Wednesday, February 25, 2009

paper 3 draft

In the nineteen thirties the entertainment media played a dominant role in people’s lives. It was the time of the depression, when people have less

One very popular idea of an American way of life is the American dream. This dream has been created and changed throughout the years. But the principal ideas have remained the same. The most important part of this idea is that anybody no matter their familys economical status is able to achieve it. The only nessicarry ingredients are hard work talent and a little luck. The basic premise of the dream for a male is to exponentially excel in their given field. Be it agriculture railroad coal mines factories, auto manufacturing or whatever opportunity shows itself to the given individual. The goal is to achieve a way of live where you own your own home in the suburbs with a wife, white picket fence, children, and maybe a canine friend. the dream is almost synominis for females except it usually is that the woman will find a loving husband who will provide the aformentenioned lifestyle. This is a very pleasant dream and has been attained by many but this is an unrealistic expectation during the depression.

            Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the thirty second president of the united states and in my opinion I feel that he was one the most influential presidents based on his “new deal” policies. Roosevelt tried to make the American dream possible implementing his policies and through economic stimulus programs in the beginning his policies was aimed at short term economic stimulation. He tried to promote a series of banking reform laws, emergency relief programs, work relief programs, and agricultural programs. Also he instituted The National Recovery Administration, and he ended the gold standard which was increasing the value of the dollar to such a high limit that farmers couldn’t pay off their debts. But after the economy didn’t bounce back he decided to add another path to the American dream

During the depression it is common knowledge that people of this time peroid had less money and therefore they was engrossed in a lower economical status they where in a more vurnable state. This vurnable state affected their mindset which allowed the entertainment media to hold a much more prominent influence on these people. Because of this the entertainment media tried to mirror American culture, however I would argue that this mirror was sometimes distorted to the political viewpoint of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his “New Deal” social welfare liberalistic views. During this time an influx of advertisement for government programs occoured. These advertisements, for ovious reasons, showed the governments prominent role in maintaining and facilitating society. However many populuar movies portrayed a very different lifestyle then that which was lived by the average person of this time period.

This distorted mirror shown by popular media, more specifically “gold diggers of 1933” (Warner bros.) (directed by Mervyn LeRoy) falsely conveyed a much glossier version of America during the depression. It puts out a very popular idea of America. This is the idea that anybody can make it big and that the American dream is attainable.

2 comments:

  1. I like the direct you're going in. Try focusing your intro a little more. Maybe evoke susman in the first paragraph or two. I would also stick to either men or women... I know it might seem better to cover both, but from my second paper I learned to really just stick to a topic otherwise you'll be penalized for it.

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  2. You describe FDR's standpoint really well, now you should find an aspect to follow through with in your paper. By looking at different pieces of work, with FDR and Susman in mind will give you a lot of ideas to work with. Choose one or two ideas, maybe something that has to do with people achieving their goals through FDR's America.

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