The movie Us (Jordan Peele, 2019) is based on society having two separate lives just beneath them.

You have the “normal” people living their happy free lives unaware of who is “tethered” to them down below. Those who are “tethered” to these individuals above are being controlled by those above but in a miserable way. Living in underground tunnels with no sunlight and feeding on rabbits, essentially having no agency.

This reminds me of how you have wealthy people who are essentially “above” others, being completely unaware of the sufferable lives’ others are living.

In the movie, the tethered have a leader. She is the only one that has the ability to speak and freely think because she was actually part of the real word until her “tethered” switched places with her at a young age.

She had a dream to free not only herself but everyone. She dreamt of life outside of their world where they could be happy and unattached from their “tethered” to be their own person. I say that this resembles the idea of Freedom in the American Dream. Such as analyzed in the reading of “American Values and Organized Crime: Suckers and Wiseguys” by Peter A. Lupsha as he identifies individualism as an American value.

The movie symbolizes a lot of aspects of the American Dream in many ways. The idea of the movie that two people live doing the same things just in different circumstances shows that where we are born and under what circumstances has an influence on the quality of our opportunities.

If these tethered were born in normal circumstances, as their doppelgänger above they could have lived equal lives or even better.

The main character Adelaide who was switched with her underground tethered saw her life get lived for her and she saw what her life could have been if it weren’t taken from her by her tethered, which influenced her leading a strike to let these tethered take control over their lives.

The idea that we are essentially not equal is shown throughout the movie. Just as in real life there is constant battle between two groups because one thinks it is superior to the other such as the rich vs. poor. This is where we see the shift of the American Dream become more individual and dream of going from rags-to-riches.

Our opportunities are what determine how big or small our dreams are. Our circumstances are something that will challenge or help our dreams; however, we have less control over our circumstances as demonstrated in the movie Us (Jordan Peele, 2019).