Abstract

Individualism value is the core of American culture and the main part of American spirit. America is a typical representative country of individualism value. From the beginning of the founding, individualism consciousness was deeply marked on the history of the United States. Nowadays, as a unique national character, individualism can be seen everywhere in American social life, having a great influence on people’s life attitudes, thinking patterns and behaviors. As the most popular media, American films come from reality life so that they can be an intuitional means to truly reflect every aspect of American society and culture. We can learn more about individualism spirit promoted by American people through the analysis of the plots int the films.

The paper is divided into four parts. The first part gives a general introduction to the background the the study and its meaning. The second part gives a general introduction to individualism. It lists the definitions of individualism by literatures, traces the formation of individualism under specific American historical background, and makes a brief expound on the nine individualism value orientations in a general sense. The third part is the main part of the paper. It chooses three American people’s most treasured individualistic values, individual freedom, individual independence and individual struggle to analyze in details respectively combined with six films. The fourth part is the conclusion, summarizing individualism again and emphasizing that the appreciation of American films is an important method to understand American culture.

Keywords: Individualism, American films, values, culture

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 The background of study-1

1.2 Current study of individualism-1

2. Individualism-4

2.1 The concept of individualism-4

2.2 The origin and development of American individualism-4

2.3 The core values of American individualism-5

3. Individualism in American films..6

  3.1 Individual freedom6

    3.1.1 Freedom of will in Titanic6

    3.1.2 Freedom of personality in Shawshank Redemption..7

  3.2 Individual independence8

    3.2.1 Independent thinking in The Devil Wears Prada.8

    3.2.2 Self-reliance in Gone With The Wind9

  3.3 Individual struggle9

    3.3.1 An idiot’s struggle process in Forrest Gump..10

    3.3.2 An inspirational man’s struggle process in The Pursuit of Happiness..11

4. Conclusion.14

References-15