American Horror Story focuses in the quest of one of the ideals associated with Americanisme, the pursuit of happiness… yet what seems utopic is carefully dissected by this self-referential series and what is revealed is something rather disturbing — the dark underbelly of the American Dream. Every season is a reflection of the fears, emotions, and wishes of the community, through every season it is revealed to us new antagonists and hitherto repressed desires. What occurs when everything that was real lovely and nice is swept away? AHS lifts the veil on our understanding of achievement, protection, and acceptance in such a way that only horror is not the only thing uncovered in pursuit of the once wasted but still worth it golden dream in America. This is an even gristier critique and you will want to congratulate yourself for everything that you think you know being turned on its head.
American Horror Story Introduction and its effect on popular culture
When American Horror Story premiered in 2011, it provided something novel to most audiences. This anthology series is more than just jumps and twists, it is more than just reconstructing the ugliness of mankind. As every season begins, AHS inhabits the person of each character and agitates the viewers within their own heads.
Looking at the film merely from the surface and criticising it immediately will not do justice to the film. Everyday people are literally drooling and watching a horror cover with zombies or ghosts. However, digging a little deeper, one will see that it goes beyond the genre of horror and instead offers underlying issues of what it is like to chase the American Dream. Twenty seasons in and American Horror Stories gives voice to so many droughted themes – power relations, structural hierarchies, marginalised identities and more, keeping us glued to the monitor the entire time with bursting anxiety.
Come with us as we seek to understand the exact manner in which this radical series challenges stereotypical views of happiness and success in America. Therefore prepare yourself for an unnerving experience filled with terror – and revelation – as we uncover the truth of the world our very own eyes are facing.
The American Dream: What exactly is such a concept and how have people interpreted it through entertainment?
The American Dream is a concept that believes that anyone, regardless of their circumstances, is able to prosper because of hard work and grit. It is the archetype of the blue collar work, a house with a white fence, and a portrait of a happy family.
It is natural how the media style this perfect picture. In many inspirational movies, the hero, or heroine, despite a lot of challenges manages to achieve their objectives. In heroic tales, TV series too depicting the moving plots, the characters always experience victory after struggles.
Nevertheless, in most cases, these images tend to wash the underlying issues. Economic inequalities or social prejudice are some of the reasons why the dream is still not achievable for many.
Expanding our examination of the media representation, quite contrary stories rise up those which are posed who really lives the American Dream. Others duality exposes the values and the ambitions of society while puts the viewers’ understanding of the world to the test in different ways.
How American Horror Story invalidates the conventional interpretation of the American Dream
With no doubt, American Horror Story subverts the American Dream. Instead of highlighting freedom and possibilities, it exposes the shadow below. Themes of this show are premised on failure and helplessness.
People often pursue fantasies and reap what deserts them in the end. This representation is in great contrast to the angelic image that is normally portrayed in the contemporaneous media. Every season strips off societal expectations and the skeletons that hover due to race, class and sexual orientation.
Consider how “Murder House” explores the fullness of ambition and wealth only to introduce the reader to haunted elements. However, each of these concepts is laced with a destructive price. In the same way, “Coven” focuses on it’s Witches and their main reason for seeking power: inner wishes in the battle with the outside world.
Thus, AHS generally suggests changing the outlook concerning the way one can obtain happiness in America. It compels us to confront uncomfortable realities about the American dream of wealth and satisfaction.
Analysis of certain characters and seasons that defy our views towards stereotypes
American Horror Story is not afraid of exploring human natures whether in terms of why people behave that way or what they are capable of doing. For example, take “Freak Show.” This season depicts the lives of people who are disfigured but strive to belong to a community that ostracizes them. Ma Petite and Dell are examples of the effects of ostracism on the individual’s self-image.
In “Asylum,” we meet Kit Walker as well who is imprisoned because of his circumstances and especially religion. His ordeal suggests that the concepts we hold of sanity and morality are also relative in his case and that the so-called ‘sane’ people can do the most unspeakable evil.
“Hotel” introduces us to Elizabeth Taylor, a woman transforming into a man, which is a predicament she tries to resolve in a cruel environment. Her story vividly critiques the norm of gender identity and everything about beauty.
And every time who wants to rest the brain and watch the series behaves in unseemly fashion because every season there is piled more with, it is considered more and more complex. Each viewer is forced to revise what does this word mean, what a success overall, what is worthiness, and more – how to achieve the American Dream in today’s America which is constantly on the verge of madness and anticipation of terror.
Or, simply put, unveiling the uneasiness of society through the genre of horror
Horror does have that unique talent of tearing off layers of the veil. It brings out the dread that is hidden just beneath the surface of normal life. American Horror Story makes use of this very well.
The grotesque and fantastic details in the book stand for the problems present in society. People deal with pain, search for their roots and find themselves in a moral vacuum. Their battles are really heart-touching and make the audience know what they are scared of most – society and its vices.
Despite the fact that there are dark stories in the course, AHS manages to address uncomfortable things as racism, class and mental health illnesses in a more entertaining fashion. The terror turns to be a sort of a lens through which one sees all the horrible instincts in people.
Viewers are engaged into some gripping storylines that keep one thinking about them long even after watching them. That threatening aspect makes us question standards that we would have rather taken for granted. Every single scream is a chance of opening up the psyche and social order of mankind.
Power, privilege, identity in American Horror Story
The series intricately interweaves issues of power relations and privilege in the American horror story. The tragedy of all of these is revealed in every season, as each of them explains how these elements affect people’s life. Characters are of all kinds due to the fact of conquering power and wealth, which is not that rosy.
The exhibit demonstrates those groups of people who are in the peripheries of society who are up against the power in place. Their efforts highlight shadows of the society with an emphasis on how identity can be a blessing and a curse at the same time.
In a highly disturbing drama, AHS forces the audience to address the shocking position into which society has stratified itself. It breaks the American myth that everyone has equal opportunities to make a better future. Instead, it offers a world in which those from wealth and powerful families determine what people become.
That does not mean, however, that identity is universal within this universe because such characters can surprise them in performance distribution. The facets of race and ethnicity, gender, and sexuality are interlocked in such a way that makes the audiences challenge them on what is normal and acceptable.
Impact of AHS on audience’s perceptions of the American Dream: Has the American Dream radically changed due to the fact that AHS is in existence?
The Story, as its title says, lures its targets by rewriting the existing images.
The ‘story’ engages the ‘reader’ to face what most are shielded from because of the beauty of the American Dream
With every season that passes, the viewers replace their trivial interests with more profound concerns. It is these disturbing aspects of the show that only provoke the questions of ethnicity and social hierarchy, which otherwise may remain ignored.
The protagonists fight against the oppression of people within social systems, that destroy the illusions that we had in regard of living perfection. This point of view proposes something completely new to the viewers’ perception of how success and happiness should be measured.
Further than that, AHS uses this genre: not only just to amuse the audience’s sense of dread but also to reveal very delicate issues plaguing the world. And that is precisely what it does – invites us to look past beds of light and ask which is the real dream and who lives it.
By sifting through such shapes, audiences are able to return with reshaped ideas of aspiration, terror, and in the end, society.
Of American Horror Story: Dares to preach and to provoke. What are the stereotypes and traditional views challenged by AHS.
American Horror Story in the context of contemporary television deserves special attention. It doesn’t just combine different genres. Both fear and criticism of society are combined here, a kind of rough mirror of society. Each season urges the audience to deal with the unsettling issues of hierarchy, lookism, power relations.
The show has the courage to address facets that most would prefer remain unexplored. Is success as simplified as it seems? Perhaps there is somewhere else that gets ‘silenced’ in the pursuit of American Dream? In the previous seasons, AHS has effectively promoted the reanalysis of stereotypes through its narrative and characters’ complexity.
The focus is not only on the art aspect of the media; it also creates a discourse concerning issues in the society that are rarely explored. In each of the disturbing episodes, the viewers do not only exist to see the unfolding, but they internalize what they watch and how they perceive it.
In the age that we are currently in, where media impact is often a pseudo reality, AHS is able to cut through actual American life and provide some sharp criticism. It breaks taboos and discusses dreams, nightmares and the middle-class ideal and invites the spectators to ponder what is possible within their own lives and in society.
