How do people read or watch it and still believe in the American Dream
I personally hated it because I disliked every character, but in retrospect maybe that was the point
The only people in the play you can't fault is the wife and the neighbors. Everyone else's personality was a component of the American Psyche that Arthur Miller magnified to show how ridiculous and hopeless it was, for a play from the 1940s, it holds up super well.
tangentially related: Les Mis (the stage version) goes extremely hard
I'll watch the play and read the book but I'll never watch the movies.
I read the book in high school and hated it at first, but it's stuck with me ever since. The first time i ever meaningfully questioned the American Dream
If you want to be depressed, you do a double feature of Death of a Salesman and Fences.