“American Beauty” is more than just another great Oscar winning film. When analyzed, the true meaning of the movie hits you like a roaring freight train. The film is an omen to stop and carefully look the life you are leading and the person you are. In today’s world it easy to get caught up in the bullshit our peers, the media, and other demons of society feed us. We get distracted and lose sight of what is important to us, and what we truly want to accomplish in life. We then focus all our attention on that which is not real and allow our “beloved” society to mold us into what it sees fit, all while never thinking twice about what is really happening. Before we know it, our superficial life has passed us by and we do not know who we have become. By this time, the future is now the present, which inevitably becomes the past with every second that ticks. (We all know…there is no changing the past.)
Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) has grown sick and tired of his life. He hates his job, cannot remember the last time he had sex with his wife Carolyn (Annette Bening), and does not have much of a relationship with his daughter Jane (
Little does Lester know that the object of his obsession Angela is in the same boat. She cannot stop boasting to her friends about all the men she has slept with and telling stories of her sexual activity. She flirts with Lester whenever she is around him and makes comments to Jane about having sex with him. In all actuality, Angela is a virgin and just lies to people to make herself feel like she fits in. She has fallen into the media’s impression that sleeping around is “the thing to do”. Angela gets angry and hurt when Ricky calls her “ordinary” because deep down inside she knows that ordinary is all she is striving to be.
Ricky’s father, Col. Frank Fitts is another character who is living a lie. He claims to hate homosexuals and is constantly cursing them. He later condemns Ricky for being “a cock sucking fag” when he thinks he is having sexual relations with Lester. Come to find out as the movie is nearing the end, Frank is gay. Frank’s motive for hating homosexuals is tied in with society’s unfavorable attitude towards them and their lifestyle. He also resented the fact that he could not “come out of the clos
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