Characters’ Absurdity in God Bless America

Abstract

God Bless America is a crime film directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, staring Joel Murray and Tara Lynne Barr. The director Bobcat Goldthwait was once nominated for the People’s Choice Award at the 36th Toronto International Film Festival in 2011, and the overall evaluation of this film by the public in China is also very positive. In the film, a large number of illusory and absurd characters’ monologues are presented. Absurdity has been used as an expression of emotional experience and stage art in many films and television works. This thesis takes the film God Bless America as a case, and makes a profound analysis of the main plots and representative characters in the film, so as to further understand and grasp the absurdity in it.

This article is divided into four parts: The first part tells the definition of absurdity, introduces the origin and manifestations of absurdity, and makes a theoretical basis for the following; The second part analyzes the hero’s violent impulse and the desire for intimacy, as well as the self-reflection after violence, which subtly reflects the absurdity in the film; The third part explores the absurdity of heroine from the following three aspects: her growth environment, her self-esteem lost and the admiration for the hero; The fourth prat expounds the influence of American liberalism and traditional moral values on the absurdity of characters. Finally, the author has a better understanding of absurdity in the film through the analysis above.

Key words：God Bless America; absurdity; American liberalism; Traditional moral values