Boyhood is an American film in 2014。 The director Richard Linklater writes the script of the film。 It takes the director 12 years to finish the film with the same cast。 Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is a groundbreaking story of the growth of a boy who is called Mason。 Linklater and his team would take a few weeks each year to shoot the film from 2002 to 2014, essential filming another chapter in the fictional family’s life。 The film depicts the childhood and adolescence of the character Mason Evans from ages six to eighteen as he grows up in Taxes with his family。 The film also records the lives of the people around and the changes of the main characters in the film。 It can represent living styles and family values of America and make people learn about American family values directly。 This thesis focuses on analyzing the modern American family values from this film and also analyzing the causes of the formation of American family values。

2。 Literature Review

Values are persons’ views or beliefs to their surrounding world。 They are formed in people’s family at the beginning and change rarely with the growth of people。 Values have a great effect on people’s actions, beliefs, dreams and life goals。 Simply, family values are the views of family member to family affairs, such as the views of marriage, the views of education, how to get along with family members and so on。 American family values have been studied by many scholars from home and abroad。 Many theses focus on comparing traditional Chinese family values with American family values。 In the past years, many students like analyzing the differences between Chinese family values and American family values from the famous novel The Joy Luck Club。 For example, Luo Yanli from the Three Gorges University studied different family values in Chinese and American cultures on the basis of The Joy Luck Club。 In her article, Hofstede’s value dimensions are applied to explain the reasons of differences。 Some students prefer to study the differences of family values in America and China from movies。 Yang Lu and Zha Wenjuan from Beijing International Study University studied the differences in the film The Wedding Banquet from the family structure and the status of husband and wife in family。 Zou Yunlai from Tianjin University of Technology writes a thesis about the family values of Breaking Glass by Damae Roberts。 This thesis analyzes the causes to the family clashes from the aspect of family value differences between Chinese and Americans。文献综述

Some people only study American family values。 But the material that he studied is very old-fashioned。 Just like Yin Xing analyzes the values of independence and equality in American family in 1922 from a book called Main-travelled Roads describes the hard life of rural households in the Midwest of America。 The world is changing, so American family values does。 But few scholars concentrate only on American family values in modern society。 Boyhood is a new film and it mainly depicts the growth of the character Mason and his family。 Analyzing American family values in Boyhood can tell us the actual state of American family and American culture and be good for cross-cultural communication。

3。 The Definition of Family Values

Family values incorporate two words: family and values。 Only can we understand the two words, we can make a full sense of family values。

First of all, what is family? Families are the quintessential institution of a nation, providing both biological and social continuity as they simultaneously shape, and are shaped by, the larger society。 Families are also the locus of consumption, savings, and some production activities that are vital to people’s overall economic well being, and they bear special responsibilities for nurturing and educating the nation’s future work force。 According to the United States Bureau of the Census, family is a group of two or more persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption。 However, by this definition, unmarried people, either heterosexual or homosexual, living together and foster families are excluded, and it is disagreeable to many。 American families have changed in many aspects over the past years。 So does the definition of family。 In the past, the family was defined as a group of people who are related to one another by bonds of blood, marriage, or adoption and who live together, form an economic unit, and bear and raise children。 According to this definition, families were created through childbearing, and it was the parent-child relationship that links generation (Wang 153)。 With the development of economic, the family of America has changed a lot and appears many different family models, so the concept of family has changed too。 Now families are defined as relationship in which people live together with commitment, form an economic unit and care for the young, and consider the group critical to their identity。 This kind of definition combines perse living agreements and relationships such as single-parent households, same-sex couples, cohabiting unmarried couples, and a family with several generations。