ABSTRACT
As a comparative example, this chapter looks at a cultural complex almost diametrically opposed to Australia’s lost child fixation. The North American fascination with ‘victory’, or the ‘winning’ obsession as it has been hyped through the Trump presidency, is argued to be built upon the problematic ideology of the American dream. While dream thinking carries with it the opportunity, or right, to achieve a sense of personal destiny, it is also worryingly flawed in its inability to enfold loss and defeat: the certainties of capitalism. Mainstream US cinema overwhelmingly factors the ‘dream’ into its narratives, with comparatively few offerings that challenge this entitlement to, and acquisition of, the life one desires. Like the lost child complex, the victory complex is triggered through trauma, unsettled colonial beginnings and outward/cultural projections that celebrate ‘winning’. The Trump presidency however, plays out the victory ideal largely on the level of the shadow, demonstrating that when the rhetoric of the American dream is exploited to feed a desire for triumph, the complex can take a pathological turn.
