Popular culture expressed in american movies research work at the university level 2007

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES RESEARCH WORK AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL - 2007 POPULAR CULTURE EXPRESSED IN AMERICAN MOVIES

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

RESEARCH WORK

AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVEL - 2007

POPULAR CULTURE EXPRESSED IN

AMERICAN MOVIES

Students: Nguyễn Thị Thu Hồng

Lê Thụy Thanh Tâm Supervisor: Phan Thị Kim Loan

HO CHI MINH CITY - 2007

MỤC LỤC

1 Abstract 1

2 Introduction 1

3 Methodology and Procedure 2

4 Limit of the study 2

5 Popular culture 2

6 Data collection and analysis: 12

7 Conclusion 15

REFERENCE 16

POPULAR CULTURE EXPRESSED IN AMERICAN MOVIES

1 Abstract

The purpose of this research is to discover American popular culture reflected in recent movies Through analyzing three popular movies which won international prestigious awards why not through these films only (Crash-Academy Award 2004, Little Miss Sunshine- (Crash-Academy Award 2006, The Notebook- Summer 2004), we attempt to point out some cultural aspects of American society in modern time Besides, we conducted a survey and collected data from Vietnamese youth’s ideas does it reflect Americian society for objective reference From this, it is concluded that American movies partly reflect this nation’s lifestyle and relationship

2 Introduction

In every society, popular culture is the true and sharp reflection of human lifestyle and relationship We may notice that different human societies have different cultures, and the personal culture of one individual can be different from another one Therefore, in order to understand people’s behaviors, attitudes towards life, or the ways of thinking in certain country, it is crucial that we should learn from their cultural manifestations Movie is one of parts of pop culture that has two-way effect on human activities It is not only influenced but also affect culture of a society Nowadays, due to some factors of immigration, economy and politics, ect., American movies have occupied a dominant position in the world Many people understand American culture just because they learn it from media, books especially movies Briefly, we learn a lot from American movies

3 Methodology and Procedure

The methodology and procedure of this research are conducted in two ways: watching and analyzing three chosen movies (Crash-Academy Award 2004, Little Miss Sunshine- Academy Award 2006, The Notebook- Summer 2004); collecting and analyzing data from the survey Because of the popularity and cultural characteristics of these movies, we decided to choose to understand more about American lifestyle and relationship.This survey is carried out from April 2nd

to April 14th 2007 including questions about Vietnamese youth’s ideas and attitude towards the country’s movies these days The subject is aimed to students in University of Social Science and Humanities (USSH) from the age of 18 to 25

4 Limit of the study

The research is about American popular culture It should be carried out in this country in order to easily collect the authentic ideas of Americans about this issue However, we do not have the opportunity to conduct this study as expected Furthermore, in referring to culture in Vietnamese movies, the survey is just limited within the USSH students, which is somehow subjective and hard to come

to the final objective conclusion on the topic

5 Popular culture

Popular culture, sometimes-called pop culture or “the culture of the people" consists of widespread cultural elements in any given society It comprises the daily interactions, needs and desires and cultural “moments” that make up the everyday life of the mainstream It can include any number of practices, including those pertaining to cooking, clothing, consumption, mass media and the facets of entertainment such as sports and literature Pop culture finds its expression in the mass circulation of items from areas such as fashion, music, sport and film

Popular culture changes constantly and occurs uniquely in place and time, especially in 21th century It forms currents and eddies, and represents a complex

of multually-interdependnet perspectives and values that influence society and its institutions in various ways In America, many objective and subjective factors have brought a change into economy, politics and society This leads to the change

in their mind, perception, social norms Therefore, there has been certainly different attitude and reaction towards every temporary change in life Until the 21th century, American has been continuously developing under the higher and higher living requirements of citizens in the country They seem to spend much more time for entertainment and relaxing these days, for example watching television, going to cinemas, listening to music, playing sports, reading books, surfing internet, ect At the time, movies have gradually occupied an important position in the demands of people's entertainment It draws a larger and larger number of audience in the country because it partly reflects people lifestyle and at the same time they can also see themselves in movies

5.1 Why movies are chosen to reflect American popular culture?

5.1.1 The Culturally Diverse Nation

The United States is a diverse and multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of ideologies, customs and ethnic groups The "open door" policies at the time of World War I allowed this country to acquire many immigrants from many other countries It has welcomed more immigrants than any other country more than

50 million in all and still admits between 500,000 and 1 million persons a year

In 1992 alone about 700,000 newcomers were accepted in the United States (The New Americans 17) Immigrants usually settle in big cities like New York where

"28 percent of residents are foreign born, the highest proportion in 50 years"

(Edmondson 9) Also, as a matter of fact, immigration generates 39% of the total population growth in America (Mandel 114) It is the fact that immigrants come

from all over the world, have all kinds of backgrounds and goals for the future

The distribution is really interesting In 1971-91, 35.2% of legal immigrants came from Asia, 23.7% from Mexico alone, 13.1% from Caribbean countries, 12.0%

from Europe and 11.1% from Central and South America (Mandel 114) As we

see, immigrants come from different countries, speak different languages, have different religious beliefs Each of them has had a profound effect on the American character It takes courage and flexibility to leave your homeland and come to a new country The American people have been noted for their willingness to take risks and try new things, for their independence and optimism

If Americans whose families have been here longer tend to take their material comfort and political freedoms for granted, immigrants are at hand to remind them how important those privileges are Immigrants also enrich American communities

by bringing aspects of their native cultures with them

Because immigrants from many different countries, they bring with them their mother tounge and still preserve speaking their native languages That is why United States becomes a multi- language speaking countries It is not uncommon

to walk down the streets of an American city today and hear Spanish spoken In

1950 fewer than 4 million U.S residents were from Spanish-speaking countries Today that number is about 35 million About 50 percent of Hispanics in the United States have origins in Mexico The other 50 percent come from a variety of countries, including El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia Thirty-two percent of the Hispanics in the United States live in California Several other states have large Hispanic populations, including Texas, New York, Illinois, and Florida, where hundreds of thousands of Cubans fleeing the Castro regime have

settled There are so many Cuban Americans in Miami that the Miami Herald, the

city's largest newspaper, publishes separate editions in English and Spanish Therefore, it can be concluded English is an official language and comes after is Spanish

In short, as the country has a variety of ethic groups and languages, movies

in American are also contain in themselves a rich and diverse culture, which is one

of the distinguished features of this nation

5.1.2 Strong economy and people freedom of speaking

Moreover, the American’ strong economy is also the important push of its movies When someone talks about this country, people can imagine how diverse and popular it is It has a widespread reputation and a great influence all over the world Therefore, people tend to easily accept what is called belonging to this country And so do its culture and movies Another reason for choosing popular culture in American is that people in this country have freedom of speaking, thinking to some extent They freely express their feelings and attitudes This makes a variety of ideas, thought, cultural distinction between them

5.2 Some cultural features of American movies

A Summary:

Little Miss Sunshine:

Little Miss Sunshine is a 2006 Academy Award-winning dramatic comedy film about a dysfunctional family's road trip to a child beauty pageant Olive(Abigail Breslin) is a little girl with a dream: winning the Little Miss Sunshine contest Her family wants her dream to come true, but they are so burdened with their own quirks, neuroses, and problems that they can barely make

it through a day without some disaster befalling them Olive's father Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a flop as a motivational speaker, and is barely on speaking terms with her mother He's pathologically obsessed with winning because he's never tasted it himself Olive's mom Sheryl (Toni Collette) values family above all else, and her nerves are fraying over trying to hold this one together Olive's uncle Frank (Steve Carell), a renowned, Number One Proust scholar, has attempted suicide following

an unsuccessful romance with a male graduate student who dumped him for the

Number Two Proust scholar in the world Her brother Dwayne, a fanatical follower of Nietzsche, has taken a vow of silence He's not depressed, exactly; he's been reading Nietzsche and has taken a vow of silence while training to get into

flight school Plus, he hates everybody, even his family And Olive's grandfather is

a ne'er-do-well with a drug habit, but at least he enthusiastically coaches Olive in her contest talent routine Circumstances conspire to put the entire family on the road together with the goal of getting Olive to the Little Miss Sunshine contest in far off California

The Notebook:

The movie focuses on an old man reading a story to an old woman in a nursing home The story he reads follows two young lovers named Allie Hamilton and Noah Calhoun, who meet one evening at a carnival But they are separated by Allie's parents who disapproved of Noah's unwealthy family, and move Allie away After waiting for Noah to write her for several years, Allie meets and gets engaged to a handsome young soldier named Lon Allie, then, with her love for Noah still alive, stops by Noah's 200-year-old home that he restored for her, "to see if he's okay" It is evident that they still have feelings for each other, and Allie has to choose between her fianceù and her first love Eventually, Allie chooses Noah, her love

Crash:

Several stories interweave during two days in Los Angeles involving a collection of inter-related characters, a police detective with a drugged out mother and a thieving younger brother, two car thieves who are constantly theorizing on society and race, the white district attorney and his irritated and pampered wife, a racist white veteran cop (caring for a sick father at home) who disgusts his more idealistic younger partner, a successful Hollywood director and his wife who must deal with the racist cop, a Persian-immigrant father who buys a gun to protect his

shop, a Hispanic locksmith and his young daughter who is afraid of bullets, and more

B Analysis:

Little Miss Sunshine:Reflection of a modern middle-class family, human desire and dream to overcome obstacles- why don’t you mention this in5.1

Little Miss Sunshine touches upon but never truly plumbs the depth of a

situation in which the “modern middle-class family” is “teetering on the edge of financial disaster.” The family has erroneous views corrected by experience the hard way Over the course of three harrowing days on a road trip, reluctantly embarked on so that their daughter may compete in a children's beauty pageant, the Hoovers come face to face with the cruel limits of their dreams, opportunities and possibilities One by one they fail, despite their best efforts, their sincere desire to succeed and their many merits as people What makes the film so special

is its message “There are two kinds of people in the world: winners and losers,”

sets the film on course to indict a faltering society that blames the population for its failure This helps explain why the characters and their troubles arouse interest and sympathy Basically, the film's message can be summed up in one brilliant line delivered by Arkin's character, Grandpa Edwin: "A real loser is someone who's so afraid of not winning he doesn't even try." This is a family who see tragedy after failure after disappointment, and it's just so, so sad to see them so down, because we love them all and we know that they don't deserve it, despite all their flaws Seriously, this movie is absolutely brutal to its characters But ultimately, it's absolutely inspiring Because despite disappointment after tragedy

after blow to the stomach, this family just keeps their head up and say "so what; we'll find another way" Their determination and devotion despite all the obstacles

in their way, and their ultimate removal from their anxieties and un-winding is

simply and absolutely inspirational, and extremely heartwarming

In short, through the film “Little Miss Sunshine”, viewers can imagine the life and hardship of recent American “modern middle-class family” Most of them suffer a lot from the pressure of busy, unpleasant and stuff life As the member of this family Dwayne blurts out in the middle of the trip, breaking a nine-month silence “I don’t want to be your family! I hate you people! I hate you! Divorce! Bankrupt! Suicide! You’re losers,” we can understand in which positions they are

in However, beyond above these difficulties and disappointment, they gradually and eventually understand each other and together try hard to aim at their final target-that is reaching the pageant in time no matter what it is The movies appreciate a strong desire to overcome obstacles and failures to become a

“winner” That is also the true value of American They still bear in mind the belief of success if they try “Little Miss Sunshine” is a film that shines in every facet of the word Each of the family members has some unique story, and state of mind, that makes each one very interesting to watch as the film progresses

The notebook: The power of love helps people to overcome preconception of wealth and poor, barrier of discrimination

“The notebook” directed by Nick Cassavetes is based on the romantic and touching novel by Nicolas Sparks It is the description of a strong and faithful love between a boy and a girl on a summer holiday They meet and fall in love with each other with the communion by two loving hearts In the story, Noah and Allie meet in one of the cutest scenes of the movie He sees her at a carnival, and knows right away that he wants to be with her He does not quite know why at first, and all he can say is that something inside of him is drawing him to her He convinces her to give him a chance, and she eventually agrees to give him the date that he seeks What progresses from there is a Summer romance that goes through all of the emotions that we all have experienced before What makes it even more real, is