3. The American Dream Still Exists...
The idea of the American dream is that everyone is eligible for a home, family and security. This highlights that in many films the institution of the nuclear family is the mechanism where desire is fulfilled. This is often the vehicle for frustration, within Fatal Attraction, in relation to the nuclear family, it is not fulfilled in this way. Traditionally, the wife is a stable and dependable figure;who remains in the domestic domain, keeping house and raising the children. In the film, Beth is the loyal wife; she is seen as soft and approachable, regularly positioned in the home. There is juxtaposition between Beth, the embodiment of the natural and the maternal, and Alex the quintessential sexual predator. It is a battle of the career woman VS the nuclear family. The 1980's saw the infiltration of career prospects and widened the horizons for women in the United States. It also heralded the creation of new types of family; the single mother, the step -family and it suggested that women were not afraid to start a family on their own, detracting from the sense of male importance. Women who are seen as active are sexually promiscuous and have violent tendencies, represent fears and anxieties prompted by the shifts in the understanding of sexual difference in the late 19th century. Alex is portrayed as a deviant woman who doesn't conform to the traditional expectations of the nuclear family. She endeavours to subvert the socially constructed definition of what it is to be a 'woman.'