Breaking The Myth Of Family: Family Life In American Teen Films In The 21st Century

In the US,the idealized nuclear family is a model pattern of American family life,for a harmonious association of parents and children united by love and trust has been deeply rooted in popular culture.This pattern has become a mythical stereotype in people’s minds when it comes to what a family should be like,which subtly influenced people to view deviations from such a pattern as unnatural or unhealthy.The myth of family constructed around the idealized nuclear family pattern in American culture has adapted to the development of industrialized society.However,family life in the US has undergone tremendous change over the years,with more diversified family patterns becoming an undeniable reality in modern societies.Some intelligent filmmakers use their visual works to convey resistance to the longestablished idealized traditional family values.Breaking the myth of family is practicable through the experiment of films.Based on three 21 st Century American teen films,this thesis dissects the family life in some representative films,trying to give a further interpretation and representation of the American family and popular culture.Starting from Talcott Parsons’ theory,this thesis firstly interprets the myth of family in the US with a focus on exploring the family’s two principal functions.Then it unfolds from the part of children(teens)in the family to discuss the dilemma of socialization among the teens in the three American teen films.Later,it continues with case studies from the part of couples/parents,providing the cinematic representations of the main characters as well as their gendered division of labor and roles.After studying the breaking of the idealized structure of the nuclear family in these films,this thesis draws some conclusions from the above analysis.