Early Theorizing - American Mythology

[talkstowolves]

Some of my first formalized thoughts on American Mythology, taken verbatim from an e-mail to a friend:

America has no mythology... like other cultures have mythology.

That's right. We don't have the ethnic background for it.

Okay, okay, so the Native Americans have a mythology, yes. But that's not American. That's Native American.

You see, America is made up of people who abandoned their own cultures (for the most part) and came to a
new land to make a fresh start. They brought their beliefs with them, but those beliefs had to be adapted
to (and ended up being molded by) the new land in which the people found themselves. (I am especially
interested in examining that critical change point by researching new immigrants to the USA and how their
personal mythos is warped in the first-generation Americans born to immigrant parents.) Because people
were eventually stripped of their ethnic identity and thrown into the so-called melting-pot of America,
their mythologies faded away.

Of course, a contemporary mythology has slowly evolved in America, but it's actually a relatively unhealthy mythology. The mythology of America involves it being:


the land of plenty (but often the land of waste considering the huge portions, etc.);

unparallelled beauty (Americans idolize unhealthy concepts of beauty represented by supermodels that
aren't even real. And this high bar of beauty can be met by, well, pretty much no American.);

the land of the young (Americans are pathetically scared of aging and death-- hence the obsession with
plastic surgery);

the land of purity/deviance (America has a real split personality when it comes to sexual topics. There is a serious lack of sexual education and it's almost considered taboo in some ways-- that's the Christian
Fundamentalism. On the other hand, there's the pornography industry that promotes a pretty unhealthy
view of sexuality.)

Those are some of the bigger topics in contemporary American mythology. I know they're mostly negative,
but America hasn't represented its virtues for many, many years now (if it ever really did represent its
supposed virtues). Instead of fighting for freedom for everyone, we're now involved in a war in Iraq that's more about control. Instead of being the "land of the brave," more than half of the youth of America would never wish to serve in its military. Instead of being the "land of opportunity," hardly anyone can find a suitable job in spite of the appropriate college degree.

Sometimes I feel like America is a lost country, and I'm not sure how we'll reclaim that fundamental
American spirit.

Comments

[ironed_orchid]

Of course, a contemporary mythology has slowly evolved
in America, but it's actually a relatively unhealthy
mythology.

I don't think that your finding it 'unhealthy' makes it any less potent in the cultural imagination. Things like 'land of the free' and 'land of opportunity' are very powerful, and they can work to make anyone who isn't completely free and who doesn't have a lot of opportunities feel like this is due to something that they lack, rather than due to social injustices. I know this isn't necessarily what you are after when you think of mythology but it affects how people read individual stories and what they take from them.

As for the not representing America's supposed virtues, this is probably because what was once seen as virtuous is now seen as more dubious - like killing native americans to make space for new european settlers. That was then seen as brave and intrepid, now it's view as oppressive.

[talkstowolves.livejournal.com]

There's no question of it's potency, and that's a very good observation. Thank you.