It is with these foundational tools that we can now address the cultural artifact par excellence of the 9/11 shift. While any film from 2001- 2004 would likely serve our purposes, I propose that David O. Russell’s 2004 film I Heart Huckabees captures this zeitgeist most clearly as it is the frozen image of an America captured by cinema. Indeed, the film uses the raw materials of contemporary Americana; issues ranging from the “Wal-Martification” of the suburbs, the decrease in public green spaces, to the consumption of petroleum which seemingly lies at the core of American foreign policy. At the heart of this debate lies the film’s centre; a throwdown between the Religious Right’s conception of American market forces (and their relation to modern democracy), and the liberal Left’s desire to preserve ‘open spaces’ regardless of the cost. The explicit debate of the film is portrayed at a dinner table, where environmentalist Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman) defends his position against the expansionist beliefs of suburban engineer Mr. Hooten. Albert’s goal is simply stated: “Albert - I’m talking about not covering every square inch of populated America with strip malls and houses till people can’t remember what happens when you stand in a meadow at dusk” (Russell 53). Mr. Hooten’s philosophy is characterized by his belief in the link between capital and democracy. He asks if countries like Sudan wouldn’t like a little bit of “suburban sprawl” as this would allow the war-torn region to resemble America with its “industry, houses, jobs, medicine, videos, toys, cheeseburgers, cars, computer games,” and thus embolden it with “a functioning economy” (52-53). Thus, Mr. Hooten’s portrayal is a satiric view of the conflation between suburban politics and manifest destiny. Russell deliberately depicts the relationship between the resurgence of the religious Right’s influence on the “average” American’s political views, and exploits an exaggerated vision of this Puritan ethos in both foreign and domestic policies to do so. As a result, everything is equivalent in the Hooten family and the statement of daughter, Kricket (who says that “Jesus is never mad at us if we live with Him in our hearts” [54]) corresponds to Mr. Hooten’s outrageous claim that “God gave us oil!”) (57). It is by analyzing the direct rendering of these points of view that we should address the central issue of the film. This entails locating the presence and origins of the American Religious Right’s view of politics, society and the market (which all stem from the kernel of theological interpretation) and reflecting on how these influence aspects of contemporary American life. Only then can we can perceive the formal operations of I Heart Huckabees, which not only positions the spectator to experience a rapid-fire enumeration of the issues of the day, but also attempts to equip him with a means to navigate through the new features of his era. The deep-structural qualities of the text (and its surface) both embody the extremely confusing time of the film’s conception, and also the subjective existential dilemma facing the contemporary American subject.