The best depictions of the American dream

Summary

Pop Culture Happy Hour – The Best Depictions of the American Dream

Original Air Date: June 30, 2026
Hosts: Stephen Thompson, Linda Holmes, Aisha Harris, Glen Weldon

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Episode Overview

The Pop Culture Happy Hour team gathers to explore how the “American Dream” is depicted in pop culture, inspired by America’s 250th (“semiquincentennial”) birthday. Each host selects a film, TV show, or song that best captures their nuanced understanding of the American Dream—its promise, pitfalls, realities, and contradictions. The discussion navigates optimism, disappointment, fame, capitalism, and the very act of striving itself, illustrated in four deeply personal, thought-provoking picks.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Definitions and Framing

• Hosts question the traditional idea of the American Dream, discussing its associations with universal economic security and upward mobility—and recognizing these as both aspirational and often illusory.
• Theme flows between optimism and realism: Each pick reflects where dreams meet harsh realities or adapt to changing circumstances.
• Notable thread: The “American Dream” is less about arrival and more about striving and the anxieties that striving entails.

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Segment 1: Linda Holmes – Apollo 13

[01:12–06:08]

Summary & Insights

• Linda rejects the “myth” of universal economic security, instead focusing on the Apollo 13 mission as embodying what she wants the American Dream to be—centered on knowledge, science, international cooperation, and problem-solving.
• Space travel, for Linda, is a rare arena of “genuine optimism,” even if it’s tinged by the realities of military and Cold War influences.
• The film represents American Dream’s “workplace” and “competence porn” aspects—heroism is shown as collective problem-solving in the face of adversity.

Notable Quotes

• "The space program is one of the things that genuinely still makes my heart swell with optimism." — Linda Holmes [01:45]
• "Space travel is what I want to be, the American Dream. Knowledge, science, international cooperation, curiosity about the world..." — Linda Holmes [02:30]
• (On Tom Hanks as the avatar for American heroism) "There's a huge part of mythology going on that I am very aware of and find difficult to resist." — Linda Holmes [05:28]

Notable Moments

• Discussion of Ron Howard’s career trajectory and mythology in American storytelling.
• The bittersweet reality of space exploration transitioning from public achievement to private billionaire projects.

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Segment 2: Aisha Harris – The Wire

[06:20–14:10]

Summary & Insights

• Aisha picks The Wire as “one of the great American texts,” specifically highlighting its nuanced depiction of the American Dream in the lives of Baltimore’s working class and criminal underworld.
• Focuses on two characters:
  • Frank Sobotka (Season 2): Embodies the American Dream’s failure. His efforts for labor and community are undone by systemic failures; a poignant line sums it up:
    "We used to make in this country build. Now we put our hand in the next guy's pocket, man." — [09:06] (as quoted by Linda reading Sobotka’s line).
  • Howard “Bunny” Colvin (Seasons 3–4): Embodies persistent striving for a “better, richer, happier life.” He creates Hamsterdam, an experimental drug-tolerant zone, reflecting the ambition to do good despite institutional barriers.
• The line between law and crime is “completely blurred.” The show’s focus is on complex systems, not just individuals’ choices.

Notable Quotes

• "This is the decrepitness of the American dream." — Aisha Harris [09:17]
• "He is the idealized...Apollo 13 of The Wire...the American Dream that also feels rooted in reality." — Aisha Harris [14:00]
• "The dream, the dreaminess of the dream, and then also the, like, the cold, hard reality..." — Aisha Harris [03:53]

Notable Moments

• Glenn highlights The Wire’s depiction of “ruthlessly capitalistic” systems—even in criminal enterprises.
• Stephen lauds how The Wire rejects simple narrative closure: “He really captures the way, like, trying to run a society [is] really, really, really messy and often results in failure.” [09:53]

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Segment 3: Glen Weldon – Grey Gardens

[16:25–27:12]

Summary & Insights

• Glen selects the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens, focusing on the decayed American Dream in high society. The film follows Big Edie and Little Edie, Jackie Kennedy’s aunt and cousin, as they grapple with faded wealth in a crumbling mansion.
• The film embodies the “dream in decay,” showing how privilege can collapse into squalor, and how persona and performance persist amidst ruin.
• Raises issues of exploitation, reality TV precursors, fame, and self-awareness. Little Edie’s self-presentation and subsequent embrace by queer culture exemplify another “escape hatch” in American striving: pure celebrity.

Notable Quotes

• "This is a film about the American dream in decay, how wealth and success can devolve into squalor." — Glenn Weldon [16:34]
• "The thing that Little Edie is consumed by is self-awareness. These are both very self-aware women. They are not just willing participants, they are both performers." — Glenn Weldon [20:12]
• (On American life and celebrity): "There is this weird escape hatch...fame...not based in skill...Just personality. Not what you do, but who you are." — Glenn Weldon [24:35]

Notable Moments

• Linda compares Grey Gardens’ curiosity to reality TV’s DNA, noting the “highbrow” and “trashy” fascination with unusual lives.
• Stephen connects the “curdled” American Dream in Grey Gardens to the hosts’ other picks: “It started out as this kind of idealistic enterprise and has devolved into...something a little sadder.” [22:32]

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Segment 4: Stephen Thompson – Jasmine Sullivan’s "The Other Side"

[28:41–34:41]

Summary & Insights

• Stephen’s original pick was "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman (“perfect summation of a modest American dream”), but he chooses Jasmine Sullivan’s "The Other Side" (2021) for its fresh exploration of yearning for upward mobility through marriage and fame.
• The song’s perspective is an “escape fantasy” full of conditions: material riches attained by marrying up, staying attractive, and never ceasing to strive—even in the dream, the hustle never ends.
• Lyrics and delivery convey the anxiety, conditionality, and performative nature of contemporary dreams, heavily influenced by culture industry images (Real Housewives, Kardashians).

Notable Quotes

• "It is an absolute masterclass in conveying an entire inner life in like three and a half minutes." — Stephen Thompson [30:12]
• "This is an American dream that has conditions attached. Even if her fantasy pans out, she has to stay on her toes...She is fantasizing about a future of...fabulous wealth. And yet even in that fantasy, she has to get facelifts or risk losing the life she hasn’t even attained yet. There’s something so bleak in that, so realistic in that..." — Stephen Thompson [31:12]
• "Is it a place that you can ever actually arrive at? Or is the dream to be in a constant state of strive." — Linda Holmes [33:03]
• "It's not an American dream. It's an anxiety dream. ...And what is more American than anxiety?" — Glenn Weldon [34:41]

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Cross-Cutting Themes

• Disappointment and Hope: Even the most optimistic depictions of the American Dream are haunted by disappointment, cyclical striving, and the systems that block or undermine individual efforts.
• Performance/Persona: Success in America can come down not to what you do, but who you appear to be (Little Edie, “The Other Side”).
• Shift from Building to Extracting: The Wire’s Sobotka laments a move from industry ("we used to build") to zero-sum economics.
• Perpetual Striving and Anxiety: The American Dream often means living in a state of permanent pursuit—not attainment.
• Reality, Representation, and Media: From Ron Howard’s mythmaking to Grey Gardens’ proto-reality TV and the influence of Real Housewives on pop music, media both defines and distorts the Dream.

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Notable Quotes, Moments & Speaker Attributions

• Linda Holmes [01:45]: "The space program is one of the things that genuinely still makes my heart swell with optimism."
• Frank Sobotka (as read by Linda) [09:06]: "We used to make in this country build. Now we put our hand in the next guy's pocket, man."
• Glen Weldon [16:34]: "This is a film about the American dream in decay, how wealth and success can devolve into squalor."
• Stephen Thompson [31:12]: "She is fantasizing about a future of...fabulous wealth. And yet even in that fantasy, she has to get facelifts or risk losing the life she hasn’t even attained yet."
• Linda Holmes [33:03]: "Is it a place that you can ever actually arrive at? Or is the dream to be in a constant state of strive."
• Glenn Weldon [34:41]: "It's not an American dream. It's an anxiety dream. ...And what is more American than anxiety?"

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:12] Linda Holmes on Apollo 13
• [06:20] Aisha Harris on The Wire (Frank Sobotka & Bunny Colvin)
• [16:25] Glenn Weldon on Grey Gardens
• [28:41] Stephen Thompson on Jasmine Sullivan’s "The Other Side"

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Final Thoughts

The hosts conclude that the American Dream in pop culture is not a singular narrative. Its best depictions embrace contradictions—optimism and decay, self-invention and anxiety, community and competition. Whether in space programs, Baltimore rowhouses, crumbling mansions, or yearning soul ballads, the dream is always evolving, messy, and uniquely American. As Linda sums up: “I don’t wanna live in a constant state of pursuit. I will tell you that about me personally. I would love to stop pursuing at some point.” [34:34]

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Compiled and summarized from the Pop Culture Happy Hour episode, “The Best Depictions of the American Dream,” June 30, 2026

Transcript

[Announcer]

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[Stephen Thompson]

You may have heard a little something about America's 250th birthday. Or to put it in a way that rolls off the tongue, it's semiquincentennial. So we thought it was a good time to discuss depict in movies, TV and music. I'm Stephen Thompson, and today we are sharing our picks for what pieces of pop culture best depict the American dream. Joining me today are my fellow Americans and NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour hosts Linda Holmes. Hey, Holmesy.

[Linda Holmes]

Oh, hello, Stephen.

[Stephen Thompson]

Aisha Harris. Hey, Aisha.

[Aisha Harris]

Hey, Stephen.

[Stephen Thompson]

And Glenn Weldon. Hey, buddy.

[Glenn Weldon]

I am that Yankee Doodle boy. Hey Stephen.

[Stephen Thompson]

You really, really are all right. We kept this prompt somewhat open ended, so I'm fascinated to see where we go and how on Brand we stay. Linda Holmes, I'm gonna start with you. Give me your pick for a pop cultural depiction of the American Dream.

[Linda Holmes]

Sure. So I am aware that the meaning of the American dream that gets used the most often is an idea of universally achievable economic security and upward mobility, which is something that has never been real. There are films that have pretended it's real and recognized that it isn't real. But my own heart is so settled in its rejection of that particular myth that I did not feel moved by trying to pursue that. So I went looking for something that feels American Dream like, but that I feel more kind of conflicted about and uncertain about. And that led me to the 1995 film Apollo 13. Apollo 13 was directed by Ron Howard. It tells the story of the space flight in April of 1970 when an explosion in an oxygen tank disabled some of the systems that operated the spacecraft. Took a tremendous amount of ingenuity and nerd problem solving to get those astronauts home. Even now, if I watch it, even though I know it happens, very suspenseful. Why is it an American Dream movie? I think the space program is one of the things that genuinely still makes my heart swell with optimism. I don't know if any of you are like that, but despite the fact that American space exploration was deeply intertwined with the military and inexorably connected to the Cold War, there is something like neat about space travel that is hard to duplicate with anything else. Even now, I think with the recent Artemis mission, you see that that a lot of your hardened cynics found something moving about it. So I Think where I came down was that space travel is what I want to be, the American Dream. Knowledge, science, international cooperation, curiosity about the world, and in the case of the Apollo 13 mission, people dedicating themselves fully to solving a problem that seems impossible to solve simply because you cannot let anybody go. You cannot leave anybody on their own.

[Stephen Thompson]

It's competence porn, in a way.

[Glenn Weldon]

Right.

[Linda Holmes]

It is certainly a workplace piece and a competence piece. I have a couple of other thoughts, but I am curious to hear how this strikes the rest of you as my effort at the American Dream.

[Glenn Weldon]

I think this is a great pick. I mean, because this is where the American dream confronts reality, this movie. I mean, the dream of going to the moon is a dream that meets in this film, the very harsh realities and the costs, the human costs, among other kind of costs, of space travel. I mean, when this film is set, we'd already had three astronauts die, but we kept going anyway. And that's a very American thing.

[Stephen Thompson]

Good pick.

[Glenn Weldon]

Yeah.

[Aisha Harris]

I think this general idea for this episode was my idea. And I realized as soon as I actually started thinking about it, this is really hard to pin down. What a task I've given us. Not unlike the astronomical task at hand in Apollo 13. I think this is a very good pick as well, because like you said, Linda, I mean, I think a lot of our picks here are going to have a mixture of both, like, that dream, the dreaminess of the dream, and then also the, like, the cold, hard reality of, like, when that dream is confronted and when that dream is intended to be achieved. And iconographically, it also just feels very, very American in a. You know. In a way. Yeah.

[Linda Holmes]

Yeah. That's the other thing that I wanted to say is that, like, cinematically, I also think it's so interesting to me. You know, the movie was directed by Ron Howard, who both as Opie on the Andy Griffith show and as Richie Cunningham on Happy Days, became a sort of an avatar for an idealized. Not of what the United States is or was.

[Glenn Weldon]

And the Kid and the Music Man. Right, sure.

[Linda Holmes]

Also and the Music Man. And it's so interesting to me that as a director, he's often kind of been playing in some of those same spaces, right up to the fact that he directed the adaptation of Hillbilly elegy, which is J.D. vance's book, that I think, over time has been pretty vigorously interrogated for its vision of the American dream. And on top of that, it's Tom Hanks who has been representing this very particular stripe of American hero osity in movies. Through this. Sully the hero pilot Forrest Gump. Woody Saving Private Ryan. He played Fred Rogers.

[Stephen Thompson]

He's Woody in Toy Story.

[Aisha Harris]

Yes, he is.

[Linda Holmes]

There's a huge, like, part of mythology going on that I am very aware of and find difficult to resist. And of course, it's like, there's also this poignancy to the fact that the space travel now is bound up with billionaires and with a lust to sort of colonize space and cast off the planet we're on. So I think, like, I chose this because it captures so much of the love and optimism and also ambivalence that I feel when I hear the phrase American Dream.

[Glenn Weldon]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

I mean, my immediate response was, oh, Holmesy went with optimism. And I feel like that's gonna be a through line for all of our picks.

[Aisha Harris]

Right.

[Stephen Thompson]

We all went with a vision of the American dream that was deeply wholesome to which everyone should aspire. Aisha, give us your pick.

[Aisha Harris]

From the great extreme of the planets and the stars and the moon in the sky to Baltimore.

[Glenn Weldon]

Here we go.

[Aisha Harris]

Circa 2002, 2003. I went with the Wire. And why wouldn't I? Because I think this is truly one of the great American texts. I think this is not a new thing to be said. I am not breaking any ground here. This is well trod, well fertilized ground. You know, when I set us up for this very monumental task of trying to pin down something that represents the American Dream, how we see it or how we hope it could be, I did the. You're in high school now, and you have to go back to the source. And how are you gonna write this paper? And you're gonna start it off with James. Trezel Adams coined the phrase in 1931 in his book the Epic of America. And I went back and I looked at the many ways that he kind of talks about it, and one of the ways he talks about it that stuck out to me was a dream of a better, richer, and happier life for all of our citizens. All are citizens of every rank. And I kept coming back to the Wire and how there are so many examples of this, both mostly failing or stumbling to get to that point, but also in ways getting to that point. And I chose two characters that I wanted to focus on. The first is the one of failure, because let's start with the sadness and end on a better note. And for me, I could have chosen a lot of people in the Wire universe. There are so many for sadness.

[Linda Holmes]

Yes, I agree.

[Aisha Harris]

For sadness. That show is not wanting for that. But I wanted to go with Frank Sabatka, who's played by Chris Bauer in season two. He is, of course, the Polish American longshoreman, and he's also the treasurer for a dying labor union of stevedores. And so what I love about Frank Sabatka's character is that, you know, he is both sympathetic and not sympathetic. Like, he's way too. Like his son Ziggy. He just lets him kind of do. Run rickshaw and do whatever. But he also is trying to help his men. He's trying to do the best he can. And he's out there lobbying the politicians, trying to get these things to work. And at the end of the day, it doesn't, you know, about a dozen dead women, girls, are found in one of the shipments. Frank didn't know about it, but that, of course, puts the police on him. All the work that he's done by the end of season two is to help try and push the politicians to listen to what they need. And what the union needs is basically undone because of the illegal stuff that's going on. And there's a scene in episode 11 of season two that just kind of sums it up very nicely. He's talking to the lobbyist, he's working with. The lobbyist is like, look, there's nothing we can do. Oh, at this point, he's got a warrant out for his arrest. Like, it's over for Frank. He says this to the lobbyist.

[Linda Holmes]

You know what the trouble is, Brucie? We used to make in this country build. Now we put our hand in the next guy's pocket, man.

[Aisha Harris]

We used to build. Could you get any more? Like, this is the decrepitness of the American dream. Like, yes, it is. Do we feel like this is a solid choice for, like, the sad part of the Wire? There are a lot of choices I could have made.

[Announcer]

Yeah.

[Linda Holmes]

Home run, most definitely. And I think, if nothing else, you certainly know that this is the creator, David Simon, trying to make his thesis statement about the American dream, right? So it's like whether you thought this was the American dream or not, it's certainly an interesting example of a creator trying to get at the idea of the American dream and what has been lost and things like that. So 1,000%. Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

So many storytellers find ways to distill gigantic, complicated ideas down to very linear narratives. And he does this incredible job of capturing complex systems and how complex systems can fail. And I think that's such a huge part of the power of what he does is, like, instead of peddling these kind of Aaron Sorkin style, every problem can be solved with a speech. He really captures the way, like trying to run a society really, really, really messy and often results in failure. You know, I think that's part of what makes any Simon show, but particularly the Wire, just a perfect pick for this.

[Glenn Weldon]

We look at this show and there's a criminal enterprise at the center of it. And if you don't know anything, really, you think, well, it's a criminal enterprise. It must be lawless. There must. But it's still an enterprise and it is a ruthlessly capitalistic one. And it easily adopts, eagerly adopts the model. And even in my favorite scene in the show, and maybe the best, certainly the funniest scene in the show, they even adopt Robert's rules of order and they conform to the laws of commerce and capitalism and they still grind people up in the gears. They're just a lot more honest about it.

[Linda Holmes]

Yes, well, and in a way, it's so normal that they forget that it's a criminal enterprise. Which is where you get that great line about, are you taking notes on a criminal conspiracy?

[Aisha Harris]

Yes. I mean, that's the thing, right? And of course, as we know, and what the Wire is very good at is showing how those criminal enterprises, the line between the criminal enterprises and the actual law and order, there's no line. It's completely blurred. They all work together. Which brings me to my other pick of the focus. I feel that should be put when we're talking about the American dream. And that is on the law side, but this is the law side that I think fully understands. That line can be blurred, and that is in the character of Howard Bunny Colvin, played by Robert Wisdom. What I love about the Bunny character, he is the police chief in season two and season three, especially into season three, he's the police chief of Baltimore's Western District and he's nearing retirement, you know, going back to the Addams take on the dream and of this better, richer and happier life. Like, I feel like he. Bunny fully embodies this, right? Like, he is frustrated with how the rise of the drug trade and crime related to the drug trade has basically interfered with his quote, unquote, real police work, his ability to do it. And he feels as if he's failed his community early on in season three, he has this moment where he's talking to another person and he's just like, trying to explain how he feels, like he hasn't done all that he can.

[Glenn Weldon]

The city is worse than when I first came on. So what does that say about me,

[Linda Holmes]

about my life?

[Aisha Harris]

So what does he decide to do? He decides to pursue the chance for himself to make a better, richer and happier life for himself and his community by creating Hamsterdam, which you know, is him setting up these abandoned row houses away from the neighborhoods and designating them as these sort of safe zones for all the drug dealers to sell without any police interference, while also minimizing violent turf wars. And so later on in the season, and by the way, he's doing all of this without getting any permission. He's gone rogue. This is what he does. And he entails his subordinates to help carry this out. People are selling, but there's no turf war, there's no violence. And I love that. I think that is working within the system of the American dream and knowing that odds are stacked against you, but doing what you can anyway. And then of course, in season four, he adopts Naaman Bryce, who's one of the at risk kids that season. I feel like Bunny, he is the idealized, he's the Apollo 13 of the wire. He is the idealized version of the American dream that also feels rooted in reality. And that is why I think that the Wire, but also Howard, Bunny Colvin and Frank Sabatka are the, they are the perfect stand ins for this idea of the American dream. And that is my, that is my TED Talk.

[Stephen Thompson]

All right, well, we've got more show ahead. We've got Glenn's pick. We've got my pick. But first, let's take a quick break.

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[Stephen Thompson]

Welcome back. We are talking about the American dream in pop culture. We're each making a pick. Glenn Weldon, it's your turn. Give us some uplift, buddy. I just, I know you got some.

[Glenn Weldon]

I got some nuanced uplift. I chose the 1975 documentary Gray Gardens by the Maisel brothers, David and Albert, along with Ellen Hovdi and Muffy Meyer, who tend to get overlooked. We're talking about the American dream. And that definition we've kind of batted around is the belief that anyone with hard work and some determination can achieve wealth and success and security. This is a film about the American dream in decay, how wealth and success can devolve into squalor, basically. And it also hits on a lot of other facets of the American dream. But before I get to that, I just want to know, have y' all seen this film?

[Aisha Harris]

Okay, so I finally watched this for the first time, like this year, so it is very fresh in my mind. I am so glad that I was able to have seen it because, my God, this movie is bonkers and I love it.

[Stephen Thompson]

I've seen the documentary now parody of this, and I've seen like endless references to it. I have so many friends who are fascinated with it. I'm genuinely not 100% sure I've ever actually sat down and watched the source material from start to finish.

[Linda Holmes]

I'm going to say something that is often a lie when I say it, but it is the truth when I say it this time, which is I've seen a lot of it. I'm not sure if I've ever seen it start to finish.

[Glenn Weldon]

Okay.

[Linda Holmes]

Usually that means I've never seen it.

[Glenn Weldon]

You can all be my friends. I mean, Steven, you're getting in on a. You're grandfathered in on the documentary now film. You can all be my friends. All right, here it is. It's a documentary about these two women. An elderly mother and her middle aged daughter, both named Edith Bouvier Beale. The mother is called Big Edie, the daughter is called Little Edie. As we meet them, they live in this decaying mansion near the tip of Long Island. A house called Gray Gardens on the beach in East Hampton. It's falling apart, it's overgrown, there's no running water, there's garbage piled up in the rooms. Raccoons have the run of the place. But both of these women are American aristocracy, if not American royalty. They both come from privilege. They were members of high society, both debutantes and socialites in their youth. Big Edie was Jackie Kennedy's aunt and Little Edie was her cousin. But when Big Edie's husband left her, she moved out of Manhattan and moved to Greg Gardens. Little Edie joined her a little bit later and they became this pair of reclusive eccentrics. Their trust fund dried up and they were living in this dilapidated mansion in one of the most expensive zip codes in the US which is the irony of it, I'll be honest. When this topic came up, I initially started this movie because I thought of its most famous scene, which is where Little Edie celebrates the fourth of July by putting on some marching band music and dancing around the house's foyer in her signature headscarf while she's waving an American flag. The more I became convinced that this film says everything there is to say about America. Because Gray Gardens is one of those films that changes every time you see it as different aspects of you kind of chime with the movie, resonate with the movie in different ways. I mean, the first time I saw it, it really seemed to me like the filmmakers were exploiting these women, you know, pointing the camera at them and painting them as grotesques, you know, mocking them. Now when I see it, and I'm much closer to Little Edie's age in the film, I realize how much of that kind of knee jerk impression does these women a disservice because it robs them of their. I don't want to say agency. I never want to say agency, but just say complicitness. Their complicitness, their volition.

[Linda Holmes]

Well, their choices.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yes.

[Glenn Weldon]

Thank you. The thing that Little Edie is consumed by is self awareness. These are both very self aware women. They are not just willing participants, they are both performers. Big Edie was a singer, Little Edie was an actress and a model. And Little Edie, especially throughout the film, is acutely aware of how she's being perceived. She flirts with the camera, she flirts with the maisels. And watching it now, it's hard not to impute on her the feeling that she sees this as an opportunity, this film as a way out. And sometimes watching it nowadays, I get struck by what seems to me to be moments where the filmmakers, you just get this upwelling of empathy, not pity, but just basic human kindness, seeing these people as they are tinged with exploitation. Because why not both? Right.

[Linda Holmes]

Well, this is also the way in which it presages reality television. Right. And I think when you talk about that combination of fascinating and yet exploitative, and yet you don't want to rob people of their right to make choices about how they want to live their lives and that sometimes they are very aware of how they're being received and they don't really care. You could be talking about below deck. People get really shirty sometimes when you make these comparisons. But it is true that I think a highbrow movie, a well regarded classic movie that's part of the canon and a. That is thought of as sort of trashy, can call upon some of the same sources of curiosity. And, you know, it's interesting to see people living all different kinds of lives. Like those instincts are present, you know, in both.

[Aisha Harris]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

I do think it's interesting how this film has kind of created this shorthand for describing a certain way of living and kind of a certain way of living in your home. And how much of my relationship with this film is through the prism of, like, my parents house was really cluttered growing up. It's been like a running family joke in my family for decades of like, my mom is big Edie. If I don't, you know, pick up this, you know, stack of books or whatever, I'm going to be little Edie. The word that I was always trying to avoid, you were trying to avoid agency. The word that I keep trying to avoid is curdled.

[Glenn Weldon]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

I think so many portraits of the American dream that feel really true to the idea and true to our relationship with the idea often contain this idea that it started out as this kind of idealistic enterprise and has devolved into, you know, into something a little sadder.

[Linda Holmes]

I mean, you will find in my many notes about Apollo 13. If you read all of my notes about Apollo 13, you will find in there, you know, the idea that I think disappointment was a part of how I received the idea of American Dream is that there is a constant cyclical hope and disappointment in the sense that like even when you look at this, it's like, on the one hand, it's this beautiful, hopeful story. On the other hand, it is still a bunch of, like, exclusively, pretty much a bunch of white guys doing stuff and. Which was the story of the space program for a long time in the popular imagination, although it was not in real life, as we know, fortunately, from Hidden Figures and the book that inspired it and all of those things.

[Stephen Thompson]

Hidden Figures, Yeah.

[Linda Holmes]

But there are all of these. Yes, but things that are disappointing when you look at this idea of the American dream. And I think one of the things that makes this a brilliant pick from Glenn is that you have these women who, in the one sense, are connected through blood to Kamala. What were they actually called? Camelot.

[Aisha Harris]

Right.

[Linda Holmes]

The jfk, Jackie Kennedy, which now we know so much about what that really was and what that world really was. And the fact that these women. This is part of what makes this so brilliant, is that it captures that sort of mirror effect where over here you have the beautiful, glamorous this and not that far away, separated by circumstance and personality and fortune and all that, you have a really, really different couple of people.

[Glenn Weldon]

Yeah. And that's why I know this is not a competition, but I think my pick best exemplifies every aspect of the American dream.

[Linda Holmes]

It's not a contest, but you win. You feel.

[Glenn Weldon]

It's not a contest, but I'm going to win because I. Another thing this film touches on is something else about this country, which is that in American life, there is this weird escape hatch, Z axis, ejector seat ripcord. I don't know what to call it, but like a weird workaround to hard work and determination, which is fame. The kind of fame that was completely rare back in, you know, when this film came out, but that this film helped to create, to Linda's point, which is celebrity. And it's celebrity not based in anything you make or that you do or you produce, not based in skill, not based in any craft or even expertise. Just personality. Not what you do, but who you are. And that was rare back then. And now with the below decks of it all and the reality TV and the Real Housewives and influencer culture, it's kind of ubiquitous. And it's that kind of fame that Andy Warhol talked about. 15 minutes of fame. It's that kind of fame which is very apt because it's the kind of fame that little Edie achieved. This film comes out, she gets embraced by people like Andy Warhol and Truman Capote. Contain your shock. Big Edie then dies, and little Edie sells Gray Gardens. She starts doing cabaret at Reno Sweeney at a gay supper club in the Village. Then she moves to Miami, and she becomes a mainstay at Torpedo, which was a gay bar in South Beach. So if you want to be cute about it, and I do, she goes from being the subject of the male gaze of the Maisel's camera to the male gaze of Miami Beach.

[Aisha Harris]

Okay. Yes, yes, yes.

[Glenn Weldon]

Thank you very much.

[Linda Holmes]

Worth it.

[Glenn Weldon]

Thank you. The kind of fandom she found among gay men, that's a distinction without a difference. We love women who are strong and individualistic and eccentric. But to truly be embraced by the gay community, to achieve gay icon status, we need to know that you went through some stuff. We admire strength, but we love vulnerability, even fragility, like brittleness. I mean, there's a reason that the gay rights movement started right after the death of Judy Garland. So the fuel mixture is kind of the same. It's veneration, but it's tinged with mockery. It's inseparable. You can't tear them apart. And again, to think that she didn't know that that's. That's exactly what was going on is to. Not to infantilize her, but. But to underestimate her in a real way. She just loved attention. She wanted to be adored, and she was. And I don't have an ending to this except to say, in conclusion, Finland is a land of contrast. I don't know how to end this,

[Stephen Thompson]

but in conclusion, I made the best pick.

[Glenn Weldon]

Thank you, Steven. That's how I should end this. I win.

[Linda Holmes]

But see, this is why I like this question. This is why I think this question is so interesting, is that none of us chose. I mean, to me, when I sat down to think about this, it's like you can go for one of the pieces of brilliant art that is very specifically about, at least in part, the American Dream, your Death of a Salesman, Raise it in the sun, any one of several August Wilson plays, Right? If you look at something like Fences, that's what Fences is about. If you look at a lot of theater, there's a ton of theater that's about that. The play Purpose, which is about this Chicago family of kind of politics and politics adjacent folks that I saw a couple years ago is about it, right? There's lots and lots and lots of art that is very specifically plugged into interrogating the idea of the American dream and all of that stuff. I absolutely recommend. Right. I absolutely recommend Fences and Purpose and Death of salesman and all those kinds of things that are about families, all kinds of different kinds of families trying to find economic security and position. Right. And status and things like that. But we all didn't do that. We all kind of went to different. Like. Like the idea of the American dream makes me think about fame, poverty, policing. And that's why I love this question, Aisha, is that it is so incredibly like open ended that none of us kind of chose to highlight the art that has made that its very reason for existing, I would say.

[Stephen Thompson]

Exactly. And we haven't even gotten to my

[Aisha Harris]

pick, which is actually the correct pick us home, Stephen.

[Linda Holmes]

I'm assuming it's going to be great.

[Stephen Thompson]

Well, Glenn went with Gray Gardens, which I think we can is fairly on brand. I also went fairly on brand. I went with a song immediately. As soon as songs were part of this equation, I went to Fast Car by Tracy Chapman, which is one of my favorite songs of all time. It is also a perfect summation of a modest American dream that shifts over time and evolves as its protagonist evolves. And I have talked about that song enough that I decided to go with something else because everybody knows that song. So I went with a different song about compromised expectations in America. That's what I kind of came back to again and again when I was thinking about the American dream. And I truly think that this song deserves to be a standard the way that Fast Car is. It's from 2021. It's by Jasmine Sullivan. It's called the Other side. And to set up the clip, it's from the perspective of an attractive young woman who dreams of wealth as a means of escape. I just wanna lay back, spend my

[Linda Holmes]

baby money in his Maybach I deserve

[Announcer]

that life Be a Damn Good Housewife

[Linda Holmes]

2 kids from a surrogate.

[Stephen Thompson]

First of all, if you don't know this song, you have to hear this song. It is so good. I've listened to it dozens and dozens of times. It is an absolute masterclass in conveying an entire inner life in like three and a half minutes. The first line is, yeah, I got dreams to buy expensive things. And her pursuit of wealth is entirely secondhand. It's by marrying someone rich and essentially becoming a socialite, Essentially kind of marrying into the kind of wealth and status and class that we were talking about, even with like Gray Gardens. And the clip that we pulled is from the bridge. And it just. That bridge just knocks me flat every time. Two kids from a surrogate. Hi mama, I'm a stay fit, get a facelift now, first of all, I think Jasmine Sullivan's delivery of that line, the way her voice drops with facelift, I gasp like almost every time I hear it. Second of all, this is an American dream that has conditions attached. Even if her fantasy pans out, she has to stay on her toes. She can't let her body change. She is fantasizing about a future of. Of fabulous wealth. And yet even in that fantasy, she has to get facelifts or risk losing the life she hasn't even attained yet. There's something so bleak in that, so realistic in that, so strangely relatable. Even though this is not my particular fantasy, there's something so universal. The way this song embodies all these kind of insidious messages from shows like the Real Housewives about what we should be striving for, feels deeply American to me.

[Aisha Harris]

Yes. Yes. I mean, I don't know if this song could have existed without Real Housewives and the Kardashians preceding it. The idea of the housewife and of the socialite life has existed within American society for hundreds of years. Like, that is not new. I think the very. As you said, Steven, like, the specificity of this, like the surrogate, staying fit, all of that, oh my God, it resonates so well. I also think, like, this is kind of the. You and Glen's picks, as you mentioned, like, they kind of go hand in hand here. Because it's like, what were Big and Little Edie before Big Edie? She lost that privilege that she had through marriage and just kind of descended. And that's like. That's the dark side. And this song is like the dark side, but in a different way. And also before it can get even darker. Cause she hasn't even achieved that dream yet. It's just so good.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah, she hasn't even accomplished this thing that can be yanked away from her at any time.

[Aisha Harris]

Well, it's a dream. That's why they call it a dream. They were very specific.

[Linda Holmes]

This is the other reason why I like this pick and why I think it's so interesting is that one of the questions I always have about when people say American Dream, is it a place that you can ever actually arrive at? Or is the dream to be in a constant state of strive.

[Aisha Harris]

Right.

[Linda Holmes]

That's why everything is maxing right now. Like, wherever you are, you're supposed to be farther than that. And the dream itself becomes living in that state of constantly trying to get to something higher and better than where you're at. Because for her, what I hear in that song. When I listen to those lyrics, part of what I hear, just like Stephen said, is, yeah, I'm going to get. Get what I want. And then I'm going to be constantly scrambling to try to either keep it or improve on it. Right. Keep it or maximize it. And it's interesting to me to think about whether the idea that we have of that dream has an endpoint or whether it would require you. This is sort of where you get to like, millionaires, billionaires, multi billionaires. Like, where are we trying to get to? Like, what's the fantasy? What even is the fantasy at this point? Because for some people it's just security, right?

[Stephen Thompson]

Totally.

[Linda Holmes]

But for other people it's, I'm gonna retire when I'm 30, you know, which is like, okay, then what? Right, Then what?

[Aisha Harris]

Also life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, not actual happiness.

[Linda Holmes]

I don't wanna live in a constant state of pursuit. I will tell you that about me personally. I would love to stop pursuing at

[Glenn Weldon]

some point and at the end of the day, what the song, is it not an American dream? It's an anxiety dream. It's basically, if I get X, I still have to do Y and Z. And what is more American than anxiety?

[Linda Holmes]

Good point.

[Aisha Harris]

Mic drop.

[Stephen Thompson]

We'll leave it there. So my pick is the other side from Jasmine Sullivan from her Grammy winning and fantastic album, Hoe Tales. That brings us to the end of our show. Linda Holmes, Aisha Harris, Glenn Weldon, thanks so much for being here.

[Aisha Harris]

Thank you.

[Glenn Weldon]

Thank you.

[Linda Holmes]

Thank you, buddy. My pick's the only one that has space in it.

[Aisha Harris]

That's all I'm gonna say.

[Stephen Thompson]

I think we all did great. This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathoma, Liz Metzger and Mike Katsif and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello. Kamin provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from npr. I'm Stephen Thompson and we will see you all next time.

[Announcer]

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