Social Issues In American Beauty

Throughout the film American Beauty directed by Sam Mendes, different social problems take place in Lester Burnham’s personal life as well as the personal lives of his family and those connected through them. Some of these social problems include that of social class and keeping up the reputation that comes with it, sexuality, and gender.

The film centers on Lester Burnham, who lives a middle class life with his wife and daughter, and he begins experiencing a sort of breaking point in his life where he then decides to give up his normal suburban husband lifestyle and responsibilities he would typically adhere to. He quits his job and reinvents himself to be seen as more care-free and basically acts as a teenager would, which ends up disrupting

Near its beginning, Lester sets eye on Angele, his daughter’s best friend, at a cheerleading performance and suddenly the fire within him that felt so far gone was rekindled. Angela embodies what the world sees as the all American girl- young, thin, and of course blonde. She constantly spoke openly about her sexuality and her experiences, and was pleased with the idea that compared to other girls she was ahead of the game sexually and in a sense preparing herself for the real world. This mindset Angela had reminded me of the article My first time twice by Ariel Levy, in that the perspective was of a girl who wasn’t concerned with the act of enjoying having sex, but more so concerned with just getting rid of her virginity, which would in turn make her less of a child and put her “…, ahead of everyone else’s schedule.” As the film continues, every encounter he has with Angela turns into some pleasure filled fantasy that Angela herself encourages, which in turn makes Lester decide to change himself physically to find a way to get her attention and please her. In doing this, Lester doesn’t realize the extent to which he is upsetting his daughter for trying to hook up with her best friend. He was letting his sexual desires replace any issues his daughter was facing. Carolyn also had her own sexual encounters in secret with Buddy Kane. He rekindled a fire in her just as Angela had done for Lester and

Carolyn, Lester’s wife, is a real estate agent and seems as if she is the one that “wears the pants” in the household. She tells her husband how to act with her in public, and is the only one to choose what music is to be played at dinner. When Lester tells of quitting his job, she sarcastically yells about being the sole provider of things now because of it, which further diminishes Lester’s role in the family. In no way do Lester’s actions help because soon after he has left his job, he buys himself a sports car and begins buying drugs he can’t afford from neighbor, Ricky, which isn’t expected of someone who had just got out of a job. As explained in Gendering Bodies, it is the stereotype of the husband to be seen as the strong provider, and the wife is typically seen as the one who should be at home doing whatever duties there is to do there. In this case, both Carolyn and Lester were both the providers in the household, and now Carolyn would be even more so, which breaks the stereotypical gender roles. However, in Ricky’s home these stereotypes seem to be followed. In the scenes where his mother is present we see her either working at the stove or concerned with the cleanliness of the home, while also being in her introverted state. His father on the other hand is most likely at his own job or concerning himself with whatever masculine