41.2 (1978): 63-72.
“List of Top 10 U.S. Stories of 1999.” The Associated Press 26 December 1999. Website address http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0026nG.
Wright, Erik Olin. Class Counts: Comparative Studies in Class Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
