Dreamscape or Hellscape?
I remember the first time I watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off because I had just taken some intense pain medication after a wisdom tooth surgery, and I had the realization that Ferris Bueller could have been my neighbor. I don’t mean that in the literal sense, of course. I didn’t live outside of Chicago. I lived outside of Atlanta, but it might as well have been the same. The suburban monoculture persists across America, reminding us of our desire to conform with those around us, reminding us to water our lawns and cut our grass despite the fact it’s the middle of summer. Suburban spaces offer a specific form of a community founded on a desired sameness, a shared sense that appearances place bearing on social standing. When a neighbor’s lawn is unkempt, someone calls the HOA.
This performance is a facade, though. At any moment, there are social disruptors or seedy lies ready to tear at the fabric of these communities, turning them against each other. These neighbors aren’t very neighborly, after all. While planned for people to live near one another, suburban communities do not foster any kind of community living that would enrich the human experience. The guiding force of suburbia asks for the threads to unravel at the first sign of a social mishap.
Perhaps, then, suburbia itself is the dark, malignant thing, its tenets the driving force in dismantling communities in Blue Velvet, The Virgin Suicides, Edward Scissorhands, and Greener Grass. When communities are destroyed, their residents look to place the blame on anyone — except themselves. The bigger problem, though, is that communities lack the resilience and elasticity to rebound, not only from the issues played out in the films but for the big impending ones.
Trees and Topiaries
In Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides, we watch the lives of the Lisbon sisters through a nostalgia-tinted sad-girl glow. Following the suicide of their sister, Cecilia (Hanna Hall), the girls become objects of neighborhood fascination, anomalies in the otherwise perfect Michigan suburbia. Though the Lisbons tried desperately to let go of the title of social pariahs, it stuck with them — not only because of Cecilia’s death but because of the actions of their mother, who refused to let the sisters leave the house, shutting them inside, making them into ethereal beings, objects of suburban fascination. Everyone wants to know their darkest secrets. Their actions are newsworthy. Headlining actions means people pay attention to the Lisbons, making them a neighborhood disturbance. If you’re gossiped about, you decidedly don’t belong.
In the background, an environmental disaster unfolds. A fungal disease spreads tree-by-tree until the Lisbons’ beloved tree is marked for removal. When girls learn that Cecilia’s favorite tree will be chopped down, they choose activism to both protect the tree and their memory of their dead sister. In this moment, the sisters choose to take a voice against the performative facade. Though the Lisbon girls’ motivation stems from their connection to Cecilia, their rebellion puts light on an issue that was quietly ignored by many of the residents who accepted their tree removal notices without a fight. The sisters realize they have to work together — even though the tree is past saving and becomes a stump, despite their efforts. The work of just four girls is not enough to build a community, especially when the neighbors delight in their whispers and theories.
Similarly, Edward Scissorhands (Johnny Depp) acts as a social disruptor after Peg (Dianne Wiest) brings him home. His presence marks an immediate change in the social and physical fabric of the neighborhood — he uses his scissorhands to create stunning topiaries for the suburban residents. What was once a standard American neighborhood transformed into an outdoor art gallery, turning its orderliness into whimsy.
Even though Edward became part of the neighborhood, he received hate and was perceived as dangerous — despite never acting violently. Still, he was pushed out of a place he loved because the community decided he didn’t belong to them. He was too different. Since appearances are so important in the suburban neighborhoods of these films, it makes sense that disrupting the idyllic by protesting a tree removal and creating art out of hedges would sit as criticisms of suburbia. In these places, change is not welcome and anomalies are troublesome.
Behind the Picket Fences
David Lynch wastes no time in exposing America’s dark side in Blue Velvet. As the camera pans down, we are reminded of iconic suburbia — the white picket fence. The following shots establish a well-mannered neighborhood. From this perfection, though, comes malignancy. Though small at first — we see shots of a leaking spigot — the darkness mounts: a man dies and insects burrow under the beautiful green grass. Even within this picturesque neighborhood, there remains the facts of life. The insects, specifically, speak to a greater existence — they are residents of this neighborhood, just like the people who live in the well-kept houses. By destroying his suburbia so early in the film, Lynch forewarns us that there is no reason to attempt the suburban dream. In this world, it can’t exist. Even still, the truth that Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) discovers is hidden behind curtains and closet doors, willfully ignored to cater to the outside performance.
Ignoring the darkness beneath creates a false sense of security and nicety in the communities of these films. The stories progress because the audience understands the tensions between performance and reality. In Greener Grass, directors, writers, and stars Jocelyn DeBoer and Lisa Dawn Luebbe lean into absurdism to expose the lengths at which people will go to create the “perfect” life. Life in this neighborhood, however, is far from perfect. As the film progresses, Jill (DeBoer) and Lisa (Luebbe) continue to act in the charade; at one point, Jill’s son turns into a dog and the characters march on, still in competition. The hint of imperfection is everywhere, even physically displayed through the adults in the film wearing braces to achieve perfect smiles. The community in Greener Grass isn’t really a community at all but rather a hotbed of hostility and competition. Despite the sunny facade, the neighborhood of Greener Grass is unable to sustain itself.
When the darkness is revealed, these communities fall apart, which is meant to teach audiences a lesson. Perhaps the continual performance of perfection will result in the dissolution of communities — why shouldn’t it? When Jeffrey Beaumont untangles the thread of Dorothy’s (Isabella Rossellini) life, he exposes a reality that he can never unsee; his life is now forever intertwined with Dorothy’s. When the lens of the American dream cracks, we’re left with the bad things that suburbia is meant to hide and we have to face it.
Our Suburban Future?
The planned nature of suburbia fights against a more organic sense of community. In these films, the set houses and yards act as barriers between families; the metaphorical fences are up. Whether these films intend to or not, they ask a serious question about the future of humanity — how do our communities survive when conformity is broken? In each of these films, something happens to break the status quo. While the communities themselves may not be destroyed, the fabric of their existence comes undone.
If fiction represents a truth of reality, what are these films saying about the truth of how many of us live now? In a community where the Lisbons are social pariahs, who offers them assistance when climate change-fueled summer causes an uncharacteristic heatwave? How do the residents in Greener Grass react when they are facing extreme drought? Suburban neighborhoods aren’t designed to answer these questions.
Our cultural consciousness asks us to choose the suburban ideal, but we know that we don’t have to. We know that we, like Peg, can bring Edward into our homes and gracefully accept change. In breaking down the myth of the American suburban dream, these films lay the groundwork for something much deeper, something much more difficult to handle — the end of the world as we know it is coming soon, and many communities may crumble under the pressure of American suburbia.
