Weapons is not a very scary horror film. It is, however, a fascinating movie about the suburbs and the way the architecture of family life supports silence and complicity. Horror movies often use the suburbs to interrogate the seedy underbelly of American promise. Whether exploring fear, ennui, racial tensions, or Satanic Panic, suburban horror films are about control—who has power and who desperately wants it.
Since the rise of postwar suburban sprawl, numerous cultural works have explored the facade of successful suburban life. What is hiding behind the green lawns?
Horror films do this in particular ways, following conventions in their field. One question we could ask is whether this particular film gets at this seedy underbelly in unique ways. Does it put together existing ideas in new ways? Does it break new ground in exploring the suburbs? Does it offer new commentary on suburban life here in 2025?
Another question we could ask: how many Americans are familiar with these horror film depictions of suburbs? If you have seen one or two such films, do you have a general sense of their suburban commentary?
Lower marriage rates and lower homeownership among younger adults seems to indicate the increasing elusiveness of what we have long considered the American Dream of owning your own place and building a family.
So what’s going on? Is this a generational shift in values — or the predictable result of a system that’s become too expensive and too precarious for anyone to gain a foothold?…
So is the American Dream disintegrating? Or is it changing shape?
We think the answer is a bit of both. Affordability plays no small role in explaining why fewer young people buy a home or choose to go into debt for a degree…
If Gen Z does bring marriage back into fashion, it won’t be a return to tradition so much as a reinvention of it — one that values stability, yes, but also flexibility and purpose. That’s the American Dream now.
The suggestion above is that the American Dream involved (1) homeownership and (2) having a family. Have these two things and you have made it. The contrast is provided at the end. Younger Americans perceive more instability in the economy and in relationships. The old path of securing a home and family is not as easy. They want something different: “flexibility and purpose” rather than “stability.”
How much of a change is this? The key might be getting at the motivations behind achieving these goals. What was having a home and family about? Reaching a certain middle-class status? Keeping up with the Joneses? The shift toward “flexibility and purpose” is about what exactly: self-sufficiency? Status? A better sense of self?
In other words, I wonder if this is more about changing methods to achieve the American Dream rather than a shift in goals. As noted in the editorial, many younger Americans still want to own a home. Many will pursue relationships. But the means to getting here may have changed. There is a narrative now that this former path was easy: the decades after World War Two provided easy opportunities for many Americans to buy a home and start a family. Perhaps this was a unique time in history with relative prosperity and the conclusion of a major war where the United States emerged as a winner.
Imagine several decades from now when the postwar era is one hundred years ago. Americans may still want the same things – purpose, a sense of achievement, a certain status – but what form that takes may have changed. What marks a middle-class life may look different. Feeling accomplished or stable may take a different form.
When JonasCon, an all-day special event celebrating the 20 years since the debut of the hit boy band the Jonas Brothers, was first announced in mid-February, anyone who still cared about the JoBros (myself included) thought it would be a disaster. After all, the announcement came less than two months before the event; information about what was actually going to happen during the convention was nowhere to be found, even mere weeks away; and it didn’t help matters that there were last-minute reports that the Jonas Brothers were struggling to find sponsors for what would likely be a “complete and chaotic mess.” Hints of an impending trainwreck angered fans; not only were they financially invested in traveling to the event, but they were also feeling protective over (and worried about) the reputation of the once-popular band of brothers, who have been left behind in an era short on boy bands and heavy on “popgirlies.”
But what actually happened on that Sunday in March, at the behemoth that is the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, wasn’t the reincarnation of Fyre Fest that everyone was expecting. It was something else entirely…
Being inside of the bubble of the teenage dream—while literally ensconced in the American Dream—makes you forget that the real world is still happening.
Four things seem to be converging here that add up to the American Dream:
A shopping mall/attraction site that calls itself American Dream. The large thriving shopping mall is a great embodiment of the postwar suburban American Dream. (In terms of spaces, it might only trail the single-family home and yard as the epitome of the American Dream for a certain era.
The teenager experience is a unique one in American society. The mix of independence and growing up and testing out adult things can come together into a heady time where experiences and patterns can prove influential for the rest of life.
Music gets wrapped up in #2 as an important narrative element. Certain artists or genres can speak to teenagers in ways they might not to adults The music and the memories that go along with the music are powerful.
The American Dream is not just an idea; it can be experienced. The setting here is a fan convention that brings together in a suburban setting people who enjoy particular music. They get to enjoy the music, the energy, and meeting people at one time. There are other experiences that can be the American Dream – perhaps a backyard cookout, perhaps driving fast down a road – but the fans at this event seem to get to experience something that helps them ignore what else may be happening.
Skepticism about this rise continuing at this rate could emphasize multiple unusual factors at play. A global pandemic. Interest rates shooting up. A quick turn toward working from home. A slow-down in housing construction, particularly for less expensive homes and starter homes. And housing prices do not always go up every year – they ten to over decades but not at every point.
On the other hand, why shouldn’t this rise continues? Where is a bunch of new housing going to come from? Will mortgage rates drop dramatically soon?
This statistic came from an article that primarily discusses how these rising prices mean many are priced out of the market. Those with resources already, particularly those with equity in a home, can better compete for the limited number of houses.
Whether values continue to increase or slow or even decline could go a long way toward affecting who can pursue the American Dream of homeownership.
The new American Dream should be a townhouse — a two- or three-story home that shares walls with a neighbor. Townhouses are the Goldilocks option between single-family homes in the suburbs and high-rise condos in cities…
Instead, developers have found a sweet spot with townhouses. They are cheaper to build. They usually face less “not in my backyard” resistance. And buyers love them. Townhouses have all the trappings of a classic dream home, but they cost less to buy, offer a low-maintenance lifestyle and are more climate-friendly. It’s the American Dream, but with a smaller yard…
Townhouses are becoming more attractive because they almost always cost less than detached single-family homes. In big urban areas, the median sale price for a townhouse is substantially cheaper: $382,000 less in San Francisco, $222,000 less in Los Angeles, $220,000 less in Miami, $190,000 less in Denver, $145,000 less in D.C. and $130,000 less in Phoenix, according to Zillow data from this summer…
Though townhouses have long been perceived as starter homes for young couples who hope to later move to a larger place, developers say that stereotype is changing. Today, townhouses are popular options for many kinds of households — couples with one child, single parents, people who live alone, couples in their 30s and 40s with no kids, and empty nesters in their 50s looking to downsize. People are drawn to the low-maintenance lifestyle and the sense of community. Many people don’t want to isolate themselves in suburban homes where they have minimal contact with neighbors and are fully dependent on a car.
This is an interesting adaptation to fit the priorities of Americans. If a good portion of population want to own a property, apartments and renting are not ideal in the long run. If people want what they perceive to be a good deal, a townhome can be cheaper than a single-family home. If they want a more walkable neighborhood or don’t want to deal with outside work, townhomes can provide options.
At the same time, I wonder how much townhomes have adapted to fit other things Americans want. (This might be in comparison to the rowhouses of past decades mentioned in the article.) How many townhomes have to have garages and/or dedicated parking because American life is still built around driving? How do the interior spaces and the features of townhomes compare to single-family homes (are they built around large kitchens and great rooms, what levels of amenities do they have, etc.)? Where are certain townhomes being constructed – in other words, do the townhomes in wealthier suburban communities look very different than those built elsewhere?
Imagine American suburbs in a few decades that contain a majority of townhomes. Does this fundamentally change suburbia? Does it alter the emphasis on single-family homes? Can townhome neighborhoods be woven together into a broader fabric that reduces reliance on driving? I am curious to see what happens.
As shopping malls seek to add more entertainment options, why not add sports? It could be at the professional level or amateur level. Imagine a high school basketball tournament hosted inside a mall with space for sports. Or a kids baseball tournament. Or a tour pickleball tournament. Sports could help bring in more visitors. It puts more people in proximity to the shops and restaurants.
Even though malls are big, many may not be big enough to do this. The American Dream Meadowlands in East Rutherford Mall, New Jersey is the second-largest mall in the United States and has plenty of entertainment options – a ski slope, a hockey rink, an amusement park, an aquarium, and more – in addition to 450 stores and lots of food options. This complex has sports already in mind. Many malls would need to reconfigure space or add facilities.
Given how much Americans like football and shopping malls (even with their decline), how many events can get more American than this? And held at a place named American Dream?
Central to the pitch of the American Dream is a house. Homeownership, the traditional thinking goes, is the surest way to build wealth. Save up for a down payment, buy a starter home, and definitely don’t spend too long throwing money away on rent.
That dream has become more fantasy in the Covid-era economy.
The second sentence goes a different direction. Buying a house is about making money. This might be in addition to other reasons for buying a home including: the status of owning a home; enjoying the home; maintaining and improving a piece of private property; and being a part of the community.
When Vickie Franzen and her husband, Jon Crenshaw, bought their first house in Roseville, Calif., in 2018, they never expected they would still be there in 2024, weighing whether to squeeze a desk into the nursery along with the crib, so the space could double as an office…
Suddenly, the house’s 1,600 square feet feel like a way tighter squeeze. But there’s another number they can’t get out of their minds, either: 3.5 percent, their current mortgage rate, which they scored by refinancing in 2020 and aren’t eager to give up.
Their quandary isn’t unique, of course. Today’s high interest rates and low housing affordability mean that all across the country, homeowners just like them – people who thought they were buying good-enough-for-now houses that they would leverage into dream homes soon enough – are having to reevaluate. Not that Franzen and others in her situation aren’t grateful to own a home, given the current market conditions. But turning a starter home into something closer to a forever home requires compromise, from sacrificing space to putting off having children…
Logically, as homeowners stay put, they consider whether to renovate. But acquiring a loan to fund a remodel can be costly. Renovation loans functionally refinance a mortgage at the current interest rate. And home equity lines of credit typically come with either adjustable rates or rates fixed at a high number.
Built in to this expectation is larger and larger houses over time. Americans have the largest new homes in the world. The one example of square footage in the story involves a 1,600 square foot home. When the families interviewed for the story talk about their homes, they need more room for growing households. The American Dream is a dream of more and more square footage.
As many articles in the last decade or so have noted, perhaps this simply means the starter home will go away and people will jump into bigger homes from the start. Why bother going through the trouble of a starter home if big homes are an option? And all those large homes owned by Baby Boomers might be available soon.
The best suburban stories, on the page or on-screen, are deceptively complex, affixing irony or self-knowledge to what may initially appear to be mere scathing social criticism. Take Revolutionary Road, the searing 1961 Richard Yates novel adapted to the big screen by Sam Mendes in 2008. This is the tragedy of Frank and April Wheeler (played in the film by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet), average New Yorkers in the ’50s who move to a tree-lined Connecticut suburb to start a family and watch their dreams die. Frank commutes to the city for a sales job he loathes. April whiles away her days with the kids, forgoing whatever ambitions she might otherwise have had.
Here’s the catch: As April and Frank plan a move to Paris—where Frank will do an unspecified creative something—then retreat back into a domestic existence both tortured and predictable, it becomes clear that they would live quotidian lives no matter where they laid their heads. Paris. Connecticut. New York. The suburbs just happen to be the perfect venue for their smallness, the place where their silent scream can disappear between the hedges. In this sense, Yates’s suburban critique carries a strong whiff of irony. After all, it’s hard to blame the perfect lawns and fake smiles when you carry your misery the way a turtle carries its shell.
The only truly honest person in these suburbs is John, the adult son of the community’s busybody real estate agent. John is a mathematician who has undergone extensive shock treatment for his mental illness, a spirit stifled by his family’s shame and hyperconformity. (Michael Shannon plays him in the film and walks away with the whole thing.) John might actually be happier in Waldie’s Lakewood, where strange behavior, including obsessive hoarding, arguably becomes part of the town’s beautiful fabric, the answer to any easy assumptions of conformity…
The naked reality Waldie depicts subverts any impulse to indulge dystopian visions or Twilight Zone–like allegories. (The suburbs, incidentally, provided a feast for The Twilight Zone. Take 1960’s “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” in which a bland collection of suburban neighbors, walled off from the rest of the world, become a self-immolating mob when they suspect an alien invasion.) Waldie doesn’t need such devices to conjure his uncanny suburbia. He accentuates minute details of housing and neighborhood construction—drywall, crape myrtle, layers of stucco—with philosophical musings and remembrances that sometimes cross over into the macabre. “In the suburbs,” he writes, “a manageable life depends on a compact among neighbors. The unspoken agreement is an honest hypocrisy.”
Is the suggestion here that the problems people face in the suburbs are the same sorts of problems they would face in other settings? Or that people in the suburbs are idiosyncratic just as they are elsewhere?
I wonder if the difference is that the American Dream placed a large burden on suburbs: life had to be good, not just normal. The sparkle of the new home and suburban lifestyle were not just to be settled into and lived in; it had to be the apex of American, and perhaps global, life.
On the whole, the standard of living in American suburbs is pretty high compared to historic and global settings. But, could any place easily be the promised land? It is probably not a coincidence that this book is titled Holy Land.
The “American Dream” costs about $3.4 million to achieve over the course of a lifetime, from getting married to saving for retirement, according to a recent analysis from financial site Investopedia.
Meanwhile, median lifetime earnings for the typical U.S. worker stand at $1.7 million, earlier research from the Georgetown University has found.
Such figures underline the financial pressures that many families face trying to afford a middle-class life as expenses like child care, college tuition and buying a home continue to climb. The Investopedia analysis tallies the average cost of achieving other aspects traditionally associated with the American Dream, such as owning a house and raising two children to age 18.
Another analysis, from USA Today, found that funding the American Dream costs about $130,000 a year for a family of four. Median household income stands at about $74,450, according to the Census Bureau.
One key facet of the American Dream is that it is supposed to be available to all. That never meant everyone would achieve it, particularly as Americans often emphasize individual hard work and taking advantage of opportunities. But, it should be reachable in a society where many Americans value and see themselves as middle-class.
Perhaps this is why there is a market or demand for particular experiences that provide part of the American Dream or a taste of it. One traditional marker of the American Dream in the United States is owning a home. This is displayed on TV, illustrated in toys, and promoted by presidents. If people can just own a home, they have a strong case to make for attaining the American Dream. Or, consider the freedom of driving down the road in your vehicle to wherever you want. This experience offers a taste of the larger American Dream.
If large numbers of Americans cannot obtain the American Dream now and in the coming years, this could mean the Dream becomes redefined. Maybe it will have different elements. Or, perhaps it will be more commonly viewed as attainable only by some. It could be a status symbol of the elite. Or, new policies and conditions could renew aid and efforts toward achieving the American Dream. Politicians could run on this idea while grassroots movements could promote it.
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