SXSW Panel Wonders if the American Dream Died?

Is there an American Dream in 2026? If so, what is it? And is it still obtainable as it once was for previous generations that managed to purchase homes and fill those spaces with families surrounded by white picket fences? As we approach the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding, these are the questions experts at South by Southwest’s The American Dream Reconsidered asked the audience on Thursday.

The conversation was led by David McCourt, founder of McCourt Entertainment, who spent the last year traveling across all 50 states with his production team asking thousands of Americans for their interpretation of the modern American Dream, which will be unveiled on PBS July 4 in his documentary titled, AMERIGO.

“Usually, when you make a film, your goal is to tell a story,” McCourt said. “In this case, our goal was to listen to a story. The story of the everyday working American – their dreams, their hopes, their struggles.”

After showcasing the film’s trailer, the panelists began to dig deeper into the analysis of the documentary’s findings. McCourt said that the dwindling dream that citizens of the country once had stems largely from a mental health crisis that has culminated from lost faith in the country’s civic infrastructure, a lack of community, the bleak possibility of ever owning a home, and more. The panelists argued that this issue is setting in at an early age.

Dr. Nicholas Covino, president at William James College, said that most adults judge youth based on performance, yet fail to understand why they are getting negative results in the first place. “The folks in power, the older people [who] feel we’re doing kind of okay, are missing what’s going on with young people,” he said. 

Covino pointed to statistics from 2000, where he said only 8% of youth had diagnosed anxiety and depression, in comparison to between 25-35% just over 20 years later. “Most adults are doing fine, which is a problem because most kids are not.” 

Dr. Nadja Lopez of William James College said that social media plays a large role in shaping children’s mental health, both positively through community building and negatively by crafting an artificial set of measurements that determine societal acceptance.

“Social media platforms are being created to target those ways of gaining approval but by ways that are not very healthy,” she said.

South Florida PBS president and CEO Dolores Fernandez Alonso also mentioned that the nonprofit is one of the most trusted news sources in the country, which raises another growing concern: We are living in a time where misinformation and disinformation are increasing at a rapid pace. “There’s a real hunger right now for information that you can trust, and that’s only gonna grow,” she said.

That is why McCourt chose to release the documentary with PBS, which is largely available to everyone in the country, rather than partnering with a media platform that requires payment in exchange for viewership. “If you’re a janitor, like my grandfather was, and you don’t have an extra $1,000 a year to pay for Netflix and Apple TV or whatever, I don’t think your children or you should be deprived of media, news, and entertainment,” he said.

McCourt and PBS have expanded the project’s scope to allow for more American voices to be heard through a website called america-dreams.com, where they are encouraging individuals to submit videos that give their take on the American Dream and if they believe it is still realistically obtainable.

McCourt said that he started this conversation by asking one question: “Can today’s service workers – teachers, firefighters, the people who pick the food we eat, the people who clean the restaurants we eat in, bus drivers, janitors. Can they afford to live the same dignified life that my grandfather lived?”

“… If that’s not possible, is that the type of country we want to live in? Because, we can fix that problem as a country if we want to. But right now, that’s broken.”

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