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The American Dream on the Couch

11/05/2008

www.semiotics.co.uk

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The American Dream on the Couch andthe Obama EffectThe bulk of this work was commissioned by an agency who asked to explore thecultural dynamics of the American Dream for a major US client. Although wecannot present the commercially viable concepts that we developed from thisanalysis, we are pleased to share with you some of the analytical framework thatwe used in order to make sense of the American Dream.

Find out more about more our work in the US, UK and the rest of the world atwww.semiotics.co.uk

All images herein remain the copyright of theirrespective owners, and are used for the purpose ofillustration only.

We’re talking

about a dream.

Let’s put it

on the couch…

• An apparently randomassemblage of symbols andimagery that have a bizarre,often contradictory logic oftheir own.

• Dreams exist to process andheal paradoxes that mightdisturb us.

• That’s why the term wascoined in 1931 when the USlooked on the brink ofeconomic collapse…

What is a dream?

About Dreams

• Dreams negotiate desire — desire cannot befulfilled – it is always in process

• Dreams make certain symbols, objects orappeal have a heightened symbolic importancethat makes sense in the context of a dreamwhen delved into more deeply

• Dreams colour our reality — indeed, someargue that our fantasy visions of ourselvesand lives are more ‘real’ than the what we call‘real life’

Psychology of the American Dream

• Narcissistic fantasy – America as God’s own country:

…all men are created equal, that they are endowedby their creator with certain unalienable rights, thatamong these are life, liberty and the pursuit ofhappiness.

• True equality was for Commies: the American Dream isabout status – a progressive pursuit where you deservethe best, because you are the best

• So this Collective Patriotism-Special Individuality feedsinto each other in a powerful ideological dialectic

• You can’t buy the American dream, you can only imagine it

• Echo of desire — ultimately irresolvable, because desire feeds on itselfand creates new desire, never to be finally resolved

• So there is no past tense in the American Dream: whether you pursueit or are living it: but, like desire itself, it is never truly resolved

The Real American Dream?

The Impossible Dream -- The American Paradox

• So no two people have the same dreams. Butthe American Dream concept serves as abucket that has potential to be the meta-narrative of everyone in America’s hopes,fears and desires.

• Distilled into one core component: Reflectionof desire

• Objectified in contemporary culture, almostremoved from landscape, must berediscovered in values, because actual dreamdoesn’t exist outside the imagination

American Dreams

Origins of the American Dream: Freedom, Choice, Status, Heroism

• Late 19th Century/20th Century immigration fromEurope/Central America still embodies the sense of a promise ofreligious and liberal freedom, and the promise of materialimprovement.

• Deep roots in the origins of America itself

• Protestant dissenters from Europe coming to US for religiousfreedom (religious progressiveness escaping church/stateconservatism of England)

• Commercial colonialists seeking out their fortunes in the NewWorld (TV show SURVIVOR where contests “colonize” forfortune)

• Heroic Status of pioneers risking everything of for the sake ofprogress, new land, new opportunities, new status

• So American Dream has always had a spiritualidea of progress, but a material one too. A built-intension in the American Dream.

• Martin Luther King “I have a dream”speech—racial equality and brotherly love iscentral promise of the American Dream

• But American Dream has transitioned thispossibility and potential into an object = ideacontext

• Extreme Home Makeover makes the objects thetrue heroes -- the Whirlpool washer and dryersalvage the family (as well as the heroic ‘get thejob done’ American Puritan spirit of thecommunity)

Origins of the American Dream: Ideals to Objects

Origins of the American Dream: Progress,Optimism, Achievement, Self-Reliance

• Rags to riches myth : “strike out on your own,”“raise yourself by your bootstraps”

• Be all you can be : Martha Stewart is a symboland agent of the American Dream – transitioningfrom her lower-class immigrant roots, she pedalsthe power to remake your self

• You control your future -- “your future awaits,”“your destiny” – you are your own agent

• It amalgamates the ancient Puritan ideas ofpre-destination with a liberating sense of freeagency

Elbow greaseRags to richesBlue collarThe underdogGo-getterThe good lifeMake a better life for yourselfAnything is possibleNose to the grindstoneHard workWorking-class values

Self-improvementPull yourself up with your ownbootstrapsUpwardly mobileHard-earned moneyGrace under pressureThe backbone of this countryHard-scrabbleProtestant work ethicIf you don’t succeed, try, tryagainLand of opportunity

Possibility through hard work

Evolution of the American Dream

• Benchmarks: JFK, Watergate, 70s Recession, 80s Reagan end of Cold War and 90sself-help, 9/11, recent economic recession

• Swing from the 1960s “dream” where ideal is killed (narcissist wounded) withassassination of JFK and then again with 9/11 (right after all of our self-help/self-empowerment)

• A turn toward consumption in search of meaning

• Current economic recession has been so damaging to our identity (collective and self) --it’s not about losing money , it’s about losing possibility of self

• Yet the American Dream, because it echoes the impossibility of fulfillment of desire,is strongest when it seems almost impossible to achieve…

Evolution of the American Dream

• The American Dream lives and dies in perpetual cycle on a macrocollective level, but is available to individuals at any time in historythrough their own self-reliance.

• Sometimes collective conditions make it feel easier than at othertimes — or expectations are lowered (i.e. aspiration in 1965 to own acolour TV set: now it’s an aspiration for a plasma TV, with all thegear, plus a sense of quality, experience, stability, self-worth etc)

• Essential move from American Dream as materially based self-advancement (1960s progress) to advancement of the idea of Selfand immediate family (but material is still an important part of this)

• But the idea of a Heroic Status of the Individual is still prominenthere, in whatever lifestyle you choose you want to perform thatlifestyle just a little better than everyone else

Pop-Culture Dreams

• Reality television in a large part reflects the wounded and thejustified narcissist --- necessity to be chosen

• Individual/collective identity is not completely at odds – you canbe self-reliant and part of a greater community of values. Showslike Oprah focus on the individual narrative in a collective context-- seeking affirmation from the collective to justify self.

• Puritan values pervade in a postmodern context -- a good/badmorality underlies Hollywood celebrity gossip magazines. Wechampion the self-reliant, but condemn the fallen individual whowon’t reach out for help.

• The American Dream still maintains its rooted narrative as amyth of identity transformation, but is no longer defined bystringent tenants of conformity (unlike 1958)

Advertising the American Dream:

The American Dream is strongly rooted inobject culture, but it seems to be strugglingto find new holistic meaning

Brands based around Legacy/Nostalgia find stability and play into anenduring, but fixed narrative of the American Dream:

• Chevrolet heritage evokes a legend that progresses into the future.The driver is the custodian of this legend. Thus with great power,comes great responsibility.

Legacy/Nostalgia Narrative

• Bank of America constructs another form of legend through Americanpatriotism/heroism. Leveraging the tenants of superhero, logo assuperhero symbol, to evoke security and protection.

Legacy/Nostalgia Narrative

• Similarly John Hancock, positions itself through legacy as a hero -- the lightin times of uncertainty.

Brands evoke the American Dream as fantasy : “if you dream it…”

• “I’m going to Disneyland” -- fantasy made into reality. Ad focuses onpossibility and optimism, naive hope or escapism fantasy

• Desire is more important than consummation — anticipation betterthan realization

American Dream as fantasy

• Tommy Hilfiger links sexualdesire and dreams, evokingpossibility and fantasy.

Brands evoke the American Dream as Progress/Pioneer/Ingenuity

• Wrangler finds the American cowboy iconography and the myth ofmoving westward, vast open spaces.

American Dream as Progress/Pioneer/Ingenuity

• Polo redefines the new American hero as a bourgeois explorer,where exploration is about looking, not doing.


• Whereas Remax, finds progress in the exploration and pioneering ofvirtual connection.


• Honda is another brand that defines progress through ingenuity.Speaks of mobility and freedom. And through mobility the impossibleis almost achievable. This is the real magic of the American Dream.

Brands evoke symbols of status through choice

• Circuit City presents the American Dream in a completely objectifiedmanner, where it’s all about being able to choose good stuff. It’sabout things, rather than people.


• Target plays with objects’ role in self definition. Choice createsstatus, which defines self.

Brands evoke symbols ofstatus through choice

• Even Best Buy recognizesthe American dream assatisfaction through object


• Cadillac leverages choice in your pursuit as a status marker. Yet, it’snot quite working because they are bound to a traditional femininemodel (soccer mom) and a necessary sense of freedom and mobilityis lost.

Brands evoke symbols ofstatus through choice

• Citibank Live Richlycampaign plays with theidea of everyone deservesto live better.

• Attempting to move awayfrom objects as source of“better,” it is still rooted inmaterialistic satisfaction.

The Cultural Result

The Individual/Collective Dichotomy

• Self-reliance tested through competitive nature inreality television shows like Top model, American Idol,Top Design

• Competition to beat out others – winning becomesaffirmation : if you dream it/want it enough, you canachieve it

• So individual is rewarded for superceding the mass,but what happens when the individual falls?

• The fallen hero in Extreme Home Makeover turns tothe collective self, where passion, values, morality arereinstalled.

• The #2 : hard work and passion do not gounrewarded

• Objects are representations of ideas/ideals

• Heightened spiritual meaning assigned to mundane. Shopping is aritual. The mall is elevated to a spiritual level, a pilgrimage.

• Objects enable mobility and self-transformation.

• Shift in mobility from external space (cars/shopping malls) to home(virtual networks/transformations) – shopping online, self-redefinition.

• Shift in mobility also changes notions of freedom – from Americanideals of physically exploring the open road to Google

Object Culture

• Heroism as redemptive narrative: always a consequence of accident, loss,sacrifice that leads to an over-empowerment of the initial, that brings itsown unique problems of community and individual moral obligations (eg.Spider-Man)

• Superman as the embodiment of the immigrant American Dream — anillegal alien who passes himself off as a ‘gentile’ country boy but achievesgreat wonders when allowed to express his true Kryptonian identity in theservice of others

• Heroism as ideal, representing an ideology larger than himself -- CaptainAmerica as manifestation of patriotism, but consistently problematical inthe comic-books post -Vietnam

• Brands leverage stability/protection by representing themselves asheroes in periods of instability

The American Superhero: Heroic sacrifice/Heroic power

Success by any means necessary : Excess in urban dreams

• Good bad guys – crime is forgiven, if a bigger ideal is present

• MTV Cribs hyper-materialist dreams – a joy in pure excess, alsoseen in Pimp My Ride

• Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous still present an unapologeticallymaterialist vision of the American Dream, particularly for those thatcome from less economically privileged backgrounds

Success by any means necessary: Backlash in suburban dreams

• Success no longer equals happiness.

• Fulfillment of American Dream is defined through conspicuousconsumption and material accumulation

• Broken Suburban dreams explored through family and valuedysfunction in The Ice Storm, Far From Heaven, American Beauty,Little Miss Sunshine, The Stepford Wives, Little Children

You’ve only seen half the story here: we built upon theseideas around the dream, the object and desire to createa set of potential brand visions for a major US client.

But we thought it might be interesting to explore theObama cultural phenomenon in the context of a newexpression of the American Dream…

Obama & Evolving the American Dream

All Created Equally Special

• In America, everyone is special, everyone deserves the best

• Individual competitor and community based – individual competition amongall deserving and all are deserving

• Obama has found a way to bring the pieces of his fractured narrativetogether, making it our fractured narrative, thus empowering the individualand the shared sense of community

Broken Dreams

• The American Dream seems to befragmented, like much of postmodernculture

• Obama represents the perfectconglomeration of (imperfect)fragmented pieces: a skinny, young,mixed-race, liberal, intellectual with aMuslim name.

• Both political campaigns seem to beaddressing the need to fix the culturallandscape with proclamations andpromises of “change”, fixing somethingthat is “broken”

Weaving together a new narrative

• Obama is the story of a fractured progressive narrative, pointingtowards a new paradigm in expression of the US dream

• The American dream is at its most powerful during moments ofchaos (as we resort to escapism for comfort -- fantasy industries,such as entertainment, soar during periods of economic distress)

• While McCain’s version of the American Dream was a familiar, yetantiquated one of small town America, Obama projected the dreamthrough a fragmented post-modern lens

A Presdient Already Imagined and Dreamt

• Obama represents a fantasy of a heroic Presidential figure — one that several movies have alreadyprepared us for. Of course it will be extremely difficult to be live up to the heroic narrative andsense of resolution of the American Dream that many people are pinning on him

• Of course in a very literal way Obama represents the notion of individual and collective progressionof the US through his class background, global origins and mixed ethnic identity

• So Obama in turn will initiate a new set of dreams, a new set of desires, that will be always thatlittle bit out of reach — hence the necessity to carry on dreaming

• The US will never beneficially ‘fixed’ because dreams can never be fixed — they warp and transfer tonew themes, new desires and new fragments…

What about a promise?

• For Obama the dream becomes not only a fantasy,but also a promise, which insinuates action (change)

• More of a social contract than a ephemeral fantasy

• The dream provides a shared social compass, butone where we need not relinquish control: our destinyis not written for us. We write our own destiny.

• We Need Change : a nation ready to face theconsequences of its actions, but always withcharacteristic American optimism -- a nationdeserving repentance.

Is it a New America?

• While Obama looks and sounds “foreign” to much of middle America, his appealrests on his familiarity. It is his familiar traits (skinny, mixed-race, intellectual) thatconverge in an unfamiliar way in this post-modern fracturing and reassembling

• Obama represents an America that we recognize as the future and the past -- as abeacon for the immigration of new cultures, traditions, ideas

• It has been several generations since the waves of immigration and a conformityculture of strip malls and nostalgic closed-minded value systems has attempted toresurface the diverse progressive narrative that is America

• Obama represents this new evolving topography that is the American Dream --bringing disparate pieces together into a promising future

• By choosing Obama we are electing to look into the mirror that is the reflectionof the present, rather than searching for our reflection in the past

If you’re interested in finding out how this kind of thinking can havedirect applications for developing brands and marketing then pleaseget in touch. (We’ll also send you the original TV ads that we analyzedIn this report too.)

We have full-time offices and analysts in London and New York, and apool of over 60 analysts across the globe. We’d be delighted to hearfrom you.

[email protected]

www.semiotics.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0)208 693 1413