Under the Red, White, and Blue: Anora and The Great Gatsby

March 4, 2025

Literature

Maggie Lemak

Creative Director & Curator at Bond & Grace

Anora (2024), the five-time Oscar-winning film by Sean Baker, is more than just an excellent blend of genres and non-traditional romance. It boasts striking parallels to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Commonly referred to as the “Great American Novel” and first published 100 years ago in 1925, The Great Gatsby and its themes are ever present in Anora—revealing why the film is so popular but also outlining why it will have cultural staying power in the decades to come.

‍Anora depicts the relationship between a sex worker and the son of a Russian oligarch, highlighting the vast economic disparities present in modern society. Challenging typical depictions of love, wealth, and empowerment, it has been described by some as the antithesis of Pretty Woman (1990) because it does not end in such hopeful romance. But look again, and Anora has much stronger parallels to the framework of our beloved “Great American Novel” far beyond their equally tragic and cynical ends:

Genre-bending Scenes of Power, Wealth, and Partying

One defining similarity of both Anora and Gatsby is the intentional bending of genre that leaves us to question: is this satire, comedy, romance, or tragedy? Both investigate exploitation, lavish parties, and aspirations of achieving the American Dream through the glitter of substance use, wealth, and status. The risqué glamor of drinking liquor during the prohibition era in Gatsby is replaced with the tantalizing, forbidden, yet accessible use of opioids, ketamine, and cocaine in Anora (set in present-day). A lavish party at a mansion in Long Island is swapped for a feverish trip to a penthouse suite in Las Vegas. We both adore and cringe at the characters’ choices as they portray the very real and palpable desire for relief via class ascendency through the beautifully salacious facades of wealth and partying.

Romantic Color Symbolism

‍Quite interestingly, both the film and book use color to symbolize the characters’ innermost dreams. In Anora, Gatsby’s green light has turned red, from the protagonist’s red scarf to the film’s prevalent use of red lighting and pops of color against an often twilit backdrop of New York City. Red has a long history of being tied to sex work (hence the term “red light district,” denoting prostitution)–and the color’s use in Anora is no different—it represents both opportunity and oppression. When her marriage comes to an abrupt end, Anora’s red scarf is poetically thrown back to her had-been mother-in-law once she realizes the “red” was not hers to keep. The Great Gatsby also uses red—among lavender, white, and blue—to represent various aspects of American society and the American Dream. Under the Red, White, and Blue was actually F. Scott Fitzgerald’s preferred final title for his 1925 novel.

Idealized Romance & A Lust For Class Ascendency

‍Scholars have also drawn parallels between both Gatsby and Myrtle’s characters’ desperation for status and class ascendency through their various interpersonal and romantic relationships. Gatsby desires to assimilate into Daisy’s world of wealth and lineage. Poor Myrtle fantasizes about power and control in the Valley of Ashes as she seeks out a similar sense of power in Tom, a man from great generational wealth. Gatsby and Myrtle both ultimately meet tragic ends that cannot be separated from their pursuit of more—reinforcing themes of class, ambition, and the corrupting influence of the American Dream.

Anora is just the same, with the same desire to be somebody. Like Myrtle and Tom, she sees in Ivan the exciting life she desires and feels she deserves. She becomes blind to what Ivan represents and falls in love not with him, but with what he offers: social mobility, a sense of peace, and some control over her destiny. Perhaps her biggest fantasy is an escape to higher power, status, and serenity, but what we learn at the close of both stories is that the very thing these characters desire is not only improbable but painful.

A Cynical Close

Anora and The Great Gatsby are not just stories about the dark glamor and power that comes with money. These are stories that capture how lower and middle-class Americans yearn for, and can so easily be blinded by, the concept of more, be it relationships with people who represent social mobility or the sheer possibility of serenity—if we can only capture what lies on the horizon. The rich will disappear into purchased safety and privacy while the common folk suffer, endlessly looking once again for some promise of brightness.

The general population’s ability to obtain wealth and power is just as out of reach in America today as it was in the 1920s (if not even more so), but with a new “Egg” in the mix: overseas. Trump’s new “gold card” sheds light on this awareness by incentivizing wealthy entities of other countries to bring their money to America in exchange for a path to citizenship.

What feels to be before us, whether a diamond or a guiding light, is but a powder turned to dust in our palms–a beacon of warning. And what is that but the ever-elusive American Dream itself?

Could Anora be the “Great American Film” of our time? What do you think?