American Pie and the Sexual Discourse of Capitalism

            In Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, a western society is depicted in which sexuality has been taken out of the reach of the masses and turned into a sort of pseudo discourse monitored and hung high above the rafters. This shift in the societal sexual identity began in the 17^th century, according to Foucault, with the rise of the bourgeois: “From the 17^th century and the rise of the bourgeois, repression circulated and clouded sex, even at the level of language. Sex was taken charge of, tracked down as it were, by a discourse that aimed to allow it no obscurity, no respite” (1505). Sex was no longer amongst the people, but now another tool in the arsenal of those in power. Foucault writes: “Sex became yet another aspect of life to be ‘policed’ or regulated by the state” (1506). Fast forward these theories to the modern culture of American Pie and one can see this discourse embedded into the mainstream culture of Western youth. The film revolves around a group of high school seniors on the eve of their upcoming prom and graduation. The crew is a blend of girls and guys, jocks and nerds, fully encompassing the spectrum of personalities that permeate the halls of American adolescence. The main theme in the film is sex. But it’s an American sense of sex. The discourse embedded in the larger narrative and the language the characters use are both subsequently the creation of the western bourgeois whom Foucault writes of. This rhetoric imposed by the state and thus impose through popular culture shaped the sexual culture of these societies as the film displays. This American Pie, would be a different kind of pie in India, or China for example. It discusses the sexual identity of American youth in an urban setting with technology as its confidant. The characters face existential confusion and self discovery in a society shaped by the discourse of sexuality and indeed one who profits off of it. 

Work Cited

Leitch, Vincent B. Ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2^nd ed. New York:

     W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. Print.