The "Hays" girls, Lolita and Angela

American Beauty is a satire on "the American Dream" as it stood in 1999, and it can very well be used as a "benchmark" on just how far American "lifestyle" has come [or in fact GONE] since Death of a Salesman and Lolita 50 years before.

The main issue in focus is the Death of the so called Nuclear Family but a very tasty side dish is the changing "values" [or lack of] in sexual matters, both parents and kids, and here I am dealing with the kids issues.

But I should first explain that the very important ["Freudian"] question of "Wild Oats" presented  by Nabokov in the Lolita book as to why Humbert became as he did is glossed over in the movie.  That was done by agreement of Kubrick and Nabokov purely to reduce movie length, so we are shown nothing of how Humbert almost went out of his mind missing his Wild Oats with Annabel when he was a teenager himself.

So movie starts in the "enlightened sexual times" of 1950s when in real life sex was exciting, waiting to be discovered, magical, vivacious and most of all FUN, albeit on screen the The Hays Code essentially prevented any suggestion that sex even existed.  Lolita was however made despite this dichotomy and it was the combined skills of Kubrick and Nabokov that allowed them to show Lolita [and her men] in the full glory of the ACTUAL time.

As an example Lolita was able to seduce Humbert simply by playing out a fun "game" and Humbert simply lay back and enjoyed it, or as E Annie P said in Brokeback Mountain, "no instruction book needed".

At this point I will attempt to define the Wild Oats Laws by saying a person [perhaps moreso a male] MUST get a wild, uninhibited, exciting introduction to sex [preferably in a haystack etc] by their mid teens OR it will eat the livin' shit outa them more and more as they try at 27, 37, 47, 57 or 67, getting more pathetic and desperate as years go by.  This is what Humbert KNOWS but is powerless to remedy his mind by such things as using prostitutes and getting married [and divorced].

ie he learns there is no way that simply "getting/buying" sexual acts gives one their Wild Oats [and of course Kubrick nails this in Eyes Wide Shut with the depraved old wrinkly Jews watching sex from behind their Fidelio masks]

So once he sights Lolita's cherry pies he is hooked on a course of action that ruins his life - such is the curse of Wild Oats deprivation.

fast forward 50 years

Lolita [Haze] suddenly morphs into Angela [Hayes], both names purposely intended to mirror Hays.

As Angela, Lolita has lost all semblance of "sexiness" and has simply become a "sexual object" in the great glorification OF sexual objects [ie Porn, pronked as Erotica] in the American Beauty.

The takeover of the education system by the small f feminists in 1970 has seen that Angela has been "Carefully Taught before she was 6 or 7 or 8" [South Pacific 1958] all about reproduction in a stiff, starchy, academic and moralistic way that has removed forever any chance that "sex" for Angela could possibly be exciting or fun, but rather, as Angela relates, sex has been "commodified" and has a monetary value along with all the other "stuff" in the American Beauty.

But most of all this has meant Angela has totally missed her Wild Oats and is in fact totally frigid, the exact opposite of her fantasy world where she expounds her totally liberal "virtual sex life" to anyone who wants to listen, thus reflecting the fantasy world of the founder of the small f feminist movement Germaine Greer, with her fascination for Catherine from Jules & Jim.

Ms B as the failed Real Estate Agent

interesting that movie makes her out to be a total failure sales wise, essentially only keeping her business [and car lease] afloat by injections of capital from Lester, who of course is repaid by dick in mason jar and ignored.

incidentally the Xmas party scene was EXACTLY as per my ex wife in the 1980s, especially the horrible loud small f femmo "power laugh" [as my kids called it] as she "glides into the room", or honing straight in on a person she had just bagged and greeting him like a "long lost" - it was deja vu brilliance.

I remember reading a Readers Digest back when I was a kid in 1950s that an estate agent is not selling a house but a dream AND he [always he back then] is selling to the WIFE.

so given that some 50% of women [probably 80% of wives] are not lovers of the small f femmo uprising of 1970, it begs the question why women actually see it as a career opportunity, and here we see "the King" [with his HUGE sales] is a male. He essentially does no "selling" at all as he simply understands the MARKETING and the principle Ms B should have been taught "marketing sows the seeds, sales reaps the harvest". Ms B had sown hype and no seeds so got no harvest

I loved the idea of her using her "mantras" from her femmo "empowerment classes" starting with "I will sell this house - today" which is a play on the 1970 song of the sisterhood number 1 hit by Helen Reddy "I am woman hear me roar ..... if I have to I can do anything".

it is an amazing movie particularly if you actually lived IN the Beauty as I did for 20 years.

which is why I am LBR as I actually SURVIVED 20 years ago to go on to lead a totally enjoyable life without such impediments.

so would I have done as Lester's cousin if I was given the choice again and not get married?

not at all - and that was Lester's message at the end ie as long as he "nurtured" wife/kid through 20 years AND they were happy, then he was happy to filter out the good from the bad and throw the bad away as we saw at end of movie.

just that the Beauty did not ALLOW him to be happy as well so they lined up to kill him.

it's just the Beauty

My Video Part #3

My Video #2

My video Part #1

Please note my custom effect where I open the red door of the Burnham house.

Summary

I remember seeing flashes of the Oscars as I watched the news with "American Beauty" being said several times by those horrible American Wimmen with mouths like a postbox, and thinking "no way I want to see more American trash".

But there was a radio doco on the real live MURDER based on a gal who imitated the movie to kill her husband, and the jingle jangle music from the movie put the hooks into me to watch the movie.

I was pleasantly surprised, as it told my own story of a 20 year marriage as a SNAG, BUT somehow having survived 25 years PAST that time.

Hence I am Lester_Burnham_Risen in these forums as I come BACK with the experience of Zarathustra to "tear down the closets" and tell all about the American Beauty [which we adopted in Oz "like a Cong-aline of Suckholes" to use that now famous terminology].

The great irony is that, while the post-box wimmin did not realize it, the movie is actually a satire ABOUT how such wimmin [as Ms B, my loving wife] have taken over the world and put the whole American Pie out in the rain to give us the American Beauty ["and I'll never have the recipe again" to put Humpty back together].

I have already done a video summary, so please tune in to the three episodes.