For too many people, the American Dream — the idea that, in the U.S., you can start with nothing but achieve anything — isn’t just a fantasy, but a complete hoax. Jennifer Siebel Newsom takes on the disconnect between what America promises to be and what it really is in her new documentary, the aptly named “The Great American Lie.” A trailer for the Vertical Entertainment title has dropped.

“We’re a society of do-it-yourself: ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps,'” middle school principal Ruby De Tie says in the spot. “When you don’t have boots, it’s hard.” Saru Jayaraman puts the country’s economic inequality in starker terms: “We’re nearing a place where half of America is living in poverty,” the economic justice advocate explains.

A huge number of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck, a reality that’s been brought to the surface in the wake of COVID-19. “That’s not really living, that’s just not dying,” a character says of his financial situation.

“The Great American Lie’s” focus is on economic inequality, but the doc also acknowledges the intersectionality of the problem: economic injustice informs, and is informed, by gender, race, class, and disability. “What we have to do as a society is stop being blind to history, stop being blind to systems, understand that your privilege is actually built on my oppression,” journalist Charles M. Blow remarks. Law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw adds, “We create inequalities by what we choose to value and what we choose to ignore.”

Newsom previously directed docs “Miss Representation” and “The Mask You Live In.”She won two Emmys for executive producing “The Invisible War,” a doc investigating rape culture in the military. “The Hunting Ground” and “On the Record” are among Newsom’s other exec producing credits. She is the founder of The Representation Project, a gender equality non-profit.

“The Great American Lie” hits theaters, On Demand, and digital October 2.