SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
For more than a century, the story of America has been told on screen.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ON THE WATERFRONT")
MARLON BRANDO: (As Terry Malloy) You don't understand. I could have had class. I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WORKING GIRL")
MELANIE GRIFFITH: (As Tess McGill) I mean, you can bend the rules plenty once you get upstairs but not while you're trying to get there. And if you're someone like me, you can't get there without bending the rules.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "RAY")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Yeah. That's it. That's it. Keep that up (ph).
JAMIE FOXX: (As Ray Charles, singing) Hit the road, Jack, and don't you come back no more, no more, no more.
SIMON: "On The Waterfront," "Working Girl," "Ray" - all movies that explore what it takes to get ahead. And for this July 4, we're going to talk about other movies and TV series that depict the American dream with Linda Holmes and Aisha Harris, cohosts of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Thanks so much for being with us.
LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Thank you.
AISHA HARRIS, BYLINE: Thank you.
SIMON: Linda, let's begin with you. Give us a pick.
HOLMES: So the most commonly used meaning of the American dream, sort of as you said, is about getting ahead. It's about the idea of sort of universally available economic security and upward mobility. And because that's never really felt real to me, I decided to go to something that felt more real to me, which was the idea of a common endeavor that made me feel optimistic. And I ended up going in a different direction and chose the 1995 film "Apollo 13," directed by Ron Howard.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINE BANGING)
HOLMES: Which tells the true story of the space flight in April 1970 when an explosion in one of the oxygen tanks disabled some of the systems on the spacecraft, and it became a genuine life-or-death emergency.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "APOLLO 13")
BRETT CULLEN: (As CAPCOM 1) This is Houston. Say again, please.
TOM HANKS: (As Jim Lovell) Houston, we have a problem. We've had a Main Bus B undervolt. We've got a lot of thruster exit here, Houston.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) What's the story with the computer now?
HANKS: (As Jim Lovell) It just went offline.
SIMON: And, Linda, where's the American dream in this story?
HOLMES: I think space travel represents, to me, what I want the American dream to be, which is curiosity, science, knowledge, cooperation and the idea that everybody gets together to solve a problem and protect people who are vulnerable. And that's really what it means to me in that sense.
SIMON: Aisha, I gather, you struggled a bit with several possibilities. What did you come up with?
HARRIS: In Baltimore, of all places. I went with HBO's "The Wire," which was created by David Simon. And, you know, when I was thinking about this, I went back to one of the original sources of the idea of the American dream, James Truslow Adams. And he's credited with coining the phrase the American dream in his book "The Epic Of America." And he talks about a dream of this better, richer, happier life for all of our citizens of every rank. And "The Wire," I think, really shows how thin the line often is between criminal enterprises and law and order, and there's often no line. It's completely blurred.
SIMON: Is there one character in the show you think best exemplifies that tension?
HARRIS: Yeah. I mean, I look to Howard "Bunny" Colvin, who's played by Robert Wisdom, and he's the police chief of a district in Baltimore. He's nearing retirement, and he's frustrated with how this rise of the drug trade in his district has basically made it unsafe for everyone else - kids, working-class individuals, elders. And it's interfered with his ability to do some real police work. He basically feels like a failure.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE WIRE")
ROBERT WISDOM: The city is worse than when I first came on. So what does it say about me, about my life?
HARRIS: So what I love about this character is that he decides he's going to take things into his own hands. He sets up Hamsterdam, which is this open drug market away from the neighborhoods. There's no turf war, no violence. And at first, it works, and he achieves this idyllic version of the American dream. But it's also rooted in reality because, ultimately, once his superiors find out, he's admonished and the whole plan is just dismantled. You can't get much more American than that, I think.
SIMON: What other contenders, Aisha and Linda, did you maybe have in mind?
HOLMES: Well, I thought about some of those pieces that are about that struggle for security. I thought about the film adaptation of "Fences" with Denzel Washington and Viola Davis. I thought about some of the really good comedy series that have been about working-class families, whether it's something like "Good Times" or something like "Roseanne" - I thought about those kinds of shows. And I thought about something that might be about people trying to accomplish justice, whether it was a labor movie like "Norma Rae" or a movie like "Milk" about Harvey Milk. There are so many directions that you can go with this question that I think the best part of it for me was just exploring all the different ways that we interpreted the question.
HARRIS: Yeah. I would echo Linda in sort of what I was looking for. And I thought about "A Star Is Born." All four versions of that movie - including the most recent iteration starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper - they offer kind of a gendered perspective on the pursuit of a better life. And then even in the music realm, I considered a lot of Stevie Wonder songs, but especially "Higher Ground." It's not specifically a song about America, but I think it does capture the good and the bad of living here and this collective resilience of people just aiming for better and richer life.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HIGHER GROUND")
STEVIE WONDER: (Singing) People keep on learning. Soldiers keep on warring.
SIMON: Aisha Harris and Linda Holmes from NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Thank you both so much for being with us and happy Independence Day.
HOLMES: Thanks, Scott.
HARRIS: And to you, too, Scott. Enjoy your holiday.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HIGHER GROUND")
WONDER: (Singing) So glad that I know more than I knew then. Going to keep on tryin' till I reach my higher ground. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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