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I think that the setting, of the 1970s in New York, is very influential to the story, not necessarily just to shape the experiences the family endures, but also to serve as a backdrop to amplify what they experience. For example, we see the Sullivan family arriving and getting their apartment in Manhattan, where they live in poverty. As we know from Let The Great World Spin, the 1970s were a time of economic crisis for New York. The housing market was starting to sink, and many jobs which used to provide middle class wealth were shrinking. The Sullivan family’s experiences in their cramped tenement is far from abnormal. As well as the apartment, we see the environment of New York in the 1970s echoed by the tenants within the apartment complex. There’s Mateo, the photographer suffering from AIDs, the nameless drug addicts above and below the family’s apartment, and the crossdresser (Or transgender woman) implied to be a prostitute. All of these characters fit into a larger scene of New York. The AIDS epidemic wasn’t quite beginning in the 1970s, but would rapidly expand only a few short years later, eventually rising to dominate American minds and fears in the 1980s. Along with Mateo, we see many drug addicts throughout the film, usually in the background of the family’s life. Like we saw in Let The Great World Spin, drugs were far more widespread in the 1970s than they are today. Heroin, Jazzlyn’s vice, was among these, and is seemingly present in symptoms of the drug addicts who are shown on screen, with sunken, yellowed eyes, and track marks on their arms. Along with drugs, we see another connection to Tillie and Jazzlyn: The transvestite implied to be a prostitute living in the building. As discussed by many groups in our class presentations, prostitution in the 1970s was a thriving business. With a very clear link to that sexual freedom, open sexual and gender identity began to become more mainstream in the 1970s, along with a small but rising acceptance of transgender and non-conforming individuals. Recent documentaries and shows have began to study this cultural shift, such the documentary “Paris is Burning” (1990), which chronicles the transgender black communities in New York in the 1970s through the later end of the century.
In short, the backdrop of the 1970s serves to remind us that what the Sullivan family experiences isn’t an isolated event, and is only one of a thousand stories like it.
(c. 410 words)Ash, I agree with you that the historical context of NYC in the late 1970s definitely shaped the story significantly. As we learned through our Let the Great World Spin projects, there was an economic crisis during this time in NYC. This explains why the best apartment they could find in the whole city was the run-down tenement filled with drug addicts. Even in the movie, this affected how people perceived Johnny; the store owner judged him simply by where he lived, thinking less of him because he lived in the apartment filled with addicts. I also enjoyed your connection of the film and historical context to Let the Great World Spin. People were definitely addicted to drugs back then, and this was seen through Jazzlyn in the book with her addiction to heroin. The connection to Tillie and Jazzlyn in terms of prostitution was also insightful; it seems that people in these struggling situations had higher correlations with turning to sex work as a way to make money. I also like your point of a theme of rising acceptance in the 1970s; this was evident throughout the film as characters like Johnny let go of their initial judgments to become more accepting. For example, Johnny did not have a good feeling regarding Mateo, but after he discovered why Mateo was so shut off from the rest of the world, he began to understand and accept him. Overall, these were great points.
Anna and Ash, I also think it’s so interesting how many different “New York City in the 1970s” we have seen. In “Smoke” there’s a palpable grit, something very New York about everyone’s Brooklyn accents, constant smoking, and the connections made. In Let the Great World Spin there’s grit, but we see more diverse snippets of life from people of different classes and backgrounds. I think In America both follows and breaks the patterns of the other readings/movies, with more of a focus on immigration and acceptance as you both mention. For the first time we see the perspective of immigrants who are still getting accustomed to NYC, unlike Corrigan and Ciaran whose stories didn’t really speak about life as an immigrant in the 70s. The tenement the Sullivan family lives in brings together so many people who were typically shunned in society at the time, from AIDS-afflicted Mateo, to drug addicts, to transgender individuals. It’s a different view of NYC and speaks to how NYC began to change from the 70s to the 80s, as you both mention.
The seventies were a decade riddled with problems. As Ash points out, minority communities became increasingly marginalized, and those who partook in illegal industries found themselves increasingly persecuted. The film thus does an exceptional job illustrating the problems of 1970s New York. In the midst of a financial crisis and drug epidemic, we are given the opportunity to gaze through the lens of the average American immigrant.
The only issue I have with the movie is its unrealistic “happy end”. Considering the poverty most New Yorkers suffered, it is highly unlikely that a neighbor would have a fortune and be willing to give it away. It intrigues me how New York seems to value punishment and marginalization over reform and rehabilitation. In a city filled with prostitution and drug addicts, New York chose to cripple its citizens as opposed to assisting them.
Whether it’s Smoke or Let the Great World Spin, New York consistently seems to fail at helping its citizens and instead relies on the goodwill of other characters to make up for its shortcomings. In Smoke, Auggie’s girlfriend cannot provide her daughter with rehabilitation services because of its cost. Considering the film occurs over a decade following New York’s war on drugs, it’s almost comical how ill-prepared New York is to support its citizens. It’s only through Auggie’s five thousand dollar donation that Felicity can obtain help. Similarly, Tillie from Let the Great World Spin commits suicide after becoming isolated from her daughter. Tillie’s incarceration for supporting her daughter in the only way she knows how is representative of New York’s tendency to punish–and in a sense, imitates slavery practices in which families were split up.
I would’ve enjoyed the film much more if it portrayed New York as it really was. I dislike the “glorification” of New York because it wasn’t a time period that should be glorified. I would rather accept that the 1970s was a crappy time period that we should work to avoid in the future. The reality was that most New Yorkers would never have been able to pay off a hospital bill and that most would not be able to get a job as an actor.
I agree with many of the points mentioned above, but I think Chris touches on a point that I completely agree with, that being the unrealistic “happy ending.” At this point in the 70s, the chances of a minority with a severe illness living in one of the roughest neighborhoods of New York City having enough money saved up to pay for childbirth and the hospital charges of a premature baby is very unlikely, especially during a time when the overwhelming majority of African-Americans made less than $30,000. As was pointed out by Chris, New York City was very antagonistic towards anyone without the right money. Looking at the 70s from such rose-tinted glasses is incredibly harmful to the New York that emerged since then.
Additionally, an interesting thing that I found with movies set during these incredibly divided times was a, in my opinion, mischaracterization of certain social issues. As we saw during the book Let the Great World Spin, the view of Ciaran towards minorities is not the brightest or best. Despite the characters in this movie being Irish and not having experienced the same heterogeneous populations of New York City, the family seems to not care too much on race. Another aspect introduced in the film was the topic of transgendered/transsexual people during the 70s. Including them in the film yet not having any meaningful character interactions or commentary that relates to the times of then or now feels like the story shoehorned an overlooked demographic into the film under a guise of actual representation. While I think Ash detailed the societal shift towards acceptance for trans peoples well, I think it overlooks the rather large lack of acceptance seen historically and even now among religious fundamentalists and certain parts of the LGB communities.
Though I think the film portrays New York from a diverse community that is able to connect despite their differences well, I think keeping the societal aspects that pertain to the time period to the fringe of the story is a disservice to the story.Hey Chris,
I felt similar frustration at the neatly packaged ending. For me, it undid all of the painfully developed flaws of New York City in the 1970’s. The movie’s framework is based upon the struggle of an average family; it is the driving point of the narrative. Ending with a miracle destroys the serious strife and tension portrayed, as these attributes are never easily discarded. They cling and debilitate individuals. To me, it felt unfair that the Sullivan’s escaped the fate true New Yorkers of the time period suffered. It’s largely telling of the time period that the solution directors chose to prevent the family’s future of debt and poverty, was the kindness of a deceased individual. On a different note, I did find it wildly unrealistic that an immigrant with a wife and two children could ever earn enough as a beginning actor in New York City during the 1970’s. It’s an interesting career path, but not exactly a sustainable one, especially in the economic climate of the time period.I’ve observed one common idea in this thread that the New York City of today is very different than the city of the 1970s. In fact, the city as a whole is a world on its own, and has constantly changed over time. The unique characteristics of each of these “worlds” are specific to time and place. Such characteristics include the drug problems and economic crisis of the 1970s. However, with these problems come the quests to deal with these problems. This is how we get the Sullivan family’s story at scrounging around to survive as well as people like Matteo. In other words, NYC in the 1970s provides the necessary obstacles for the perseverance of immigrants and those of NYC to shine through.
Hey Ash,
I love the way you connect the hardships experienced in both In America and Let the Great World Spin. 1970s NYC seems to be a very common setting. However I believe that by setting it in the 1970s, they muddled the themes to create a more true and real story. The turbulence of the 1970s and the sprawling, densely populated NYC setting creates its own themes of the vastness of the earth and diversity in life. I feel like the central, family and tolerance of others themes were half-covered over by the overarching setting themes. In America did keep to their central themes more than most other 1970s stories by following a single family, as often stories have multiple main characters such as Let the Great World Spin.@ash I think you make a really solid but also terrifying point. Between immigrant life, housing crises, an unalienable sense of isolation and prevalent drug abuse, the the film depicts an accurate picture of what actually could have happened in a situation such as that of the Sullivan’s. I agree that a thousand other stories similar to theirs took place, however I do not believe that they all had such a happy ending. The film closing off on a high note makes it a bit of an anomaly, whereas thousands of other families relived the introductory sequence for many, many more years. Times were difficult and the crises of the 70s spilled over far into the future, where their ripples can still be felt today.
Ash,
I agree with all of your observations and would like to point out the difference between the late 70s and the early. Late 70s actually marked the concrete beginning of the cities new ruling class, mostly that of financial capital, due to the handing of the cities economic controls over to the banks after NYC’s fiscal crisis. This type of change of power had massive implications that can already be seen in the film, namely in the early growth of HIV/AIDs, which was unrestrained partially because many politicians ignored it in the 80s, and a new New York City, already slashing budgets for public services, would somewhat do the same.
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