1. Kirk Rose
Comm 145I
Materialism in Society
Abstract: In the 21st century we see these musicians, actors, and sports figures with all kinds of
nice things. As kids we all grow up wanting to get good jobs so we can have big houses, nice
cars, and be able to go on luxurious vacations. Well this is something that is wrong with our
society. Finding out what influences these behaviors is something we need to study and find out.
Looking at films such as Bruce Almighty, Click, Forrest Gump, and Family Man we can get a
better understanding of what causes us to grow up thinking this way. These films have a sense of
materialism engraved in them and this leads to kids and adults feeling like the only way to be
happy are to have the nicest things money can buy. Is this really the case or are we reading too
much into these movies.
Introduction
Growing up in today’s society we are obsessed with having all kinds of nice new things. I
remember a time when I was a little boy and the first PlayStation came out. I just had to have it
no matter how much it cost. I told my parents that I would do as many chores or whatever they
wanted to have it. I can not quite remember how much it cost at the time but to a young kid like I
was, it seemed like a million dollars. Having the nicest stuff and wanting as much as we can is
something that is engraved in our society. We see all these rich celebrities with five cars and
three mansions with another three vacation homes. Who really needs all this stuff, is having all
this stuff really beneficial to our everyday lives? In this researcher project I am going to look at
how films like Bruce Almighty, Click, Forrest Gump, and Family Man show how our society in
American is obsessed with materialism.

2. Bruce Almighty
In the film Bruce Almighty there was the ideology of materialism and how everyone
wants more. One scene that made this completely obvious was after Bruce had gotten Gods
powers. Once God gave Bruce his powers he told Bruce to use them wisely and to help others
with them. Well after Bruce used his powers to get his job back like I explained earlier he went
around doing things that he felt would improve his own life. So he did things like turn his car
into a nicer more expensive car. He went out and got a new wardrobe and started getting things
that he didn’t really need, but now that he had the power he wanted as much as he could get his
hands on. Another scene that showed this sense of materialism is when Bruce’s girlfriend broke
up with him and he was trying to get her back. He was buying her flowers and trying to be Mr.
Romantic with her, but what he didn’t realize is that she could see he had become materialistic,
and she just wanted him to be the same person she met and fell in love with. Bruce thought that
he could use the powers God gave him to influence his girlfriend into loving him again by
buying her things and being materialistic. He found out that that doesn’t work in the real world
you can’t just buy things for people to get them to like you. The last scene that I felt show some
sense of materialism was after Bruce got the anchor job the company through a big party for him.
During the party Bruce was calling his girlfriend to come down and join the party but she wasn’t
answering so he left a message. After he had hung up one of the other girls that worked at the
news station started to flirt with him. Things got heated and she told Bruce that she liked him and
then went in and started to kiss him. I felt this showed some kind of materialism because before
Bruce had the powers and all these things she never showed really any interest in him. Now that
he has all these new things and the high anchor position she decided that she was attracted to
him. This to me showed that she was materialistic because she wants Bruce now that he has all

3. this stuff. While the movie Bruce Almighty was not centered on materialism there are many
instances where it can be found throughout the movie. Bruce Almighty isn’t the only American
film that displays some form of materialism.
Click
In the next film I watched, Click, I saw some of the same things. It starts out with Adam
Sandler living a normal life with his family. At his job he is really looking forward to a raise and
then going on a vacation with his family that they never seem to go on. He goes to a store to find
a new remote for the T.V. and this guy tries to sell him a universal remote. With this remote you
can fast forward through anything in your life you want. I found this to be materialistic because
he planned on using this remote to fast forward though every bad thing that happens in his life. It
ends up that he gets a big promotion and gets all this nice stuff like a big office, new house and
cars, but it costs him his family. The ideology of materialism focuses on having the best stuff and
as much as you want. It does not guard you for being obsessed with that stuff and losing
everything you had before. So now Adam starts to think that this remote, while it helped him
achieve all this nice cool stuff, was costing him his family. His wife and he eventually got a
divorce and she married someone else. He starts to realize that having a nice job and more
money is meaningless if you don’t have the love of your family around you. He starts to develop
health problems from all the stress of being the head guy at his company. Towards the end he has
a heart attack and is in the hospital. This is when I feel he figured out that having all this nice
stuff was pointless if he had no one to share it with, and that it cost him the family he once had
and adored. From this movie I found that materialism while on the surface might seem like
something cool it can also turn a lot of people away from you.

4. Forrest Gump
The next film I found materialism in was Forrest Gump. While watching the film I
started to think that this movie pretty much shows the opposite of materialism, but shows how
materialism is not always such a great thing. In the film Forrest is a young man who grows up in
the southern United States. He didn’t have all the nicest things growing up and often got picked
on in school because he was mentally handicapped. Forrest eventually joined the Army and met
his best friend Bubba. Together they joined to form the Bubba Gump shrimp company.
Throughout all this Forrest was in love with his friend Jenny but never could tell her how he felt.
He had to witness her grow up and hang out with the wrong group of people where she was
getting into drugs and having sex with random guys. But none of this upset Forrest and he never
had the sense of needing a lot of things to cope with the pain he felt from seeing what Jenny was
doing. From watching Forrest Gump I got the sense that to him all that really mattered was living
life to the fullest and seeing Jenny be happy. Later on in the film he goes to visit her and finds
out that she had his kid but never told him. When he meets his kid for the first time he falls in
love and it seems like he’s the happiest guy on earth because he now has his girl and a family.
While this film did not fit in with the theme of materialism, I feel it did show that you can still be
happy without being materialistic. You can still live life to the fullest and be happy even if you
don’t make a lot of money. Forrest was happy throughout the movie just being himself and doing
the things that made him feel good.
Family Man
The final film I viewed with some materialistic views was Family Man with Nicolas
Cage. In this film the main character Jack is a wealthy business man who has never had a desire
to have a family and is only concerned with his money and his possessions. This is a clear

5. example of materialism. People who solely live for having as much of something as they can
(like money) sometimes don’t have the life they truly want. Jack meets a guy who claims to have
a winning lotto ticket but the store clerk doesn’t believe him. So Jack says he’ll buy it from him
to avoid any further actions by the guy with the ticket. After this happens Jack is sent to another
time period where he decided to not pursue his goal of becoming an investment banker. He then
has a life with a girl named Kate. In the real world they are both successful and single but in this
new time they are together with low end jobs. So Jack struggles with the life of family man
because all he knew before was being a rich successful single man. He was not used to doing
things with the kids and having to go to a job where he actually had to do real work, instead of
being behind a desk. When he goes back to his old life he realizes that this life of luxury might
not be what he wanted after all. So the materialistic issue I found here was that while Jack has all
these nice things and is rich, that not always the best way to live your life. Jack found out what
was going to make him happy was to have a family. Just because your wealthy and can do
anything without money holding you back, does not necessarily mean you are going to be happy.
Character Traits
When it comes to the characteristics of the characters in these films I feel there are some
similarities and some differences within them. One trait they all share is the desire to be happy
and live a fulfilling life. They all have their own way of achieving this goal. Like in Bruce
Almighty he wants to gain a job promotion in order to have new and nicer things for him and his
girlfriend. Adam also wants to gain a higher paying job in order to do all the things he promised
his family they can do. I felt with Jack he already had a high paying job and he was totally
content with his life until he went to that parallel universe and realized he really wants to have a
family. Then there is Forrest who just seems to be happy with what ever gets thrown his way.

6. He’s out there just living his life, without all these nice and fancy things and he seems totally
content with the way things are going. Some differences I saw in their materialistic ways first
with Forrest. While they all want to live happier lives I felt Forrest was the only one who didn’t
care about money or material goods. He just went about his everyday life trying to make the best
of every situation he found himself in. When Forrest was fighting in the war during the movie
and Lieutenant Dan found himself with no legs and no way to escape, Forrest found it in him to
save Lieutenant Dan. Forrest knew he could also lose his life saving his friend but that did not
matter to him. He wanted to make sure that his friend was going to survive. Later on Lieutenant
Dan gets mad with Forrest and tells him he should have just let him die because now he won’t be
able to get a job that pays him good enough to have nice things. This shows Lieutenant Dan was
even more materialistic than Forrest since he’d rather be dead than be alive and not able to have
nice things. As for the other three they had some differences in the way they went about solving
their problems. Where Forrest was looking out for other people they were only looking out for
themselves. In Click Adam did not want to go through anything that involved arguing or
anything he did not find as fun. So he used his universal remote to fast forward though
everything he did not want to live through. Well there was a catch with the remote, it figured out
all the things he was fast forwarding and would just automatically fast forward through it. It got
to the point where the remote was fast forwarding through years of his life. I found this to be
materialistic because people who are obsessed with having all kinds of things are only worried
about themselves and what they have. This can lead you to losing friends and family for the way
you act.

7. Reflection on Society
The final thing I’m going to talk about is how the reflection of our materialistic society is
engraved in these films. For three of the films I watched they were all created after the year 2000
so I’m going to focus on these three films in this section. First with Bruce Almighty, during the
film Bruce has and average job and lives in a town house. But his desire for more is what pushes
him to the breaking point. He blames God for all his misfortunes in life. To average people his
problems would not seem so bad, but his need for nicer and better things makes him think that
way. Once God give Bruce his powers he tells him to make sure he helps other people with his
new powers. Well the first thing Bruce does is find a way to get back at Evan, the guy who got
the promotion he wanted. He goes out and gets himself all these new things. This shows that the
materialistic views of Bruce lead him to being self-centered and only doing things for him. The
next film is Click; Adam Sandler’s character is focused on making his life better. He goes to the
store to buy a new remote for the T.V. but when he finds this universal remote he wants to know
more. The guy says with this remote you can fast forward, pause or doing anything to real time
that you want. Adam thinks this would be a good way to get the things he’s always wanted. His
self-centered, materialistic ways lead him to over using the remote and ends up ruining the life
he had already built. The final film I analyzed was Family Man. The materialistic ways of Jack
have always kept him from having a family. He has always been obsessed with making as much
money as he could and having the nicest things. When he gets thrown into this parallel universe
is does not know how to act. He has a low end job and a family something he has never had. At
first when he tries to be a dad he finds it hard and does not really know what to do. I feel it is
because he has always prided himself on his job and his money that having a family never

8. seemed important to him. Looking at these three films and the materialism engraved within them
shows me now why our society is so obsessed with having a lot of nice and expensive things.
Academic Articles
Now that I have shared with you my analysis of my four films I would like to share with
you some scholarly articles written on my topic of materialism. The first article I found talked
about how the high materialism personalities had negative characteristics. As stated by Reeves
(2012) “higher levels, of materialism and compulsive buying tendencies are assumed to reflect
empty self-characteristics” (pg. 675). Here they are trying to say that even though you go out and
buy nice things does not always mean you are going to be a happier person. By empty self-
characteristics I feel like they were talking about how even though you have all these things how
is this making you a better person, or how some people have all this money but they are still sad
and depressed. In their research they found that there was a relation between high levels of
materialism and celebrity worship. This means that people look up to all these celebrities who
have cars and houses, so they think to be like them they have to go out and buy new stuff all the
time. This is not the right way to live your life. Like I showed in my own analysis the characters
who had these materialistic didn’t end up being very happy in the end. The next article I read
talked about how materialistic women have a sense of body surveillance. This means that the
women who were more materialistic felt like they need to pay more attention to what their body
looks like. In the study they found a correlation between high levels of materialism and body
surveillance. They said that the media and want to look like celebrities led to more body
dissatisfaction. While doing my research I found I saw a sense of the characters wanting to be
accepted by others. I felt like this was the reason they wanted to buy all these things. Felix says
(2012) “These extrinsic goals are based on obtaining external approval and rewards, as opposed

9. to intrinsic goals such as self-acceptance and community feeling”(pg. 981). I felt like this shows
what I mean by want acceptance. The reason most people want to buy new and expensive things
is to gain acceptance of a higher class group. Mainly celebrities are what people are always
trying to be like.
I read another article on materialism and how it causes people to go into debit. In this
study they found informants would spend mass amount of money on things to improve their self-
image. The people felt like spending all this money on things would make them feel better about
themselves. They said whether the transformation was a short term or long term thing, the
common theme in response was improving self-image was meaningful and important. I felt there
was this same common theme in the films I reviewed. Like in Bruce Almighty, Bruce went out
and bought all these new things and started to feel better about himself. Richins (2011) quotes
Wickham saying “people often buy things in hopes of transforming their lives” (pg. 141). Here
she is saying what I found in my analysis. The characters in the films went out to buy things in
order to improve their lives. A good example of this was in Click when Adam Sandler buys the
universal remote in hope that it will improve his life. The final article I read they wanted to study
the relationship between materialism and individual values. They found no new information
from studies done in the past. They found that there was no correlation between in-come and
materialism. I found this to be interesting because I feel for a person to be materialistic they have
to have a somewhat high in-come. Without a decent in-come you would only put yourself into
debit and you wouldn’t be able to come out of it. One common theme I found in all four articles
was summed up by Kilbourne (2010) when he said “measures of life satisfaction are negatively
related to materialism” (pg. 783). I found that they all talked about how this sense of buying a lot
of things would lead to happiness is false. You can’t just make your life better by buying things.

10. If I was to keep researching on this topic I would try to find ways to help people from having this
sense of materialism. I feel materialism is more of a disease then something people can control.
It’s kind of like alcoholism, where if you can’t admit you have a problem then there might be a
way to help fix it. So if I had to suggest where to go next in this study it would be to find out if
there are ways to battle materialism and help people who feel they need things to feel good about
themselves.
I have provided you with analysis of four films as well as shared some scholarly articles
written on the same topic. This leads me back to that day I wanted to buy the new PlayStation. I
wanted it so bad so I could brag to all my friends that I had the newest, coolest gaming system on
the market. Looking back on that now I guess I was kind of materialistic. I didn’t want the
PlayStation because I loved to play videogames; I wanted to feel better about myself in that I had
something none of my friends had. Now I look at all these celebrities and their houses and cars
thinking why do you need all that stuff? Does that really make you feel better about yourself, and
then again I’m remind of my own experience and realize that having stuff does crazy things to
people and how they perceive themselves. Materialism is something deeply entrenched in our
society and it has cost many people the quality of life we all strive for, because they had to buy
all these expensive things. Take it from the three examples I provided you of what materialism
can do to you and try to live life without the need of all the expensive things around us.

11. References
Felix, R., & Garza, M. R. (2012). Rethinking worldly possessions: The relationship between
materialism and body appearance for female consumers in an emerging economy.
Psychology & Marketing, 29(12), 980-994. doi:10.1002/mar.20579
Kilbourne, W. E., & LaForge, M. C. (2010). Materialism and its relationship to individual
values. Psychology & Marketing, 27(8), 780-798.
Reeves, R. A., Baker, G. A., & Truluek, C. S. (2012). Celebrity worship, materialism,
compulsive buying, and the empty self. Psychology & Marketing, 29(9), 674-679.
doi:10.1002/mar.20553
Richins, M. (2011). Materialism, transformation expectations, and spending: Implications for
credit use. Journal Of Public Policy & Marketing, 30(2), 141-156.
doi:10.1509/jppm.30.2.141