The Sexual Aspect Of American Beauty

American Beauty, a film that was written by Allan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes in 1999 is a unique piece that demonstrates many sociological themes throughout the development of the plot. The characters strive to portray themselves as the All American Family. They live in a nice house, drive nice cars and seem perfectly normal to the general public, but the audience is allowed to view the deep set issues that plague the main characters; Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), Carolyn Burnham (Annette Bening), Jane Burnham (Thora Birch), and Jane's best friend Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari). As the plot develops there are many obvious parallels relating the lives of the characters to Merton's Strain

American Beauty is one of many movies with characters who act a different way in their private, rather than in public selves. Furthermore, appearance versus reality sinks in when they are alone and no one is around to see. Carolyn and Lester, a wife and husband whose life seems almost like a perfect one. A nice house living in the suburbs, fancy furniture and two jobs is what a family asks for to be able to be happy and comfortable. On the contrary, Carolyn sees the value of all nonliving things as her possession, almost like she’s obsessed for that to be successful in life and at the beginning of the movie she shows us her weakness. Also, flirting with other men rather than keeping her husband Lester happy in their private life. A good example is while Carolyn and Lester are

American Beauty at first glance may seem to be a snuff film or even a movie that simply dwells on sexual desire but, it is actually a commentary on the monotony of life and the will and means to break out of said monotony. It can also be a tale of the dangers of desires and the downfall that obsessive natures can lead to. This is true for the main character’s wife, Carolyn Burnham, who appears to have both Borderline Personality Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. While the movie is mainly focused on Lester Burnham and his eventual desire to break free from his conformities, there is a focus on how Carolyn focuses mainly on her work, conformity, and order to the point where she puts her family life on the back burner. These

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

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

The portrayal of an American family as shown in the movie, American Beauty, is one of dysfunction. In fact, the homosexual couple is the only family that seem to display somewhat "normal" behavior. As a non-traditional family, the homosexual couple appear connected, loving, and very happy. Most importantly, they demonstrate great respect for each other, something the heterosexual families do not. This non-traditional family is seen in small doses throughout the movie. However, the families that are prominently displayed for the majority of the movie are The Burnhams and The Fitts; the so-called "normal" family unit. What is striking about this display of "normalcy"

American Beauty is widely described as a drama because it is a narrative that identifies relatable emotional struggles that persist in suburban life, yet American Beauty portrays so many other elements that could lead viewers to categorize the film into different subgenres based on intertwining conflicts and scenarios throughout the movie. Because of the untimely death of multiple major characters, the film could be deemed a tragedy; Jane and Ricky’s relationship displays elements that are common in romance films; Lester’s grim, yet humorously depressive perception of his life is typical of dark comedies; and the use irony, ridicule, and dry humor creates a satire of the American

American Beauty is a film about dysfunctional suburbia. Which is why it is not very surprising when the movie reveals how utterly toxic familial relationships can be, as seen with Ricky and Colonel Frank Fitts. Ricky's home-life is a nightmare: an emotionally absent mother and a controlling, abusive father. There is a

“American Beauty”, the 1999 film, is a motion picture that more or less shows a different side of the average suburban family. Although all of the characters have significant issues, I have chosen to take a closer look at Lester Burnham. Lester Burnham is a 42-year-old businessman who is married to the career-obsessed Carolyn and they have one daughter, a teenager named Jane. One of the first scenes of the movie explains how the family works: Carolyn is driving, just like she “drives” the family, Jane is sitting right next to her in the front seat, and Lester is slouched in the backseat, visually becoming more miserable by the second.

The dominant masculinity in western culture is associated with heterosexuality, a unit of a man and woman from opposite axis of masculinity and femininity. For Annie Proulx, “Brokeback Mountain” complicates the gendered duality, portraying two men acting on their homoerotic desires, but also depicts them as hetero-social. Proulx blurs the boundaries of gender and sexuality by representing her main protagonists, Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, as bisexuals. The characters are able to slip in and out of a heterosexual life with their wives, which are portrayed as socially acceptable, but also struggle with their sexual desires for each other, which are always hidden from the public. As her characters demonstrate, gender and sexuality is not stable, nor is it “black and white,” “heterosexual and homosexual.” Bisexuality represents a middle ground and destabilizes the dichotomy. As the discussion of main characters, landscape, and minor male characters demonstrates, “Brokeback Mountain” focuses on the dangers of hyper-masculinity in dominant culture and how homosexuality and bisexuality is portrayed as inferior to heterosexual norms.

The world is growing and evolving every day, and like the world they live in, children are doing the same. This statement is not meant to be positive. In today’s world, girls especially, are beginning to experience mentally associated health issues at younger ages. Main ones being shown are eating disorders, low self-esteem, and depression. Girls are facing these problems in not only America. Insecurities and its effects on the minds of young girls is happening all over the globe. It has reached places such as Australia, Korea, and Great Britain. The increase in its occurrence is often blamed on the media. Media in this paper will be defined as “the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet, that

“Your total comes to $7 billion.” This is the amount of money americans spend each year on cosmetics, they are willing to pay anything to look and feel beautiful. Most people do not even think twice before buying a product or service that will benefit their beauty. Americans are obsessed with beauty, it starts at childhood, then adulthood, and continues until the day they die.

The Scene shows the conversation between Lester (employee) and Brad (manager of the company). Towards the start of the scene, Lester is frustrated with his life. His wife is so worldly and they hardly determine each other, and his young offspring cannot determine both of them. He is working as a writer in the media magazine, he is caught for a difficult and futile occupation.

The film American Beauty centers around the stereotypical suburban family—i.e., the father with the office job, the mother with the minivan, and the teenage daughter who is discontent with her life. However, this merely a façade, because there are more issues in this family than just these baseline descriptions of them. To begin, the patriarch of the family, Lester Burnham, is facing a midlife crisis, which is characterized by symptoms such as “Feeling restless and wanting to do something completely different…confusion about who you are or where your life is going, daydreaming, irritability, unexpected anger…sexual affairs, especially with someone much younger, [and] greatly decreased or increased ambition”. (Psychology Today, 2015) Lester displays all of these symptoms at some point in the movie. First, he wants to do something different and also has decreased ambition when it comes to his career. He suddenly quits his job as a magazine editor and advertising executive, then blackmails his boss for $60,000 dollars. Then, he takes a job as a fry cook so that he can have as little responsibility as possible. This shows him wanting to hold on to his youth because of the discontent that he has with his life. All of this is along with the fact that he sold his reliable car and traded it in for a 1970 Pontiac Firebird, which was a car that he admired in his youth. He also begins to work out to impress Angela, his teenage daughter’s friend, who is the object of his sexual

images as constructions that we created around ourselves as a means of hiding our true selves. Mendes is able to implicate us in the construction and make us active viewers by exploiting our voyeuristic nature. In American Beauty Mendes uses the voyeuristic tendencies of the spectator to acknowledge the permeating constructed images. Mendes, through the use of narration, the mise en scene and cinematic techniques implicates the spectator in to using their voyeuristic tendencies to deconstruct