American Beauty And Its Effects On American Society

Many individuals have the power to alter their perception, but many people have disorders to comfort and confront their psychological perspectives. In the film, Silver Linings Playbook, directed by David O. Russell explains how psychological disorders are maintained within Pat and Tiffany, and explaining their theoretical personalities to three sub categories: psychodynamic, biological and trait, and sociocultural. The psychodynamic perspective looks at the topographical and structural model created by Freud. In continuation, the biological perspective is based on the genetic traits, and the Big 5 personality traits. Finally, I'll discuss the sociocultural perspective which a based on the environment factors in one's life. All of these perspectives

During the course of the film, Lester Burnham goes through a large change. When we first meet Lester he is living his life as a ritualist. He goes to work every day because that is what he is supposed to do, but he puts in little to no effort and he has little regard for the completion of his goals. He has no motivation. His marriage is failing and he has an empty relationship with his daughter. Lester says "both my wife and daughter think I'm this gigantic loser, and they're right, I have lost something. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I know I didn't always feel this…sedated. But you know what; it's never too late to get it back" (American Beauty). From this statement we can see that there is going to be a change in Lester over the course of the movie.

This essay, The Myth of the Model American Family, is a discussion of the concept of an ideal family in the different perspective specifically social, cultural and economic. This is also an attempt to identify the structural changes in relation to the global development and the international economic crisis that immensely created impact on their lives. However, the discussion will limit itself on the different identifiable and observable transformations as manifested in the lifestyles, interrelationships and views of family members and will not seek to provide an assessment of their psycho-social and individual perceptions.

The area of greatest disagreement was the area of midlife crisis. “Levinson (1978) views midlife as a crisis, arguing that the middle-aged adult is suspended between the past and the future, trying to cope with this gap that threatens life’s continuity (Santrock, 2013 p. 512). This is particularly interesting because the female responded that she was experiencing a midlife crisis and the male did not. However, in this instance, the female is still in the workforce and the male is retired. The experiences that the female related closely resemble the conditions of the male during the time of Levinson’s study. In addition to still working, the female had recently changed her place of employment, and within the past five years lost both of her parents. While the male was retired and took care of the house and children, his stress level had been reduced as he became the primary care giver to this in-laws and their passing reduced his overall daily responsibilities. Both maintain close relationships with their siblings and frequently get together with them.

When I was told to choose a movie to perform a psychoanalysis on a character. I did not know what movie to choose. After watching the two hour long film on the multiple characters that seemed to be struggling to find their inner happiness: American Beauty. I knew that I should not look any further. One character that especially stood out was, Lester Burnham. A forty-two year old father with a mid-life crisis. In the film, American Beauty Lester Burnham is portrayed as an ordinary man, with a perfect life, but of course that is far from the truth. From the outside, Lester seems to have a perfect salary, and a perfect family who lives in a perfect neighborhood. In reality, things are not

“Hey Brianna, meet me at 12:00 a.m. in the cafeteria so we can discuss what happened in class today.

Families needed a role model and family sitcoms portrayed that myth so well that they gave families “little reassurance that they were headed in the right direction (38). This myth promoted values that every family should have and people strive to achieve those values, to transform their “abnormal” families into a harmonious one. When Americans would watch these shows, they would follow these traits and try to implement them into their own families. By living in this myth of the American family, creating a more secure home, and preparing for the future, the government rewarded people (42). The government also promoted the family values and secured the family union. Families were closer together and the goal of creating a perfect family was what created a bond between them. The myth of the perfect family formed other families and taught them the fundamentals of a family’s

There are tens of thousands of “how-to” books, but “The Ugly American” is unique in that it’s actually a “how-not-to” book. Published in 1958, the action takes place in the early 1950s at the height of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. Set primarily in the fictional Asian country of Sarkhan, the struggle between Russian Communists and American Foreign Service personnel plays out battle by battle through examples of military and political events riddled with “Ugly American” social faux pas.

In psychology personalities are developed through several theorist, but from these personalities can become skewed, causing a psychological disorder on a person's personality. These personality disorders can commonly be seen in about 31 million Americans, which densely equals out to 15% of our population population (Davis, n.d.). Psychological disorders are seen as behavior patterns or mental processes that creates a difficulty for oneself or a hinder on an individual's strength to endure certain situations that take place in life everyday. Disorders are primarily discovered through psychological testing, however, it is possible to identify them through watching psychological films or thrillers. In this case, the character Joan Crawford will be analyzed for her dominant personality disorders in the movie Mommie Dearest. While watching the movie Mommie Dearest the audience can easily recognize obsessive cleaning rituals, a fantasy over one’s own success, and dramatic changes of moods that swing up and down. The main character, Joan Crawford, displays dominant characteristics of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, bipolar disorder, and a narcissistic personality disorder. As an audience we see that these disorders become very upsetting to those that are close to her, affecting her relationships with everyone and everything, specifically with her daughter Christina.

Times have changed; the nuclear family is no longer the American ideal because family needs have changed since the 1950's. This American convention of a mother and father and their two children, were a template of films and early television as a depiction of the American family life. Now seen as archaic and cliché by today’s standards, but the idea is common throughout many of the first world nations in the world. This ideal was a vast departure from the past agrarian and pre industrial families, and was modeled and structured as the ‘American dream’ father working, mother maintaining the household and children molded to be simulacra of the parents. This portrayal was not the standard; many communities throughout America had a different

American Beauty is a movie that sets in suburban America. The story is about Lester, whom is a middle-aged writer working in a magazine company. He was having a midlife crisis where he felt lonely and numbed by continuous unchanging routine of his everyday life. In the movie, his wife portrayed as a successful real estate agent, but she was also going through her own midlife crisis in both her career and personal life. Lester’s daughter, Jane Bumham had alienated her parents and was going through puberty. They have a new neighbor who is a U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Frank Fitts, and he has a son, Ricky Fitts, who is a drug dealer. Lester was going to get fired from his company that he had worked for fourteen

Behavioral symptoms, which Lester established, incorporate: withdrawal, decrease in work performance, reckless behavior, acting out, and relationship problems (PsychNet-UK). These are a characteristic of those witnessed in adolescents diagnosed with adjustment disorder, although we see Lester identify with adolescents so much through his thoughts and actions that it seems appropriate. The specification “disturbance of conduct” refers to the violation of societal norms which for Lester includes nearly every act he took in reaction to his stress: lusting after the underage Angela and later nearly having sex with her, buying drugs, and blackmailing his company. Since a time frame within which the story takes place is not specified-except for Lester mentioning in the introduction that he will die in less than a year-the ability to diagnose his disorder as acute or chronic is rather dubious. Acute adjustment disorder lasts less than six months while chronic adjustment disorder may last six months or longer (PsychNet-UK, n.d.). It would be tempting to say Lester had a midlife crisis and leave him undiagnosed. For two reasons this is incorrect. First, the notion of a midlife crisis as its own mental

“I have lost something...It’s never too late to get it back,” stated Lester Burnham, the main character of American Beauty. American Beauty is a 1999 film that provides a look into the lives of a modern married couple that is dealing with issues within their relationship. As the story progresses, it is easily identifiable that the roles of the husband and wife are not what the viewers would expect. On the other hand, the homosexual couple presented throughout the movie seems to be the normal pair. Furthermore, society’s definition of beauty and contentment is questioned. Throughout American Beauty, the homosexual couple has a healthier relationship than the heterosexual couple and beauty is falsely represented.

In the very beginning of the movie one of the main characters Lester is giving a brief introduction to his life. He states how he feels dead inside and that basically he’s unhappy with his life. Throughout the film Lester, Jane and

Burnham, “are you trying to look unattractive” or to her husband at a real estate gala “there’s a