ABSTRACT
The wholesomeness that characterized the early films set in suburbia quickly gave way to satire and eventually to darker themes. By the close of the millennium, the suburbs had become such a dominant feature of the American urban scene that films set in suburbia no longer had much of a locational distinction. Perhaps it is because America never seemed to have enjoyed a golden urban age that the suburban dream seemed to offer so much promise. Among the attractions of suburbia has been the accessibility it putatively provides to what has come to be called the American Dream. There was also a wholesomeness associated with suburbia, contrasted with the noise, pollution, crowdedness and unwholesome attractions of the big city. Security in suburbia often expressed itself in terms of a self-defined conformity. The wholesomeness that characterized the early films set in suburbia quickly gave way to satire and eventually to darker themes.
