American Beauty... Beautifully Confusing.

Similar to my entry after Lars and the Real Girl, here are a few observations on American Beauty, particularly through the lens of our class readings.  There were a ton of issues related to gender, embodiment, and queer theory. I wanted to get these thoughts out prior to our class discussion to record them as unaffected as possible.

• The incest taboo was definitely present in this film as we discussed in class.  Colonel Fitts has homoerotic tendencies towards his son, which were really difficult to watch.  I found the tension between them, particularly the beatings, to have a very graphic and sexual undertone.  While the Colonel approaches Lester with his repressed longings, it feels like much of the homosexual desires he finally lets loose actually stem from his relationship with Ricky.
• This is the third time I’ve watched the movie, but this is the first time I really considered and focused on the gender tensions that are everywhere in the movie.  Lester is the poster child (man?) for performative masculinity.  Working out, being “cool” are all actions that he takes are surface-level attempts at embodying masculinity.  Angela and Jane also represent differing degrees of adolescent femininity.  In reading Halberstam’s passage on queer time being “stretched out adolescence” (154), the dynamic between Lester and Angela could totally be construed as adolescent and queer as much as it is heterosexual and, well, creepy.
• There’s definitely an air of subversion in the film, particularly with the Jims.  They’re the most normal, functional coupling in the movie, and they happen to be homosexual partners.  Their interactions are the most domestically sound, while Lester/Carolyn and Frank/Barbara are clearly troubled with deep-seated psychological and emotional issues.  I see this as a two-pronged attack against hetero-normativity.  The Jims represent the faithful, domestic bliss that hetero “time” represents, but subverted with the homosexual relationship.  Meanwhile, the “conventional” heterosexual couples are laden with some serious issues – Carolyn’s cheating, Frank seriously repressed sexual desires, Lester’s lust for a teenager – these all serve to question not only the legitimacy of hetero-normative institutions, but also the damage it can cause when forced and perpetuated onto the masses.
• I’m not quite sure what to make of Ricky and Jane.  Ricky seems to be the one person who “gets” it.  He turns his father’s supposed bigotry on its head, and sees the beauty in the simplest of things.  He relishes that the “faggots”(as Frank calls them) aren’t ashamed of their own identity, even in the midst of suburbia.
• I’ve always struggled with the ending.  While I’m almost satisfied with Lester finally coming full circle and ceasing to see Angela as an object of sexual desire, he’s killed by Frank in a blind rage after exposing his repressed homosexual desires.  There’s obviously the self-hate and melancholia that individuals like Frank must feel, but what does him killing Lester say about these multi-layered tensions of gender and alternative sexuality?  I’m still not sure what the overall message is, and viewing the film with our readings in mind only further complicated my thoughts. 

- terese

Works Cited

Halberstam, Judith.  In a Queer Time and Place – Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives.  New York: New York University Press.,2005. Print.