American Beauty Essay, Research Paper

American Beauty

There continues to be an everyday struggle for us American’s to find out true identities. There are so many people in our society who feel the necessity to be someone they are not, in order to fit in. Only if they had a mirror; then they could look and see the fear and insecurity in their eyes. There are some situations where putting on a act twenty-four hours a day is a bit too much. For many, the suburban life is the America dream. For others, however, it can turn into a twisted nightmare of unfulfilled desires. American Beauty, nonetheless, is a movie that gives the viewers backstage passes to see how the most perfect family, living in the flawless suburbs can really turn out to be. It’s our typical family with both a working husband (Lester) and wife (Carolyn). They have a beautiful teenager by the name of Jane, who‘s friends with your typical high school gossip girl (Angela). There are many significant others to the movie like the new family that just moved next door, or the top real estate agent who calls himself “The King”. There were so many different conflicts and alterations between the characters that made this movie so interesting to the viewers. American Beauty was a movie that shows us how our American society portrays the all American family to have the perfect relationships with one another. Little do the outsiders know about what really goes on inside the walls of the perfect household, and how they act towards each other. American Beauty is about the masks we wear in our society. Each character seems to wear there own masks during the movie for their own reasons. Whether they are dealing with their work, family, or just life in general.

The father/husband of the supposedly “All American Family” seems to be hiding under the infamous “mask“ throughout the movie. He lives a life where he is constantly overpowered by his wife and co-workers day by day. Lester wakes up everyday only to show the community that he cares about his wife Carolyn, but when he really knows his relationship has taken a turn for the worse. He makes the community think that he is this funny, caring, and entertaining husband when he sees no reason to be. A real estate party was being held at a hall for all the real estate agents of the community. Before the party Carolyn told him just to act like a normal, caring, and be a husband of interested. He did, and when they both approached “The King” he put on a act just to impress him and make a good impression on the wife. While getting introduced to him Lester was in a way forced by Carolyn to be somebody he wasn’t.

It is very rare to see the man of the family getting dominated, only because it is he who provides the money for the family. However, in the family we are dealing with, both the husband and wife have full time jobs to support their child along with their habits. His daughter Jane thinks of him as a man who is boring and has no personality. Maybe it’s because Lester doesn‘t know how to show his emotions he has hidden away. Lester doesn’t exactly know why or even what his role is in his family, but he still lives his everyday life to please his wife and provide money for his daughter.

During the real-estate party Lester meets the boy living in the house next door. It’s then where Rick takes a break from his work, and Lester takes a break from his “act” to go out back in the alley. They quietly smoked a joint and shared what they had in common. After observing Rick’s ways of dealing with his boss. Lester than started to look at things a bit more differently. He started having a desire to do things the way he wanted them to be done. After that night Lester started to take things more seriously and started to live a less stressful life. We started to see him trying to be himself for a change, and not some actor putting on a show. Unfortunately Lester is murdered by Rick’s father during the last scene’s of the movie. Some people say Lester found his true identity and released his mask during the second half of the movie. I might argue and say it was when he laid there, ever so peaceful, dead in the pile of thick red blood with a big smile across his face.

While Lester wears his mask throughout the movie, he doesn’t realize that he’s not the only one. His wife Carolyn also seems to be putting up an act for the communities attention. Allen Ball, the writer of American Beauty makes Carolyn seem to be the character in the film that cares the most about what people think of her. Therefore she wears a mask throughout the movie and is late to reveal her true identity. In the beginning of the movie we get to see an outside portrait of the house. She has all of the bushes and flowers trimmed to perfection and loves being extremely friendly towards all the neighbors. Her neighbors are led to get the impression that she is living the most perfect life while obtaining loving and caring relationships. Little do they know what really goes on inside her house. It almost seems as if Carolyn has a different identity/mask waiting for her at the doorstep of the house. Inside while being with the family she is very demanding and has to have things her way. She feels that if she is the one preparing the food for the family, than the dinner settings must be the way she wants it and no other way.

Carolyn is a real estate agent who gets overpowered by her competition “The King”. Being easily intimidated by the top real estate agent she feels that she must be someone totally different than herself. Carolyn is too afraid to be herself mainly because she hasn’t really had a firm grip to what it’s like. When first meeting Buddy Kane (The King) she felt she must have her husband along with herself put on an act just for Buddy Kane to accept them. They soon start talking to each other and find that they have the most materialistic things in common with each other. After Lester introduced himself and found that Buddy had little to no interest in him Carolyn pushed him aside. While being a bit on the tipsy side, Carolyn seemed to slowly let down her mask and start to talk to Buddy in a true but drunken manner. They unleash many things in common with each other and they both realized they needed some work on their sex lives. After having one night with “The King” it seemed as if Carolyn had some stress off her shoulders. She was one step further to finding her true identity.

Mother and daughter relationships are a bit different then father to daughter relationships. Carolyn has a more realistic relationship with Jane than Lester. Even though Carolyn tries to keep her unidirectional relationship with Lester out of Jane’s life. She wants Jane to think everything is just perfect between the three of them, when in reality it isn’t close to perfection. During a scene at the dinner table, Lester all of a sudden has an outburst of anger and throws the dinner plate across the room. He then starts arguing with Carolyn in front of their only child. Jane could not stand to see her parents like this so she left. Although Carolyn did feel bad that her daughter had to see that, she should not have tried to hide their feelings for each other from their little girl. By her trying to have Jane thinking everything was fine and having Jane see that sudden outburst was not right. It was her responsibility as a mother to keep Jane on task with her social life, school, friends and any family problems. She obviously failed to keep up with that task considering the conditions Jane has been put up against.