Edd N Eddy And The American Dream

Ed,Edd n Eddy and the American Dream
Ed, Edd n Eddy is a television cartoon series on Cartoon Network that follows the lives of three young friends who have a variation of the name Ed, but completely different personalities. Ed is the ignorant dimwit, but the brawn and heavy lifter of the group. Edd, or also known as Double D, is obsessive and intelligent, and Eddy is a greedy, loud-mouthed control freak. Their only pursuits in life is getting their hands on a jawbreaker and fitting in with the other kids. In order to achieve this, Ed and Double D help Eddy with his plans to scam the other children in their cul-de-sac out of their money; however, they always run into problems. This cartoon can, in some ways, reinforce
the dark and negative aspects of the ‘American Dream’. It used to stand for independence and the ability to make something of one 's self with hard work; however, lately the ‘American Dream’ appears quite corrupted, or even dead. Ed, Edd n Eddy shows this dream is venal since people are constantly trying different things in order to gain access to what they want, not caring what they have to do to get it; this leads to the ‘American Dream’ focusing on materialism and consumption, rather than true happiness.
The American Dream seems to represent materialism and pursuit of pleasure, which is not happiness.
In Ed, Edd n Eddy, the material item that they are constantly searching for is a jawbreaker candy, which brings them pleasure until they finish the candy and want to consume another; this leads to them plotting a new scheme to cheat the neighborhood kids out of their money. This is very similar to people who think that they can do anything and get what they want without trying. They will lie, cheat, and do whatever it takes in order to fulfill their desires to consume and gain profit because the modern American is convinced that they can only be happy as long as they keep consuming. The ‘American Dream’ is a delusion, an illusion meant to keep people dissatisfied with what they have and hungry to spend more money, in the hopes that the next purchase will be the one that buys them the happiness they are promised. (Sunfell) This same concept applies to the Eds because they represent the modern American; the neighborhood kids signify the media and societies influence, while the jawbreaker symbolizes materialism and consumption and the cul-de-sac is the trap that captures all of them. Their desire to fit in with the rest of the neighborhood kids and pursue any chance they can get to gain a jawbreaker has turned them materialistic and
greedy. However, happiness and the reality of the original ‘American Dream’ are found in abandoning the false dream, and creating one of your own.
Florence King, an American writer, wrote, “People are so busy dreaming the American Dream, fantasizing about what they could be or have a right to be, that they 're all asleep at the switch.
Consequently we are living in the Age of Human Error.” (BrainyQuote) The only thing that most people in America do is dream. They content themselves by telling themselves that they have the ability to do whatever they want, but never have the motivation to actually do anything; this effectively destroys the idea of the ‘American Dream’ since no one actually gets up and tries to rightly earn it. In Ed, Edd n Eddy, there is a character named Kevin who demonstrates the kind of lazy attitude that most Americans have about success. He is the local jock in the cul-de-sac and is cynical, sarcastic, and cruel to the Eds and other children at times. Kevin has a garage full of jawbreakers because his father works at a jawbreaker factory, which he loves to brag about and ultimately earns him popularity and the respect of the other children. He hates the Eds to the point of extreme paranoia, but especially despises Eddy because many of Eddy 's scams have gotten him injured. The two are mortal enemies and often go entirely out of their way to humiliate or physically harm each other at the first opportunity. Overall, Kevin represents how Americans do not try or work hard in order to succeed anymore, yet they have high expectations and want most out of life. Americans have a nonchalant perspective when
it comes to education and applying ones self in order to succeed; they expect everything to be handed to them just like Kevin has life handed to him. His father owns a jawbreaker factory, so Kevin has an unlimited supply of jawbreakers, which is fulltime access to materialism and consumption. The more jawbreakers he consumes and gives away to his friends to be more popular, the more he falls into the trap of society.
There is another character on Ed, Edd n Eddy named Rolf who tries to fulfill the ‘American Dream’. He is an immigrant from an Eastern European culture with very odd and strange customs, most of which involve a wide variety of meat. He works very hard on his parents ' small farm within the cul-de-sac and works much more than the other children in the neighborhood. Rolf is the most dedicated and diligent out of all the children who live in the cul-de-sac, yet he does not receive as may jawbreakers as the others. He is exactly like the immigrants who come to America in order to pursue the ‘American Dream’ and make a better live for themselves and their families. In the show, he is very gullible and persuasive and he falls for most of the Eds schemes and believes what the other children tell him. This symbolizes how immigrants are persuaded by the American society that they too can have the promised ‘American Dream’. Thus, leading them to work immensely harder and longer than the average American. However, they rarely get the same chance and equal opportunity to succeed as well as others who are born in America. “I came to America, and I made good. It 's an old story, but it hasn 't been told in a long time. Usually, it 's, 'I 'm an immigrant, I came here and got persecuted. ' My story is I came here, I worked hard, and it worked out all right. So it 's still available” (BrainyQuote). This is a quote by Craig Ferguson who describes how the ‘American Dream’ of opportunity and freedom has motivated generations of immigrants throughout America’s history to start a new life in America. He shows how the immigrants are the ones who are keeping the ‘American Dream’ alive. A dream, which today has been forgotten by the American citizens and is trying to be kept alive by the immigrants who risk their lives and suffer disdain in their effort to achieve it, but ultimately may never will.
The main reason Ed, Edd, and Eddy perform scams is because of the delicious jawbreakers. But just what is it about those ‘mouthwatering candied spheres’, as Double D describes them, that makes them the center of Ed, Edd n Eddy 's universe? Rick Danko, a Canadian musician, said, “As time goes on we get closer to that American Dream of there being a pie cut up and shared. Usually greed and selfishness prevent that and there is always one bad apple in every barrel” (BrainyQuote). This quote explains how there is the hope of the true and honest ‘American Dream’, but somehow it never turns out quite as expected because everyone is only looking out for themselves and how they can succeed. This is exactly what overcomes the Eds: greed and selfness. This is also basically any of the kids in the show, Ed, Edd n Eddy. Attaining the so-called American Dream is too often the measure of “success” in consumerism America. The ‘American Dream’ is no longer the measure of the quality of a person’s character, but a measure of the quantity of material items they own. As Jimmy Carter said in his 1979 Address, “too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined as what one does, but by what one owns.”

Works Cited
"American Dream." American Dream. Sunfell, 18 Mar. 2001. Web. 06 Mar. 2013. BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2013 "Capitalism 's Effect on Society: Consumerism." Consumerism. N.p., 22 Dec. 2009. Web. 07 Mar. 2013.