Carolyn's Masculinity In American Beauty

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 narrator's two buddies don't have many distinguishing characteristics - both are cynical, and both seem more interested in self-preservation than in compassion or altruism, which means that on some level both are projections/externalizations of those characteristics in the narrator. At the end of the story Richard seems to be the more reckless of the two friends, the more edgy, and a quality that has echoes in the narrator's apparent willingness to indulge in the violence. , and as the story goes on Denis Johnson takes us into a whole anther world, a healing processes were our narrator goes into recovery, and he works part-time at the phoenix home for the old and the hopeless—some so deformed they made god look liked a senseless manic person, while in a ("Beverly Home," ).The narrator portrays himself as sexually involved with not one but two women, both of whom have some kind of physical disability that, on some level, echoes and mirrors his own emotional and spiritual disability. In other words, they are cripples together, finding mutual support, renewal and healing as they see past the disabilities and into need and vulnerability. The irony, of course, that in the case of the first woman in particular, the narrator's openness to build a broader relationship on that new kind of seeing is both restricted and restricting - in other words, he wants sex, not

He starts having sexual fantasies about Angela, during which red rose petals are a recurring motif. Carolyn begins an affair with a business rival, Buddy Kane. When Lester's boss and efficiency expert Brad tells him that he is to be laid off, Lester instead blackmails him for $60,000 and quits his job. Lester continues his liberation by taking employment serving fast food, trading in his Toyota Camry for his dream car, a 1970 Pontiac Firebird, and starts working out after he overhears Angela tell Jane that she would find him sexually attractive if he improved his physique. He begins smoking marijuana supplied by Ricky, and flirts with Angela whenever she visits Jane.

The two movies of the week, It’s a Wonderful Life by Frank Capra and American Beauty by Sam Mendes are a perfect portrayal of the American values in a positive and a negative way as I will explain in my discussion. Both movies got the idea of the Horatio alger myth, which is the American dream that everybody by hard work and determination can be successful and make it to the top to money and fame. Success in both movies is portrayed differently for example in It’s a Wonderful Life success was not the money and fame and the typical hollywood portrayal of success, but family and homeland, which are related to the german idea of heimat, which is the value of home. However in American beauty the typical American success was portrayed, which

In the story, the sisters become addicted to watching the annual ‘Miss America Pageant’, and fall into the sense that the image of those women on television is that of a perfect woman in America. Throughout their lifetime, it becomes a tradition in the family to watch the show every year, an each year, the girls admire those with made-up faces and perfect hair. While in school, the three girls face discrimination and uncomfortableness in class, because they had moved from the Dominican Republic and do not look like everyone else in America at the time. The girls felt like they didn’t belong, and finally started changing their looks to “mold them into Made-in-the-U.S.A. beauty”

The movies I will discuss and analyze in this essay are Stagecoach (1939), The Searchers (1956) by the director John Ford, and a post-modern version of a Western, Django Unchained (2012) by Quentin Tarantino. The protagonist in both movies by John Ford are John Wayne, Jane Tompkins says: " John Wayne, the actor whose name is synonymous with Western films, became the symbol of American masculinity from World War II to Vietnam" (5). What does this "American masculinity" stand for? This term actually appears to be an underlying factor of Western heroism in the American society. Heroes in Western movies have many common characteristics.

The opening scene of American Beauty shows a teenage girl lying in a bed, venting her feelings towards her father. In this, the audience sees her in dull clothing and colours, minimal make-up and has greasy-looking hair. As she sits up, her hair falls around her face and she stares directly into the camera, giving a sense of unease to the audience.

Young men, specifically boys are pressured to follow a standard that has been set. It takes a toll on many as it is what defines their masculinity. In other words, it is what makes them a man. This poses the question: What makes a man? Although many young boys have followed the trend of what it is to be a man, the reality is that it is barbaric and mindless.

There is a masculinity crisis in America that has been escalating, since society has gravitated to the auspice of anti-marriage and single parenthood. The nuclear family is the root of a successful society. In a traditional nuclear family, family structure plays a vital role in the healthy developmental stages from birth through adolescence; otherwise, the child cannot adjust due to lack of social conventions. There are numerous factors that contribute to the threat of masculinity in our society; namely, families headed by single mothers, the media metrosexualizing males, and absence of God.

Although happiness is a more evident theme in American Beauty, the idea of liberty is substantial; specifically, because free will is difficult to find, not to mention, exceedingly rare. One of the uniting personality traits in the movie is that so many of the characters appear trapped: trapped by their fears, their existences, and their occupations. Several characters such as Colonel Fitts and his wife, Barbara Fitts conclude the film just as entombed as they were when the movie began. Additionally, character’s such as Carolyn Burnham, merely begin to free themselves from the events that bind them in the substantial moments just before the film

Society faces an issue that is not usually addressed because it is seen as the norm in today’s American culture. It is the crisis of masculinity. The notion of how men should be portrayed is not usually identified as a problem; today’s society views men’s apathetic and exasperated exterior as the orthodox behavior of everyday life. Boys at a young age are taught by the popular culture that they need to be a “real man” - strong physically and emotionally. The mask many men put up is based on the extreme idea of masculinity that emphasizes toughness, physical strength and gaining the respect of others through violence or the explicit threat of it. This front is put up by men because they do not want to stray from what is accepted, for men who

The Hippie era has come to end and the days of self awareness have arrived. Instead of focusing on love to all, many Americans were indulging in their self pleasure. According to Alfred Kinsey’s research Americans sexual behavior deviated from their widely accepted norms (Glbt.com/shsh/sexrevo cites correctly). Wilhelm Reich added to Kinsey’s research with a remark that he believed sexual repression overwhelmingly distorted psychological development (glbt.com/shsh). To further societies receptivity of sexuality the case Roth v. United States in 1956 created a public arena in which it became possible to discuss sex and represent it both literary and visually (glbt.com). Furthermore the counterculture of the 60’s had a new candidness of sexuality,

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

A minority of critics and movie analysts have attempted to pick at the sexual aspect of American Beauty in hopes of uncovering a hidden meaning instead they are simply over reaching. American Beauty is a satire that aims to shed some much needed light on the hidden world that lives in the American suburban setting. Successfully accomplished by Mendes through the exposure of certain topics and sexuality undoubtably being one of them. Ricky’s father Colonel Frank Fitts a military man who brings his military world of discipline and order to the management of his family is ironically a homophobe. The irony is displayed at the last scene of the movie where its revealed that the colonel himself is a homosexual man when he kisses Lester. Likewise Lester and Jane’s friend Angela’s relationship is created upon aesthetic desire from both parties; the sexual half part of the relationship never comes to life but the relationship stirs much controversy nonetheless. Both examples provide room for the minority argument although these examples only play a part in the mocking and exposure of the hidden scandals that occur within the suburban setting and neither make it to the final message that Mendes want his viewers to walk away with. Critics believe these sexual interactions and relationships should be mentioned and stamped with a negative connotation especially that of Lester and Angela since “Only 2 of the 492 critics used the word "pedophilia" in their assessments 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