Beating up on the Baby Boomer generation is a favorite pastime of the Dissident Right, owing to the tumult they brought with their cultural revolution. It’s been done time and time again, but for good reason. With this new generation came neoconservatives, abortion, fatherlessness, widespread divorce, etc. The root of all these trends, however, was the complete rejection of responsibility. Perhaps, this is best expressed in the film Revolutionary Road, based on a book published in late 1961 and Richard Yates’ first novel. Yates came from a broken home at a time when it was just becoming “normal.”
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road hit theaters in 2008, smack-dab in the middle of the Great Recession, a time when families once again began breaking apart at a faster rate than was normal. The movie starts with DiCaprio’s character, Frank Wheeler, romancing a young actress, named April. All seems well until the story fast forwards to Frank watching April, now his wife, give a miserable performance, a testament to a failed career. Frank tries to console her, but they end up arguing and it becomes clear their relationship is no longer like the loving, flirting one we saw just a few minutes earlier. Afterwards, the two barely make it home, to say the least. Trouble in paradise.
Frank works as a white-collar salesman, working a boring desk job he detests. With trouble at home and feeling directionless, Frank, on his 30th birthday, takes a new employee out to lunch, ultimately leading to an affair. Arriving home, April is now jubilant and sorry for the way she has been acting. She and the two children surprise Frank before April hatches her plan to move the family to Paris, where she will work a desk job in a government agency and Frank can finally pursue his intellectual interests in life. With some convincing, Frank agrees their relationship resorts to how it was when they had first met, or so it seems.
Of course, this plan is politely rejected by the couple’s friends, the Campbells, rightly calling it childish and (in private) criticising Frank’s plan to sit around in pursuit of a pipedream as his wife brings home the bread. The Wheelers’ relationship has been rejuvenated by this plan though, and are set on seeing it out. So, Frank recklessly delivers a report at work he knew little about and didn’t really care about doing well. His superiors surprisingly turn out to love it and offer him a promotion that would pay much better than his current job, leading him to opt for the promotion, rather than move to Paris.
Well, long story short, the relationship continues its deteriorating state as April reveals she is ten weeks pregnant and wants to abort the child, should the family stay in America. To be safe, the abortion is supposed to be done before 12 weeks, but this doesn’t happen due to Frank’s resistance. As April’s mental health deteriorates, along with the relationship, she has an affair with Shep Campbell, revealing to him she just doesn’t want to settle down. Shortly after this, Frank reveals his own affair and the two argue once more, being interrupted by another family with a mentally ill son visiting for the second time (the first visit being friendly).
Finding out the couple has abandoned their dreams, the mentally ill man heckles Frank, calling him weak and almost leading to a fight. This mocking of Frank pushes April to finally have a falling out with him. The two argue, this time ending with April telling Frank she hates him and running into the woods, not coming back until late at night. The next day, Frank goes to work and April goes through with the abortion, but it results in her bleeding out. Frank then moves to the city with the remainder of his family, his two kids, no doubt traumatized from the whole ordeal, and the story ends.
Now, the movie is presented simply as a story of a failed relationship, but put into perspective, the commentary on 50s society and the slow unraveling of the family unit becomes clear. Perhaps one of the chief defining behaviors of boomers is to only think about themselves (ultimately). For most, their well-being is truly all they care about. April is a self-entitled feminist who doesn’t believe a humble quiet life is her destiny. Frank is a distant father that has no idea what his destiny is. The kids, on the other hand, are entirely forgotten and never factored into their decisions.
Frank, in the beginning, knows it’s his birthday and knows his wife and children will be greeting him once he gets home. No matter. He knows what his few hours of fun can do to his family, but regardless he does it a second time. April knows it all too, but she still decides to rip the kids from home and move them to Paris for an unrealistic dream of Frank’s. The kids are so forgotten that they hardly appear in the film, though their welfare is paid lip service by their parents plenty of times. Out the whole two-hour movie, the children pop up in seven scenes, all only about a minute or so long, only speaking in three of them. They might as well not exist.
Granted, the story is about Frank and April’s relationship, but in real life the kids would be a perfect reason for both of them to end their nonsense. April sees them as a burden and a punishment, which is why she aborts the unborn child. Frank provides financially for his family well enough, but he is emotionally absent.
Because the children are an afterthought, both April and Frank want to abandon the responsibility of properly providing for their family. When Frank comes to his senses, April jeopardizes the family’s stability because she feels hopeless and now hates Frank. This all came at a time when America was supposed to be prosperous. We had just won the biggest, hardest fought war in history. Peace had come, the economy was booming, people were having babies and the American middle-class dream had been realized. Temporarily, at least.
Americans and Westerners, historically, have always engaged in the intergenerational contract, building great civilizations that they will never be able to taste the fruit of – that’s for their descendants. This Western tradition unraveled in the 50s through the 70s, when men began thinking only of their lives, not their children’s lives. A responsible man wouldn’t have had an affair; a responsible woman wouldn’t have selfishly pushed her man to have that affair. But, this generation was not responsible, quite the opposite. They wanted a world where the “pursuit of happiness” was the only purpose of life, nothing more, nothing less.
Whomever gets hurt in this destructive march is of no concern, even it is their very own flesh and blood. To have this un-brave new world, all responsibility, all sense of duty, obligation, selflessness and compassion had to be done away with. This is why contraceptives and abortion were supported so rigorously. Children are a curse, not a blessing. This is why no-fault divorce laws were established. Dedication doesn’t exist and anything can happen. You never know, the love might be lost! The pursuit of happiness for most is the American dream, but for too many it is the hedonistic lifestyle that so permeates our people.
Central to American life has always been the family. The American dream is regularly paid homage, but rarely defined. No doubt it is the will to establish a family in which stability can be formed. It is to be secure in your person, free from tyranny, not to do what thou wilt, but to be a servant of God and family. This is the societal order that still lingers, however faintly, in our current day. With the post-war generation, all of this was abandoned, traded for temporary fun, trivial excitement and meaningless nihilism.
Perhaps the title says it all. When our ancestors crossed the ocean, despite the popular narrative, they did so to establish a home, to build a family, a future. For a nation founded on those principles, what we see depicted in the film, the destruction of the nuclear family, the shedding of responsibility, the ignoring of the children and thereby the future, nothing could be more revolutionary.
