While Lester is a great example character of the film’s ‘be–yourself’ ideology, another examination of the pitfalls of not following that ideology can be seen in each of the different marital relationships in the film. At first it may appear that no other relationship is as flawed as Lester and Carolyn’s, with her henpecking and Lester sleepwalking through life. Then we learn what real family dysfunction is when we meet the Fitts’. Chris Cooper’s Colonel Frank Fitts is a tyrant who rules his family with an iron fist. When Ricky comes home to find his mother and father sitting on the couch watching an old military movie from the fifties, the viewer can see that the Fitts are still living in the fifties. The father is the master of the house and the mother is in a constant coma-like state keeping the house clean and orderly, but never questioning that father knows best. She represents what Lester Burnham is on his way to becoming – a mindless drone following the orders of a dominant spouse. Even though we do not see any physical abuse by Col. Fitts upon his wife, the audience can infer the physical abuse by what they see in the abusive relationship between Col. Fitts and his son Ricky.
Two other marital relationships that we get a glimpse of are that of Buddy Kane, the real estate king and Christy, his angry and distant wife; and the Burnham’s neighbors, the homosexual couple Jim Olmeyer and Jim Berkley. Despite Carolyn thinking that Buddy and his wife looked so happy together, it is clear that as a couple they were being true to the Be-Yourself ideology that the filmmaker tries to project and we find out that they are soon to be divorced. On the opposite end of the spectrum the only truly happy couple we meet in the movie is Jim and Jim. While their relationship doesn’t get as much screen time as the Burnham’s or even the Fitts’, we see by the way they interact, finishing each others thoughts, that they have the healthiest relationship of all the couples in the movie. The scene where they give the welcome basket to the Fitts’ is a perfect example of their marital harmony. A complete reversal of that scene is Lester and Carolyn’s conversation at her real estate party. Lester is introduced to Buddy for the third time and still Buddy does not remember him. When Lester says he wouldn’t remember him either Carolyn tells him not to be weird. The whole interaction between the Lester and Carolyn is uncomfortable to watch and is brilliantly concluded when Lester kisses her passionately. Before he walks away he says to Buddy:
LESTER: We have a very healthy relationship.
BUDDY: I see.
LESTER: I don’t know about any of you but I need a drink
Lester and Carolyn’s relationship is anything but healthy. As Lester tries to break away from the person he no longer wants to be, Carolyn struggles to make the façade of her life more impregnable. Her attraction to Buddy is not physical, but in her mind he is someone who has successfully constructed an image that conforms to the life Carolyn wants.
Each new relationship in American Beauty brings the characters involved closer to the truth of who they are. The friendship between Thora Birch’s Jane and Mena Suvari’s Angela is based on lies. Jane feels like a misshapen outcast – inadequate in her own body. She contemplates breast surgery and worships Angela, who she sees as pretty and popular. Angela needs Jane to worship her. It is Angela’s desire to be more than ordinary, and Jane’s worship of her fullfils that need. Their friendship is doomed when Ricky Fitts enters the picture. To describe Ricky as sane would be a stretch, but more than any other character Ricky is in touch with his true self. He has had the time to think about who he is thanks to his father having him committed. Initially Jane, like Angela considers Ricky to be a freak, but it is his comfort at being a freak that Jane finds so attractive. Their relationship is then built upon their mutual freakishness.
While Lester travels on his path towards enlightenment, Jane is following a path toward her own self-awareness and Ricky Fitts is a spirit guide for them both. In one scene when Jane asks Ricky about the mental institute and he tells her how his dad put him in the hospital and they drugged him up and left him there for two years. Jane responds with:
JANE: You must really hate him.
RICKY: No. He is not a bad man.
JANE: You’d better believe I’d hate my Dad if he did something like that to me. What am I talking about – I already do hate my Dad.
The quintessential difference between Ricky and Jane is illustrated in this conversation. Ricky accepts his Dad for who he is. He acknowledges his father’s foibles and severe bigotry, and sees him essentially as a good man. Jane sees only her father’s flaws and how they relate to her. She says he is committing major psychological trauma upon her. Ricky is willing to commit his own deceit for the sake of his father accepting him. When Ricky tells his father that the gay couple Jim and Jim are not ashamed of their relationship, his father’s temper flares. Col. Fitts tells him not to placate him, that he’s not his mother, and then without a beat Ricky rattles off some anti-gay bigotry in quick military fashion. This satisfies Col. Fitts and without realizing it he has been quickly placated by Ricky’s deception. Ricky appears to be the only major character that does not drastically change, nor does his of himself alter, but it is in the final scenes of the movie that he realizes that his father isn’t a good man. His father is so close-minded that he will throw him out of the house because he thinks he is a homosexual. When he tells his mother that he is leaving she isn’t surprised. She shows no emotion at all, but only tells him to wear a raincoat.
Lester’s fixation on his daughter’s friend Angela is really the crux of this movie. It is what upsets Jane most and when Ricky asks if she’d prefer he be fixated on her, she is disgusted, but would like to be as important to him as Angela is. A reverse Oedipal conflict exists between Lester and Jane, as Angela represents Jane. The fixation Kevin Spacey’s Lester Burnham has on Mena Suvari’s Angela Hayes is in fact the spark that awakens Lester from his coma. There is nothing about Angela that reminds Lester of his daughter. Angela exudes confidence, while Jane does not. She is seductive and tries her best to entice him into worshipping her. It isn’t until her fight with both Ricky and Jane about her being ordinary that in a vulnerable state does she feel that she must take her seduction of Lester to the next level. It is at that critical moment when she tells Lester that it is her first time that Lester realizes that Angela and Jane are the same. Two young girls, confused about themselves and sexually inexperienced. This scene turns the character of Angela from a stereotype to rich and deeper character. Lester is able to resume his father figure status and the audience can respect him. He is then able to achieve with Angela what he was unable to do with his daughter. When he asks Angela if Jane is happy and finds out she is in love he is overjoyed and has fulfilled his last step towards completing his journey.
The roles of the Lester and Carolyn are reversed from a typical family melodrama. Lester is at first a castrated, closed-in character unable to express who he is. He is in a twenty-year coma. . Carolyn is the one who makes all the decisions in the family. Throughout the movie Annette Benning’s Carolyn Burnham is never on her way to achieving any sort of enlightenment as her husband Lester is. She manages to have small releases in her love affair with Buddy, but she never embraces the film’s ideology. Her job is about projecting a false image. Her real estate listing is falsified with lagoon-like pool description that prompt her to break down. In her pursuit of Buddy Kane, she is attracted to him not because of who he is, but because he projects the same kind of falsified image that she herself strives to project. She enjoys firing the gun because it is her only true release. The escape of her true self fired with each round. All she knows is that “she loves firing that gun.” Her closest chance at reconciling with Lester and joining him on his ascent to self-awareness and enlightenment occurs when she comes back from the firing range and finds the Lester lounging on the couch after purchasing his dream, a 1970 cherry red Firebird. While Lester is ready to abandon their bickering for some long overdue sex, Carolyn can’t help but stop him when she sees he is about to spill his beer on their Italian silk couch. The moment for their reconciliation is lost.
The character that is never redeemed and will continue to suffer is the character most repressed – Colonel Frank Fitts. While Kevin Spacey’s Lester Burnham may have died, he died happy. Col. Fitts will continue to suffer in his life and die unhappy. In most films the ideology may not be as clear nor the message as strong as in American Beauty. Having a strong theme in a badly written, acted or directed movie feels like the message is being shouted at the viewer. American Beauty weaves the ideology into a rich tapestry of visual motifs, a simple but superlative story and fantastic acting.
Bibliography
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Kitses, Jim. Notes on Ideology. N.p., n.d.
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Freeman, David. Why ‘American Beauty’ Works: Focus on the Use of Symbols. http://writerstore.com/article.php?articles_id=4. N.p., n.d.
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Kleinhans, Chuck. Notes on Melodrama And the Family under Capitalism. N.p., n.d.
