Fargo

Plot

Fargo revolve around the life of , Jerry Lundegaard Car salesman hires two criminals to abduct his wife to extort ransom money from his wealthy father-in-law. The kidnapping spirals out of control, leading to multiple murders and the criminals turning on each other over the ransom money. Pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson investigates the crimes, eventually capturing the surviving kidnapper and arresting Jerry, while reflecting on the senseless violence caused by greed.

The ideology of American dream

The American Dream is rooted in an ideology of materialism, where life’s meaning is measured by wealth and possessions. Success, in this framework, is defined through a repetitive social cycle birth, formal education, marriage, reproduction, and the accumulation of material assets within this loop. Your dignity and identity is closely linked to this social structure.

Thus creating a culture where human objective is reduced to possession of wealth. Expanding cynicism, individualism and dehumanization. This idea is explored through the character of Jerry, a car salesman a profession that symbolically aligns with the ideology of consumerism embedded in the American Dream. The car itself stands as a central icon of that dream. Traditionally, American Dream narratives revolve around such figures, humble, lower-middle-class salesmen who, through hard work and merit, aspire to climb to the top of society.

This is explored through narratives like "Founder" (the story of McDonald's), "Wolf of Wall Street," "Pursuit of Happyness," and the technological era Steve Jobs biopic all are classic examples of salesman narratives that display the American dream of class elevation. Salesmen are very particular in these narratives, in the food chain of consumeristic ideology, this is the lowest title. So many of you may have read several self help books, these self help books are a by product of such an ideology and system. A very interesting parody of this is created in the season 7 episode 19 of The Office where Michael is writing (self help) a book he calls the bible of sales, something very similar is done in Modern Family by Phil played by Ty Burrell which he calls Phil's-osophy.

The World of Violence

The world of violence is deeply intertwined with materialistic ideology. This theme is explored in Scarface, the film portrays how Tony Montana, a Cuban immigrant, pursues the American Dream through the criminal underworld after being excluded from legitimate opportunities. His obsession with wealth and power reflects the belief that success in America is measured through material gain. However, when Tony realizes that his race and immigrant status deny him the respect of the elite class, he confronts the harsh reality that the American Dream is largely a white, exclusionary concept.

Similarly, in Fargo, Jerry decision to hire two kidnappers to abduct his wife for ransom exposes another face of the corrupted American Dream. Jerry aspires to rise above his middle class position and achieve financial independence through his parking lot business. However, his father-in-law’s refusal to respect or support him rooted in class arrogance drives Jerry toward desperate, violent means to assert his dignity and autonomy.

The violence he sets in motion spirals uncontrollably, leading to a chain of senseless killings of innocent people. This chaotic unraveling underscores the moral decay inherent in the pursuit of material success at all costs. During the tense confrontation between Wade and Carl, Wade’s exasperated reference to Jean as his “damn daughter” reveals his emotional detachment and misplaced priorities. His concern for money outweighs his compassion, reflecting the hollow values of the wealthy elite.

On a broader level, Fargo also critiques the contradictions of middle class ideology. The petite bourgeoisie often champions “small government” to protect its economic interests, yet, in times of crisis, as seen with Jerry, this class frequently turns to authoritarian or fascistic solutions for rescue. This hypocrisy exposes the fragility of the so-called moral backbone of the American middle class and its complicity in sustaining systems of violence and exploitation. In the contemporary politics of America, this is the Trump phenomenon.

Jerry is a failed capitalist. He tries to apply the principles of business (leveraging assets, outsourcing labor) to the criminal underworld. But the "market forces" of crime are ruthless and don't play by the rules of his suburban sales floor. He is trying to use the logic of the boardroom in a world that operates on the law of the jungle.

The Theme of Alienation, dehumanization in materiel ideology

This is an idea I explored in the writing of Fight Club How does modernity through materialism dehumanizes individuals and merely shrink them into objects.

In Fargo, Jean(Wife), She is not primarily his partner, she is a vehicle for capital acquisition. He orchestrates her kidnapping not out of hatred, but because she is the key to accessing Wade's wealth. She is a negotiable instrument. There is less mention of how Jean ended up with Jerry, Jerry may already had vested interest in their relationship .

Jerry hires them for a service. Their relationship is a pure cash-for-service contract, devoid of any human connection. Jerry's failure to understand that he is dealing with volatile human beings, not just hired tools, is his fatal flaw. He treats violent crime as just another business deal.

Both Fight Club and Scarface explore the theme of psychological collapse within capitalist systems. Similarly, Fargo offers a glimpse of this through the character of Garear (the kidnapper). Individuals like Garear emerge as products of capitalist alienation, their disconnection from society manifesting as extreme psychopathic behavior a theme I will further examine in G. Aravindan’s Iragal (a Malayalam classic).