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The Positive View
Basic Trope: The Self-Made Man (or woman) who has exercised his (or her) right to achieve success and wealth.
- Straight: Bob worked his way through college, and through hard work and perseverance, worked his way up through the company he started working for in college. He lives in a Big Fancy House in Suburbia with his lovely wife Alice (who can stay home to take care of the house and kids because Bob is able to support the household financially by himself), his three well-behaved children, and their dog.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob started out his life as a very poor Street Urchin, but by virtue of being so diligent, he earned enough money to go back to school. He now owns a multimillion-dollar corporation, and lives in a Big Fancy House in a gated community. He is Happily Married to Alice (who not only doesn't have to work outside the home, but doesn't have to work at all because servants do everything from cooking to cleaning to child-rearing), and his three children are straight-A students bound for Harvard. Oh, and his dog is a purebred, and has won "best in show" several times.
- Bob was a refugee from a war torn land who came to America with nothing. Years of hard work and diligence later, he is a billionaire philanthropist with a fitting mansion, is Happily Married to Alice and one of his children is on the path to the pinnacle of the American Dream by running for President.
- Downplayed: Bob is better off than he was, but he's a car salesman living in a small condo with Alice, who still works in an office. Their son Charlie is trying to go to Troperville State University to save them money.
- Justified: Hard work allows someone to develop a career, and that means a job that pays well enough to support a family.
- Inverted:
- A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted
- (See part 2...)
- Subverted:
- Bob has a job that he likes, but by no means is he wealthy. Alice works outside the home to help with the high cost of day-to-day living, rather than relying on Bob to support her. They live in a house that's neither big nor fancy, but it does its job, and they live in a slightly more urban area. The kids are reasonably well behaved, and bring home decent grades, but they will likely require hefty student loans to go to college. In other words, he lives an average life.
- Alternatively, Bob lives in a Big Fancy House with a beautiful Trophy Wife and everything, but his wealth came from something like winning the lottery or being born into Old Money, not through effort on Bob's part.
- Double Subverted:
- One day, Bob gets a promotion at work, and with that comes more money. He and his family move to a bigger and better house in a more affluent area.
- Bob may have gotten his initial wealth via the lottery or Old Money, but he was conscious of the limitations of his good fortune and so used it to build a successful business. Had he simply lived off it, he would have been broke by now.
- Parodied: The Peter Principle (Bob has a great family and a great career despite his great ineptitude).
- Zig Zagged: Bob starts from square one in life and tries constantly to move ahead. Some of his efforts pan out, while others don't.
- Averted: Hard Work Hardly Works.
- Enforced: "This ideology makes for a perfect sitcom family."
- Lampshaded: "Work hard, son, and one day all this could be yours."
- Invoked: Bob starts working for the sake of having money, and soon finds that he really likes what he does...and he chooses his girlfriend carefully (because he is looking to settle down).
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob is The Slacker, with the desire to live the good life, but no ambition.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Played for Drama: The second version (which deconstructs the first).
The Negative View
Basic Trope: Success and wealth are unobtainable in modern society.
- Straight: Bob landed a job after college, but it wasn't the job he always wanted, and it's kind of a dead-end job with a Bad Boss. He earns enough to afford his family a decent house, but they struggle to keep up with the high cost of living and have little left over for luxuries. He and Alice are always fighting, and his kids are disrespectful and get poor grades.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob does indeed have a high-paying, high-profile career, but his personal life is in shambles, because he has to spend so much time working to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. So his son fell in with a bad crowd and is in trouble with the law, his teenage daughter is pregnant, his Rich Bitch wife is cheating on him with the poolboy while he's at work (and Bob himself has cheated on her with his secretary) if she isn't blowing all of Bob's money on designer clothes and jewelry, and Bob's n'er-do-well brother won't stop asking Bob to help bail him out of his latest mess. The town he lives in could best be described as Stepford Suburbia.
- Just to make ends meet, Bob and Alice each have to work two full-time jobs (dead-end jobs that pay peanuts with few or no benefits.) They don't own the house they live in; they rent it, and the landlord doesn't maintain it, so it's a real dump. (Or if they do own the house, they'll likely never be able to pay off the mortgage.) They come home too exhausted to enjoy the little free time they do have or have any semblance of a sex life, and have not had a real vacation in years, or even decades. They struggle to keep up with the cost of living, and since every red cent goes towards day-to-day living expenses (in spite of doing everything in their power to keep those expenses down, such as getting rid of cable and home phone, never dining out or ordering in, extreme couponing, and putting on sweaters instead of turning the thermostat up even one degree), they have no emergency savings. When their son gets leukemia, they have to resort to crowdfunding in order to pay for his treatment, because they either don't have insurance, or their insurance won't cover it. (And Alice and Bob have long since accepted that they will never be able to retire, and will have to keep working until either they drop dead or become too demented to work (whichever comes first)). When they grow up, the kids live at home well into their 30's or older, and have had to take out hefty loans just to pay for a bachelor's degree (and need a Ph.D. just to scrub toilets because the market is so oversaturated with bachelor's degrees that they're pretty much worthless.) And they had to surrender the dog to a shelter, because they couldn't afford to take care of him anymore.
- Downplayed: ???
- Justified: Sometimes (particularly during tough economic times) hard work alone isn't enough. Or working so hard to build and maintain a successful career destroys one's personal life (or vice versa).
- Inverted: (See part 1...)
- Subverted: Bob is a Loser Protagonist living in a very rough neighborhood, working his ass off just to afford a small house or apartment. Alice is working hard too, but she wishes she married a man with more money. All in all, though, Alice and Bob are Happily Married, and the kids aren't perfect, but they manage to stay out of trouble.
- Double Subverted: But then Bob gets a promotion, and he and Alice start spending less time together as he is required to work longer hours (and that takes a toll on their relationship, leading to a messy divorce).
- Parodied: The Dysfunctional Family.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: ???
- Enforced: "Let's make our work Darker and Edgier."
- Lampshaded: "Alice and I used to be Yuppies. Now we're SITCOMs: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage."
- Invoked: Bob makes some bad choices regarding career, choice of mate, etc.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Bob goes back to school, divorces his nagging and unfaithful wife, finds something he likes to do, and rebuilds a better life for himself following a midlife crisis.
- Discussed: "My brother isn't doing too well. $300,000 a year doesn't mean much when you're fighting with your wife constantly on the rare occasions when you're actually around her, your son is failing all his classes at an expensive private college because he parties all the time, your daughter has wrecked three cars, had a pregnancy scare, and is currently dating a bum who will probably cause her to end up living in a trailer, and your schizophrenic cousin is probably going to have to come live with you because his aging parents can't care for him for much longer."
- Conversed: "I just got a huge raise and yet all I'm feeling is a sense of looming dread." "Seriously? That should be great news!" "Yeah, too bad that it's going to be eaten up. My wife is probably gonna ask for a divorce any day now, my son got his girlfriend pregnant, dropped out of college, and is realistically never going back, my daughter just tried to kill herself and spent a week in the psych ward, and my sister is begging me for money because the scumbag she married can't hold down a job and drinks away whatever money they had." "Jesus. Sorry I asked." "Don't remind me. Living the American fucking dream and all that, right?"
- Played for Laughs: Dom Com, Work Com
Work hard and make the right choices in life, and you can go back to The American Dream page!
