Post: #1

NOTE: Once again, this is me riffing and am I looking for feedback. Seriously, this movie can be read in many ways – a sign of brilliance. Let me know any theories you have or whatever. Hat tip to lurker who gave me the idea to review this movie.

Review Of Movie & Characters



American Beauty was a highly popular released in the late 1990’s. The movie began as a play that was inspired by the Amy Fisher trial. Amy Fisher was referred to as the “Long-Island Lolita” as she hooked up with a autobody shop owner and then tried to kill his wife so they could be together. Apparently, the nuclear family & repression of sexuality is what inspired the work initially.

Let’s step through the main characters.



Lester Burham: The main character of the movie. He is a typical middle-aged beta male - although he grows in the movie. He works a job he hates (that he eventually is laid off from) and claims the highlight of his day is masturbating the shower.



Carolyn Burham: She is a stereotypical middle-class female. She is obsessed with image, maintaining a good-looking home, gardening and is an ambitious real-estate agent. She is dissatisfied with her home life and her husband. She has a fling with a much more successful real-estate agent than her.



Jane Burham: A 16 year-old goth who is a typical disaffected teenager. Frankly, she isn't relevant to my analysis, so let's move on.



Angela Hayes: The cheerleader friend of Jane's. She is superficial and terribly stereotypical and average, aside from her looks. She is a habitual liar, especially about her sex life. Lester becomes infatuated with her. While Angela doesn't mirror Lester's interest, she does have a level of interest in him.

Let's talk about the plot. Lester is supremely dissatisfied with his life, as is the rest of his family. He is inspired to change himself when he meet his daughter's friend, Angela. After getting laid off, he starts working at a fast-food joint, buys a muscle car & starts working out. His next-door neighbor, apparently a closeted homosexual, thinks Lester is cavorting with his son sexually - when really his son is selling him weed. In the end, Lester never culminates his relationship with Angela, as they get to it and she confesses she is a virgin. Lester goes to the kitchen, where he is killed - either by his neighbor, himself or his daughter.

The Rebellion Of The Beta Male




This scene is important for a few reasons. First, notice the power dynamic here - Carolyn is clearly in charge. Further, Lester notes that even his daughter, Jane, has more power than him.

Lester asserts himself throughout the clip. He is a man grasping for his identity as a male. He clearly has little hand in his relationship, as his wife is a typical embodiment of a histrionic female. Lester's approach here is to subvert her hysterics in order to gain the upper hand in the relationship.

Throughout the movie, Lester seeks to move beyond the social scripts handed to him by American middle-class society. He is a typical beta male - a guy who gets married, realizes the narcissistic sexual hierarchy and is coming to terms with the unreality of his life.

His rebellion is his implicit acknowledgement of the red-pill. His frustration reflects on a society that discourages masculinity and encourages supplication to females. He is a tragic character who is trapped between who he always wanted to be and the man he has become. Like most men, he has ceded control to the women in his life. I suspect this is how it has always been, considering hypergamy & betahood, but it is treated as a new development for the powerlessness of the male.

His attraction towards Angela isn't just biological, but rooted in his desire to rework his past. The man that stands up for himself and pursues that which he desires is the man he always wanted to be. He could never be that man because of his poor self-esteem & needing to provide for his daughter. Like many beta males, he felt that his life was more a function of forces beyond his control than anything else.

He refers to his wife as "mother" more than once. It is a reflection of the relationship that most beta's have with their wife - one of supreme power differences. Some critics have very gently suggested this movie was about a crisis of masculinity, carefully noting they didn't want to empower men too much at the expense of women. Which is the damn impetus for the movie - society unable & unwilling to help failing men.

Modern society is about the narcissistic edification of women. Women didn't seek equality, they accused men of "misogyny" when they really meant they wanted narcissistic worship from men. Congruent with narcissistic analysis, it wasn't enough. They seek more compliments, more worship, etc.

A common theme is that masculinity is in crisis in reaction to feminist & gay triumphs. They need to prove their relevance. Masculinity has its serious issues, but nothing that compares to female & gay identities. Long considering themselves to be oppressed , female & gays should have to prove real identities outside victimhood. They leech onto male issues - keeping the conversation about straight men - so they don't have to talk about their issues.

Unable to change, they need to focus on straight men having masculinity issues so they can bolster their self-identities. Feminists sometimes complain about the focus on straight men - but where would any feminist be without her ability to bitch about men? Nowhere because she would have to turn her focus to women - there can be no criticism there.

Consumerism, Superficiality & The Modern American Female





A fantastic clip that embodies the movie.

While this analysis could span multiple posts, lets break it down as simply as possible.

Lester has sacked up & gotten more outcome independent. His wife responds positively to his advances, but it is all killed when his wife notices the beer about to spill on the couch arm.

Quote:Lester, you are going to spill beer on the couch

He withdraws immediately, realizing she is the same superficial female she has ever been. He emphatically states it is "just a couch." He reminds her of the fact everything they own is just stuff. Unable to come to terms with the fact her life is just one navel-gazing adventure she storms off.

His existential crisis is worsened here. Surrounded by the trapping of the life he supposed to live he decides to sit around in sweatpants drinking cheap beer. That is his way of rebelling. As for his wife, he was on the precipice of reigniting their sex life but she was more worried about appearances than anything else.

His exclamation that "It is just a couch!" has strong anti-feminist overtones. Men can say that about a woman's career, their interest in this or that, or their consumerism. Women place inordinate amounts of value on things or endeavors that aren't all that relevant.

A study surveying college students in Canada revealed that over 90% of women were going to college in order to have a career; over 80% of men said they were in college to get a job. See the delusion here? Like Carolyn in the movie, women have delusions about the life they will live.

Carolyn mentions how much the couch cost (4000 bucks!) as if the cost has that much relation to its value. Carolyn embodies the modern woman's indoctrination into not consumerism but materialism. A key impetus of feminism was getting females to make financial decisions apart from men so they could exploit their emotional state.

Back on point, women value things or stuff that has no real value outside artificial female circles. By that, I mean were it not for females judging each other for X, Y, or Z, it would have no value at all for them. Much was causes consternation among women is their fighting over what standards by which they will hold each other and the fallout that comes from said standards.

Carolyn embodies the superficial American female. She is flighty, obsessed with appearances and is more interested in her career as way to self-aggrandize than to financially support her family. She blames much of her problems on her husband and refuses to take responsibility for her actions.

I need to stop tonight. Sorry to end abruptly, but I have to go to bed - but I will back tomorrow using this movie - plus Boys Don't Cry & Fight Club - to flesh out a thesis.

Post: #2

I love American Beauty, and Fight Club - And am highly looking forward to the continuation of this piece. Great points made, and further evidence of why you have the best post-to-rep-point average on the forum.

Post: #3

You need to let this forum know when you start your own blog

Post: #4

I thought that the use of "tortured artist game" on Lester's daughter by that kid who was selling weed was very interesting as well.

Post: #5

I hated this movie when I first saw it.

Now I realize that there was no reason for Lester to fulfill his "responsibilities". His wife and daughter are worthless people with no appreciation for him.

This is the way for guys to sneak the Red Pill into pop culture. The repressed gay Marine lets all the Lefties and SWPL seethe with hatred for the Right. Lester's dropping out of the Rat Race to smoke dope and try to screw an underage girl being seen as a positive assuages their Peter Pan complex psyches.

Why is he dropping out of the Rat Race? Because corporate America is evil? No, because the women in his life are useless and don't appreciate him.

The problem I have is the voice over at the end where Lester says he's not angry or bitter over what happened to him. He also marvels at how much beauty there is around. Perhaps this was slipped in to get it past the cultural Marxist censors. He should be angry at not having had a life and he should have been telling those left alive to build things and go their own way instead of jerking off to all that "beauty".

Post: #6

(06-19-2013 03:37 AM)2Wycked Wrote:  Lester goes to the kitchen, where he is killed - either by his neighbor, himself or his daughter.

the neighbor kills Lester because he was rejected.


here is the ending, you can see the neighbor covered in blood at 2:40. Why else would he be covered in blood if he didn't just shoot Lester at close range? It doesn't really leave any room for debate about "who killed Lester". It couldn't have been the daughter, she was with the boyfriend when the shot went off(watch the clip), it couldn't have been his wife, she was walking towards the house when the shot went off.(again, watch the clip). It is very clear.

Post: #7

There's also a shot of Chris Cooper's pistol missing from its normal resting place - although the more interesting question is would Carolyn Burnham have shot Lester had she come home first?

You're really missing out on Jane Burnham; she's central to the thesis of narcissistic sexual hierarchy. She spends the early portion of the movie secretly saving for a boob job to even out her massive tits to compete, breaks down in response to the narcissistic injury of her father giving Angela more attention, and finally creates her own SMP paradigm with herself on top celebrating her "weirdness" when she runs off with Ricky.

Another interesting vignette: Carolyn becomes so narcissistic over the movie that she loses interest in controlling Lester's sexual impulses. Compare the scene early on in which she catches him masturbating in bed and is horrified with her complete indifference later to Lester's ongoing seduction of Angela, fostered by her own inability to see beyond her affair with Buddy "The King." (Greatest movie line of the 90s: "You like getting nailed by The King?" "Oh yes! Fuck me Your Majesty!")

Post: #8

Lester also embodies a type of Christ like figure/role in that he rises from lowly beta male to a path of enlightenment and as his journey to alpha is reached with him making the close on the hot underage cheerleader only to be killed/sacrificed minutes later. The symbolism there could be that taking the path which is not socially acceptable and not under the control of the women, bosses (masters of his life) he is able to be transform from a beta into a new man(alpha). The transition to a new man calls for him to change the paradigm of his relationship with everything in his life from his wife and daughter, to employment, to lifestyle(working out, nice car) and to a general attitude change of not giving a fuck. This transition is so drastic that it literally leads to his death and thus Lester´s life and death is a parable for other men watching as to the changes and sacrifices required to move from beta to alpha.

Post: #9

(06-19-2013 03:37 AM)2Wycked Wrote:  he was on the precipice of reigniting their sex life but she was more worried about appearances than anything else.
[...]
Women place inordinate amounts of value on things or endeavors that aren't all that relevant.

I think these points should be taught to boys in school.

Women do the cleaning because they think people might come round and think less of them for having an 'unclean' home, not because they have a genuine desire for a clean house.

"I'd hate myself if I had that kind of attitude, if I were that weak." - Arnold

Post: #10

I always thought this movie was basically a lot less Sexy Fight Club.

Put upon upper middle class man sees his role diminished, loses his identity, and then changes course to reclaim his masculinity.

Arguably both had their impact on the culture (I think Fight Club did more)...but the impact of either has been pretty fleeting.

Take that Dodge commercial, where you take back your manhood by buying a muscle car - those kinds of commercials are routinely mocked by Mainstream Media.

As an outsider to these warring factions of financially and culturally rich white people, I'm always amazed by this dance, cause the money not spent on Financing a Charger will be spent on financing a new kitchen from Design within Reach (if there was ever a misnamed company)

WIA

Post: #11

Excellent post, please analyze more movies.

Post: #12

This is such a great movie.

If the movie was set in current times, Lester would have done a couple google searches, found the Roosh Forum, and become a total baller

Post: #13

One of my favourite movies ever. In fact, I was about to make a thread as I'm watching it currently but thought I'd search for one.

Along with Fight Club, whst a year 1999 was for great movies about emasculation in America.

Post: #14

Gonna' come back with a more considered response later.

But - I too have thrown a dinner plate against the wall. When I was 8 years old and my grandfather was bullying me to eat something I didn't want to eat. He backed off after that. lol - feel bad about it now.

As for the movie. I just love the soundtrack - these are the two standout songs. And they are so good that they were actually combined into a single track which became a hit single after the film came out.









The guy who made the film went on to marry Kate Winslet. He eventually made good by divorcing her. But jeez...

Post: #15

This is an excellent analysis. I could never put into words why I really liked this movie, and yet this says it all. Thank you.

Finally, my favorite moment is when he loses his job. He proceeds to blackmail his employer for a year's salary.

Plus, the movie is damned funny.

Kirsten Dunst actually turned down the role of Angela Hayes. I couldn't see anyone but Mena Suvari playing it though. She can be slutty at one time and innocent at another.

My favorite one-liner in the movie is when Ricky Fitts says: "Never under-estimate the power of denial."

Incidentally, with regard to 1999 movies, let's not forget American Pie. It also featured Mena Suvari.

Finally, Thora Birch was only 17 when she did the topless scene.

Post: #16

(03-15-2014 02:54 AM)puckerman Wrote:  Finally, Thora Birch was only 17 when she did the topless scene.

Interesting. The unthinkableness of that today shows how quickly the culture has changed.

Post: #17

Great analysis. I just recently watched this movie couple months ago and it hit me completely differently compared to my first time in my teens.

1999 was a great red pill year: matrix, fight club, american beauty, truman show, election.... so many mind-blowing movies.

Post: #18

On a side note, Alan Ball the screenwriter is obviously is another red pill homosexual. The two pre-eminent manosphere films; American Beauty and Fight Club were written by gays!

Maybe they can say the stuff straight blokes can't because the progressives won't take them to task for it.

Post: #19

(03-15-2014 03:39 AM)RawGod Wrote:  

(03-15-2014 02:54 AM)puckerman Wrote:  Finally, Thora Birch was only 17 when she did the topless scene.

Interesting. The unthinkableness of that today shows how quickly the culture has changed.

Post: #20

(03-15-2014 04:36 AM)strengthstudent Wrote:  Great analysis. I just recently watched this movie couple months ago and it hit me completely differently compared to my first time in my teens.

1999 was a great red pill year: matrix, fight club, american beauty, truman show, election.... so many mind-blowing movies.

Check out 'Whatever' - a red pill French movie that also came out in 1999.

Link to the movie and a thread discussing this interesting movie can be found here:

/thread-9674-p...#pid542309

[EDIT - sadly the link to the film no longer works!]

Post: #21

(06-19-2013 09:06 AM)lurker Wrote:  There's also a shot of Chris Cooper's pistol missing from its normal resting place - although the more interesting question is would Carolyn Burnham have shot Lester had she come home first?

I haven't watched the movie in a while, but if I remember correctly, I think she was planning on shooting him. That's why she threw her purse in the laundry hamper, because she had a revolver in it. She had been cheating on Lester with another realtor. I might be wrong though haha

Post: #22

(03-15-2014 02:54 AM)puckerman Wrote:  .

Finally, Thora Birch was only 17 when she did the topless scene.

Her mom was 70's porn star Carol Connors.
Looks like that apple didn't fall too far.

Post: #23

Great write-up!

Small note - I am in the US, second clip gets 'This video is unavailable in your country'. Here is a working link:

Post: #24

I rewatched this film recently. Its red pill, but to me it was more of a tragedy than a triumph.

What I got out of it is everyone puts up a front and they lie to themselves, they settle. The marine was a closet gay, the wife was pretending consumerism brought her happiness, etc. The cheerleader pretended to have a good sex life. The daughter was saving for fake boobs. "Never underestimate the power of denial."

Lester rightly shakes off the yoke because he is not appreciated, but what does he gain? He does become happier, but he has to grovel to get a fast food job. He does win the girl, so to speak, but he ultimately decides this was not what he wanted after all. While he dies with a smile on his face after having thrown off the yoke, he nevertheless dies tragicly.

Most of the other characters' lives end up worse. Col Fitts outs himself and will face murder charges. The Real Estate King is facing an expensive divorce. The wife's fling ends, crushing her. Angela finds someone who genuinely cares for her, and Jane falls in love, and it is this knowledge which brings a smile to Lester's face before he dies.

So if you watch this film to model how to act, the only takeaway is don't be like Lester or you'll end up like him in a dead end job with a dead end family.

The one person who seemed to be living life on their own terms was Ricky Fitts. Jane remarks that it was his confidence that attracted her to him, even while Angela is calling him mental. Ultimately its his ability to see beauty all around him and the courage to strike out on his own path that cause her to fall in love with him. Also, its noteworthy that as a teenager in business for himself he has $30,000 saved while Lester at that aged flipped burgers.

Post: #25

There's another message in this movie, which just came to me. This movie is all about people who have accumulated stuff. Lester's wife cares much about the couch than about sharing a hot moment with Lester. Lester realizes that it's "just a couch." He instead wants to have a great experience, possibly rekindling a little fire in a loveless and sexless marriage.

I absolutely loved the character of Ricky Fitts. I love it when he calls Angela "ordinary" and "boring." She can't stand it because she knows Ricky is right on the money.

Finally, what is the deal with Ricky Fitts's mom? I love it when she just says, "Wear a raincoat."

Does the movie ever specify what Lester actually does for his job at the beginning? I suspect it doesn't matter. Lester is bored because his job gives him no meaning and no purpose. That's why he takes the fast-food job. It's a job with no meaning and no purpose, but it's also less stress.

Let's also remember that this came out in 1999. A guy constantly carrying a camera around, like Ricky Fitts, was considered creepy. I don't know if it would have that stigma now.