Comforting the Comfortable: Extreme Makeover Home Edition's Ideological Conquest

Abstract

The United States prides itself on being a classless society where economic determinism can be transcended by the right amount of merit, determination, and luck. At the same time, however, the U.S. has the second highest wealth inequality rate of any developed nation and the second lowest intergenerational mobility. Explaining the contradiction between the myth of the American Dream and the economic reality is no easy task. This article attempts to explain the role ideology and cultural myth play in mediating this contradiction by analyzing the ABC reality television series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is a wildly popular program in which a team of home builders and designers travel around the country building new homes for desperate and deserving families. I use the portrayals of seven of these families to explain the specific way Extreme Makeover portrays each families as deserving and meriting spectacular material assistance. This ideology offers support for the reinforcement of existing economic power structures and the myth of the American Dream.