• Home
  • Opinion
  • Quizzes
  • Redistricting
  • Sections
  • About Us
  • Voting
  • Events
  • Civic Ed
  • Campaign Finance
  • Directory
  • Election Dissection
  • Fact Check
  • Glossary
  • Independent Voter News
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. your take>

Your Take: What movie represents the best of American culture?

Our Staff
July 29, 2022
Your Take: What movie represents the best of American culture?

Graphic that reads Your Take with image of actor Tom Cruise in Top Gun movie.

With the summer’s heat doubling down in many places, Americans have been flocking to catch the season’s most popular films in movie theaters. One of the biggest blockbusters of the summer has been “Top Gun: Maverick” starring Tom Cruise and Miles Teller, a story about the Navy's most prestigious aviators that showcases camaraderie, courage, and resilience.

An argument could be made that the reason for its popularity stems from the talent of the actors or its action-packed storyline. However, the film’s real appeal comes from its inspiring story of seemingly normal people doing extraordinary things.


Politico puts it best: “No one would mistake ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ for social realism, or even (maybe especially) a lifelike depiction of Naval air combat. But rather than the hyper-masculine, Reagan-era militarism of Tony Scott’s 1986 original, this film’s appeal comes from the mere fact that it’s about normal people, doing things within the plausible boundaries of reality.”

On top of this, “Top Gun: Maverick” instills a strong sense of patriotism in its viewers. It depicts the elite nature of the U.S. military and highlights the commitment the aviators make to defend the United States country during times of turmoil. It is overall a feel-good movie that makes people proud of the American lifestyle and culture.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

So we asked our readers: What movie represents the best of American culture? What are the blockbuster movies that define who we are? And has it held up until today?

American culture can be defined by many different things and it can be shown in film in many different ways. As one reader put it, these stories “speak to the experiences of members of the United States that are Americans [although] their experiences are not part of the dominant culture.”

Still, diverse stories that often focused on people who are underdogs, whether the movies are based on real life or fictional, were the most common replies. Think “12 Years A Slave,” “Hidden Figures,” and “The Florida Project.”

Following is a selection of reader responses, edited for length and clarity.

I think I would need the help of my wife or one of my sisters, both of whom have better memories of movie titles and their plots. However, off the cuff, I would start thinking about movies that depict large families gathering (e.g., large wedding weekend) in loving chaos of personalities achieving some expected and unexpected results, where at least a glimmer or a rush of love and insights appear, even if not at the ending of the movie. This might seem like more of a universal cultural experience and I think our large national family has many cultures from all around the world coming together at times in challenging ways that can lead to growth and happier endings. - Joe Healy

As it is now vorboten to be patriotic and patriotism is looked upon as a punishable offense; I cannot see how any writer will ever be allowed to show America as a great country. Division is accepted and demanded and shown by the separate award ceremonies that the pariah class (Americans) are not able to attend or receive awards. If this is the "new Diversity" it makes no sense. - Gloria Graham

Honestly, the single best film that helps move our story forward is "Get Out" by Jordan Peele. The opening scene, a take-off on how white people are supposed to feel scared in Black neighborhoods, flipping it so a Black guy is kidnapped in a white suburban street, simply does more to lay things out about our common humanity, and how our fears keep us from accessing it, than any amount of blockbusters. The ending of that film predicts a better future, a society more open to seeing truths laid out in front of it and the possibility of justice. Also there's a great dog. An incredible film. - Tod Davies

Either way, for most people, fiction films serve as a distraction from reality — a sort of escape from the mundane into a world where hours or even generations are collapsed into about two hours, inconvenient emotion inducing events are mostly resolved favorably, and once the credits roll, everything goes back to normal.

Given that perspective, I would say that — to a large degree — the effect that film has on American culture is in the mind of the beholder. The fact is that there can be more activity in a single action film than most humans will experience in an entire lifetime. Therefore, there is a potency to this medium that should not be ignored. - Pedro Silva

For me, two relatively recent movies captured contemporary American life. One is “Moonlight,” directed by Barry Jenkins and written by Tarell Alvin McCraney, a film about the fractured life of a queer Black man. The other is “The Florida Project,” directed by Sean Baker and co-written by Baker and Chris Bergoch, about a little girl and her struggling mother who live week-to-week in a motel near Disney World. Each film dramatizes the interlocking challenges and moral compromises required to live on the edges of American society — where so many Americans live — as well as the love and joy that exist there in equal measure, almost in retaliation against the systems that created the conditions of their struggle. The humanity of these films is aspirational, even countercultural. Not the plot arcs and tragedies, which are grounded in hard realities, but the portrayals of these people as people, their wholeness, their complexities. The love that radiates from the gaze of the camera. Could our country ever love them as completely or as deeply as these films do? - Daniel Pritchard

From Your Site Articles
  • Your Take: Elon Musk & Twitter - The Fulcrum ›
  • Your Take: Inspiring sports memories - The Fulcrum ›
  • Your Take: Is a major power shift possible in the United States ... ›
  • Your Take - The Fulcrum ›
  • Your take: 'I stand for ...' - The Fulcrum ›
  • Why the massive success of 'Top Gun: Maverick' matters - The Fulcrum ›
  • Your Take: Increasing voter turnout - The Fulcrum ›
  • Your Take: Increasing voter turnout - The Fulcrum ›
  • Your Take: Polarized thinking - The Fulcrum ›
  • Your Take: Cross-party voting - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • What movies define America? Here's our list of 13 must-see ... ›
  • The 25 greatest American films - BBC Culture ›
your take

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Confirm that you are not a bot.
×
Follow
Contributors

Reform in 2023: Leadership worth celebrating

Layla Zaidane

Two technology balancing acts

Dave Anderson

Reform in 2023: It’s time for the civil rights community to embrace independent voters

Jeremy Gruber

Congress’ fix to presidential votes lights the way for broader election reform

Kevin Johnson

Democrats and Republicans want the status quo, but we need to move Forward

Christine Todd Whitman

Reform in 2023: Building a beacon of hope in Boston

Henry Santana
Jerren Chang
latest News

Video: Honoring Memorial Day

Our Staff
16h

Your Take on congressional incivility

Lennon Wesley III
22h

White House plan to combat antisemitism needs to take on centuries of hatred, discrimination and even lynching in America

Pamela Nadell
22h

Shifting the narrative on homelessness in America

David L. Nevins
26 May

Supreme Court math: 3x3=5

Lawrence Goldstone
25 May

Want young people to vote in NY? Open the primaries.

Christina Roggenkamp
25 May
Videos

Video: #ListenFirst Friday YOUnify & CPL

Our Staff

Video: What is the toll of racial violence on Black lives?

Our Staff

Video: What's next for migrants seeking asylum after Title 42

Our Staff

Video: An inside look at the campaign to repeal Pennsylvania’s closed primaries

Our Staff

Video: Where the immigration debate stands today

Our Staff

Video: Bridging divides in the workplace

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: AI revolution: Disaster or great leap forward?

Our Staff
25 May

Podcast: Can we fix America's financial crises?

Our Staff
23 May

Podcast: Gen Z's fight for democracy

Our Staff
22 May

Podcast: Political Football, Inc.

Our Staff
19 May
Recommended
Video: Honoring Memorial Day

Video: Honoring Memorial Day

Test Unlisted
Your Take on congressional incivility

Your Take on congressional incivility

Your Take
White House plan to combat antisemitism needs to take on centuries of hatred, discrimination and even lynching in America

White House plan to combat antisemitism needs to take on centuries of hatred, discrimination and even lynching in America

Government
Video: #ListenFirst Friday YOUnify & CPL

Video: #ListenFirst Friday YOUnify & CPL

Shifting the narrative on homelessness in America

Shifting the narrative on homelessness in America

Test Unlisted
Supreme Court math: 3x3=5

Supreme Court math: 3x3=5

Government