Does Britain have it's own American Dream?

The white picket fence theory is predominately rooted in the USA and apart of the 'American Dream' ethos.  The dream is a promise of success and prosperity to all, this results in the overall effect of materialism and idealism that I talked about in my last post.  


However, doesn't that want dominate the minds of people in Britain too?  Our own nations dream can be found to develop during the 1980's when Margaret Thatcher fought for the council tenants right to buy their homes.  The 'Right to Buy' scheme published in 1979 allowed freedom to it's tenants who became property owners over night and abolished the rules which stopped them from decorating and changing their homes to suit their own needs.  


Reading an article by McVeigh in The Guardian published in 6th of December 2009, I found evidence of the psychical shadow that has been cast as a result of the 'new freedom' given out to people over the last 30 years.  The statistics written by McVeigh (2009) were that 'council houses sold off passed the 2 million mark' which ultimately lead to the impact that 'people across Britain on waiting lists for a council house, up almost 10% in a year'.


Selling off public housing while failing to rebuild replacements and the added effect of the recession, which has put a stop to building new homes, has vastly reduced the number of houses available to a growing population of people who need them.  The article also comments on how this was also 'abused widely by companies that made profits out of portfolios of ex-local authority housing' (McVeigh 2009).


Families without homes now struggle to live with the relatives that will take them in, or the state has to pay to keep them in a B&B's or privately rented homes until they can find alternative accommodation.  This was in fact mine and my daughters situation 7 years ago.


People were so desperate to own a little piece of freedom that they have now effected the lives of their children and almost abolished the chance of them living in their own homes.  Strange it may seem that recently it has been reported that the 'Right to Buy' scheme will be used again.  


A new article released on the 19th of November 2011 in the Mail explained that up to 2 million tenants could buy their homes at a huge discounted rate as they were in the 1980's.  The money will then be put back into the development of new housing and as reported by Groves (2011), 'The Government hopes that the new drive could result in another 100,000 homes being built, creating 200,000 jobs'.


The British Dream of idealism and materialism starts again, who knows where it will end this time?





References


McVeigh, T. (Sunday 6th December 2009)  30 years on, the right to buy revolution that still divides Britain's housing estates.  The Guardian. (Online) Avaliable from http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/dec/06/right-to-buy-housing-thatcher (Accessed on 25/11/2011) 


Groves, J. (19th November 2011) Half price council home: 2 million properties to be sold off as Government retvive Thatcher's 'Right to Buy' scheme.  Mail. (Online) Avaliable from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063513/Government-revive-Thatchers-Right-Buy-scheme-2m-council-houses-sold.html 




                                  

There is Trouble Until the Robins Come.

My current aim is to focus and develop creative research for my proposition around the area of 'Life not being as it seems'.  Talking through my thoughts with my tutor I came across the real foundations for the film American Beauty and the essence of what it is really about.

The White Picket Fence is present in the very first opening scenes of the film and stands in front of a very large and perfect white house.  The white fence isn't just a boundary to separate land but now a symbol of what some consider 'perfection'.  Inside lives a middle class married couple with excellent jobs who are raising their children in a 'nice' community.  However, this fence only lies on the surface of the reality of what is beneath it.  Just as American Beauty illustrates, Lester and Carolyn have well paid jobs which allows them to live that  'American Dream' and in the beautiful white house, but as the story unfolds they show us how their well paid careers actually bring them utter misery.  

For example, Carolyn brakes down after she struggles to sell a house.  This scene is more than just tears, it is a battle with the person she is...'Shut up! Stop it! You wimp, you baby! Shut up!' Her job has reduced her to slapping herself in the face and harshly scrutinising herself, hardly the perfection that we perceived from the other side of the fence.  The white picket fence, as illustrated in American Beauty, has ultimately the produced an era of materialism and idealism falsely connected to idea of happiness.

Looking into the white picket fence I came across a film written by David Lynch called Blue Velvet (1986).  Through extremes of environment, Lynch opens with scenes of the idyllic.  Peaceful large American houses, white fencing, American Beauty roses, lust green lawns and a slow motion shot of a waving fireman to an elderly man watering his lawn on a hot sunny day.  A sour taste is left on the scene when the elderly man suffers a heart attack and falls to the ground, the chaos of water spurting in all directions.  The viewers is then taken to the ground, through the lust green grass where beetles are loudly savagely consuming another insect, as Nesbit (2006) explains in his blog, 'Lynch's visual painting ties in with the theme that American Beauty will later adopt about "looking closer."'  

The story of Blue Velvet is based around the character Jeffrey Beaumont who comes home from school after finding out that his dad has had a heart attack.  On his return from seeing his father Jeffrey finds a human ear in a field, this is when Lynch's film gets very bizarre.  The story develops as Jeffery becomes more and more curious and does some investigating with the detective's daughter, Sandy.  He then meets the woman at the heart of the story called Dorothy Vallens, a singer in a night club, who's husband and son have been kidnapped by a psychotic man called Frank.  He uses this to blackmail Dorothy into being his sex slave and act out his sick, abusive fantasies about his mother.  


Jeffrey witnesses the cruel sexual attacks on Dorothy and realises that life is not as he once thought it was.  In a scene in Jeffrey's car, Jeffrey tells Sandy 'it's a strange world Sandy' and within the same scene my title is a quoted by Sandy in regard to a dream that she had.  She believes that the world she dreamt about was dark because there were no robins, yet when they did come the world was filled with love and it made a difference.  Her explanation to the darkness was that 'There is Trouble until the Robins Come'.  Sandy shows her immature innocence in this scene and believes that love will save the world, a complete contrast the harsh life that is lead by Dorothy in this film.









The bright white picket fence will always cast a dark shadow onto whatever is inside it.  This is inevitable to its form but now also exists within what it stands for, created by peoples greed and undeveloped ideals.         
   

References

Nesbit, J.  (2006) Old School Reviews by John Nesbit, Blue Velvet, 1986 (Online).  Available from http://oldschoolreviews.com/rev_80/blue_velvet.htm.  (Accessed on 21/11/2011)    


                        

Identity of the Creator

I revel in the idea of 'life not being as it seem's', it means that there is more content below the surface, more to explore and more to enjoy. Henk Van Rensbergen work has inspired me to look around life's chaos and see the beauty of time and what it does to people, architecture and landscapes.  


However, although there is variety in what we see there is always a recurring element which makes these pieces personal to the viewer and an identifier to the creator.  Rensbergen's images are filled with human touches, they are beautiful in texture but gritty and for me hold a sadness to the forgotten souls of these places.  These are my identifiers and I will connect these qualities to Rensbergen's work in the future.


This thought leads me onto the idea of 'motifs', a repetitive mark, element or sound used within a medium to emphasise a meaning or emotion.  The film American Beauty, which I mentioned previously uses motifs in the form of the American Rose or petals to create really beautiful bursts of colour within scenes.  The colour of the rose varies in each scene but the red is the most prevalent.  The meaning of the red rose has been explained in many ways by lots of people who have been touched by this film.  For me it illustrates the idea of beauty and it's meaning to each character. 


For example, Carolyn sees beauty in 'success', please go back to my entry 'This is my Life' for more details on characters.  This is shown in Carolyn's facial expression of longing when looking at the  red 'Real Estate Kings' board outside of the house he has just sold.  Also, during the opening scene of the film Carolyn is pruning a beautifully formed rose grown in her garden while her neighbour Jim, admires her success and asks 'how do you get them to flourish like that?'  Carolyn enjoying the beauty of success goes on to share tips with Jim.

American Beauty - Carolyn admires her roses
http://cinema-fanatic.com/2010/07/27/auteur-of-the-week-sam-mendes/

The symbol of the rose comes up time and again in lust, beauty or success and will always be an identifier for the film and it's creator.