I wrote a rather lengthy post about various themes in American Beauty, which I saw for the first time this week, but the mysterious depths of the internet consumed it and I was forced to start over, so rather than attempting to get that whole thing back, I'll start with this one, and if I feel so inclined, I'll get to more of it tomorrow, or at some other date later to be determined...but probably tomorrow.
For the uninitiated, the film being discussed in this post is American Beauty, Academy-Award winner for Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, Cinematography, and Acting for 1999.
Masculinity in the film is explored in the same way it is in Fight Club: the characters are nostalgic for the mythic cinematic era of cowboys and WW2 heroes where manly men were rugged, self-sufficient, subjugated women and family and homosexuals and were generally rulers of the roost; Maleness defined in terms of fiction instead of real-life. In Fight Club the men try to attain some modicum of masculinity through bucking the system and fighting each other. Of course, in the end, they don't realize they've given up one system of oppression and repression for another, they are always just following the rules laid out for them, whether they be those of the mainstream or those of 'fight club'. In AB, Lester rebels attempts to gain his masculinity by attempting to revert to a time in his life when he felt most masculine, when he was a carefree teenage boy. Of course, he eventually realizes he is not a teenage boy and just as he does he gets his head blown off. These attempts to define themselves as male by trying to go against or outside of the establishment (all the while operating well within it) are what bothers me about these films. I fear people will see these actions as noble attempts to stay 'male' within a society that is trying to emasculate us, instead of seeing that the nostalgia they have that classic John Wayne-man is based on myth and not real life.
The real problem is that since the women's liberation movement, the line between what men have been able to identify as uniquely male as opposed to female has been eroding, and the idea that is strictly anatomical is unacceptable as the 'true male' wants to cast the 'homosexual male' as 'other' along with the female and child. So if females can vote and have the same jobs and serve in the same army and own property and drive and be priests and CEO's and their bosses, and homosexuals share the same biological makeup, what is it that makes men men? Masculinity has been largely stripped down to a psychological state as it can no longer be defined wholly physically or socially, and as since there is freedom of thought/mind set for females and homosexuals as well, 'masculinity' is rendered an outdated concept in the current world, thereby making the belief in the existence/possibility of masculinity what makes one in fact a man.
Annette Benning's character in the film equates happiness with success with maleness. She sees Lester as less than a man because he is a loser and is therefore dissatisfied with him. She goes after a man who she sees as successful (the reference here was subtle so you might not have caught it, he is called "The King"). He is wildly successful and thus in her eyes intensely male and so she sets out to have an affair with him. She is successful in this conquest and thus, feeling her own masculinity rising, decides to take up a serious interest in guns, another activity she considers uniquely male, hoping that by becoming more 'male' she will be successful and thereby happy.
Most interesting is the character of Col. Fitts. He almost seems to waylay the entire conversation about about masculinity. He is the typical, classic American man. He is a Marine with a son and a wife and a suburban home (sounds like he should be played by Henry Fonda). But the writer attempts to de-mythologize this character by making him also repressive (his wife is near catatonic), homophobic, (possibly) a neo-Nazi, with undertones of homosexuality. These characteristics are not far off of the classic male archetype of the John Wayne/western/'greatest generation' cinema era, only these are the qualities that are often buried. What is interesting is that this character is the only one not updated by the writer, he is, socially, still stuck in 1953. I suppose the writer could be saying that this is where this character belongs and is critiquing the modern day characters for looking up to him as their idol of manliness when he was really a repressed homosexual all along anyway, but I don't know that the irony runs that deep here. Maybe it does, and if so, bravo, Alan Ball.
I was rushing to get this done so I can go post something before I go to bed, so tomorrow there may be slight/major revisions, so be on the lookout for that. As usual comments are free and unmoderated...speak your mind!
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