Traditionalizing the Past

Brooks' Lost in America is a somewhat parodic and amused exploration of the fantasy of freedom. But it is also an ideological maneuver to reinscribe, albeit humorously, the existing economic order by “showing” all oppostition as impractical. In spite of itself, the film is more a discourse on history and the need for a homogenized “tradition” in a consumer society than what it professes to be: an account of self-origination. 11 thus demonstrates that the fate of individuals cannot be scrutinized outside history. The relation between contemporary American culture and the past is fraught with contradictions engendered by American society's view of social “change.”

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