The American Dream and Marxism in Media

    The American Dream is basically the idea that if you put the effort in you have the equal opportunity to change your circumstances and achieve anything that you set your mind to. To be more accurate, it is the perceived notion of equal opportunity in a capitalist society that uses the media to lull the average person into believing that they have equal opportunities. Historically, the American Dream and capitalism have gone hand in hand. Oftentimes a major part of a person’s fantasy or goal does involve money, business, success, and being self made. These ideals have helped to create the more individualistic and isolating culture we live in today. 
    Marxism, on the other hand, is much more community based in that everyone is supported by each other. This is mostly viewed in a financial sense in that the wealth of the group is shared among the people according to their needs. 
    While artists are usually thought of as being more liberal and experimental in their viewpoints, the movie industry is ultimately a business that requires a quite a bit of capital to even produce the final product. This tends to result in there being more capitalistic undertones in most movies, but that is not the case for James Cameron and his works. Cameron is best known for his work on Titanic.

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