Is American Beauty anti-military or pro-homosexuality?

lol sexy has a psychoanalysis fetish.

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I whipped it up on the spot, but isn't it tasty? I also think there's something to it.

Please, come on, I saw American Beauty for the first time when I was only 16.

My thought is that the film stereotypes the military or at least anti-gay individuals within the military. It's a common argument that if one hates gays, one must have a personal connection to the issue and therefore hates that they themselves have homosexual feelings. While this may be true in some cases, it's hardly representative of all examples of homophobia.

I would say the movie is neither pro-gay or anti-military. It's a movie that attempts to break taboos and that was simply one taboo it was putting out in the open.

I do think it was overdone and the Chris Cooper character and his son (horrible acting by the way) were the weakest link of that otherwise great movie. Compared to the stuff between Kevin Spacey, Annette Benning, the girl he has a crush on, that stuff just played out to be weak. Thora Birch was decent in the film, it's just too bad her story arc intersected with that horrible, horrible cliche' of a character.

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Agreed on just about every single point.

I disagree about the performances of Wes Bentley, Chris Cooper, and Allison Janney, if she deserves to be added in Viddy's eyes. They're certainly different from the family of Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and Thora Birch, but I wouldn't call them a weak link. All of those people feel like they play true to the level of reality that the film is inhabiting. I find Wes Bentley's character to be the most memorable of the movie -- and I don't believe that's a reason to say he stands out so much because he's wrong. I think he made that movie. Annette Bening stands out as #2 Most Memorable. The one actor I'm not totally in love with is Kevin Spacey, despite the fact that he is the movie and he drives the whole thing. I don't know if it's the performance he does or the character itself, but there's a part of me that can't sympathize completely with him -- if that's supposed to be a good thing, that's fine, but he's one person I think might be off, and I believe others feel the same way. I have also heard complaints about Annette Bening, but I loved her in it, although I feel that Annette Bening is always Annette Bening in whatever she does.

What I think is strongly possible - and what has deteriorated the closeted character of Frank Fitts - is that Alan Ball, the writer, has overexposed the homosexual -- in things like Six Feet Under and True Blood. I think that since American Beauty is one of the first things he did, it was more shocking and more unique but now gay characters and closeted gay characters have become commonplace, and Alan Ball has contributed to that. He is a gay man himself. Frankly, American Beauty is a bulldozer of homosexuality -- it's just pushing it all right in front of us. Not only do we have the gay characters in the movie, but Kevin Spacey himself is (I certainly believe it) a homosexual, and frankly I would rather see him playing part of the Jim & Jim couple. I think it's funny how we have this closeted gay character in American Beauty and the movie is sending a message -- I think it is -- that it's good to come out of the closet (or else be seen as a bigoted, closeted, raging psycho) -- and yet Kevin Spacey is the star and rumors abound that he is gay and yet he says nothing -- even now in 2011, in this age of Post-Closet-Ricky-Martin. I'm sorry, I realize none of the may be reflecting the movie itself, but honestly, I think it is. American Beauty never comes off well with many people and sometimes I wonder if it's all the gay issues surrounding it. I wouldn't say that it makes people uncomfortable with it being so gay -- but rather, I think American Beauty makes homosexuality more complicated than it really is. If you think about it, the movie has aligned homosexuals in the same class as sexual predators that go after underage girls -- being the Kevin Spacey character. Perhaps the one fault with Chris Cooper's character is that, like Kevin Spacey, they never flaunt his private homosexuality. We get to see Kevin Spacey fantasizing about Mena Suvari in various sexualized fantasies, but we don't get scenes with Chris Cooper in bed, staring up at his ceiling and imagining naked men looking down at him. And that would have been PHENOMENAL, 'cause you just know he's got a whole database of hot military men in his head. So, it's rather unfair that we don't get to see Chris Cooper's harmless, secret homosexual fantasies while Kevin Spacey's inner world of high school cheerleaders gets played to death.

But I like the movie anyway. Less will just have to be more with the Chris Cooper character -- as for Alan Ball, I think he's putting that more into various others projects. Whatever. American Beauty is still a beautiful motion picture.

i've not seen True Blood, but how did Ball overexpose homosexuality in SFU?

i liked all the performances / characters except Ricky Fitts. he was annoying and pretentious. the plastic bag scene made me want to poke my eyes with a letter opener.

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I never really watched much of it, but the character of David (Michael C. Hall) is gay. Wiki says he started out the series as being a closeted homosexual.

I just think Alan Ball really oozes out the gay storylines and gay characters. There is something about him that just defines him as this kind of artist that does that. Even the vampire storylines in True Blood -- which I have seen a lot of (though not all) -- all correlate to gay issues and gay themes. I think that Alan Ball has really put himself out there as a gay artist who is working with entertainment and putting himself in league with the whole gay rights movement -- not that this is a bad thing, but it's largely what he does. He feels too political to me -- and it's boring. Season two of True Blood got rather political minded -- themes of Us Vs. Them that just really took my interest away. The whole series, to me, seems to be masking all of these issues instead of just truly delivering fun scary stories and I haven't been able to shake it off and continue watching. I just don't like entertainment when it becomes too much like that. Possibly there's just too much because it's a TV show. I would rather see more Alan Ball movies.

Well, I liked him. He was hot, weird, interesting, stalkerish, alien and capable of things. To me, the plastic bag scene was a bizarre moment and I can understand the hilarity it might cause because of how ridiculous it seems or the boredom others might feel.

I'm sorry, but the truth is, a plastic bag flying around in the wind is a truly beautiful thing. I think the thing about Ricky is that you need to look at how the plastic bag played in his life -- Ricky was a lonely guy who was weird and shut out of life by everybody who was normal and the plastic bag was a temporary friend - it danced for him. Then he started videotaping Jane. Why? She danced for him, too, and he knew it. She was his girl - he didn't need the plastic bag anymore. Ricky, by showing Jane the plastic bag video, was showing how much he cared and loved. Jane understands this. Jane needed somebody there in her life -- her father was never there for her and her mother was the same. Ricky's plastic bag video is like a video he took of some other girl he loved -- it's easier for someone human to digest this sort of thing because it is, afterall, a plastic bag and not another girl. There's no need to be jealous. Ricky, I think, learned how to love because of his father. Ricky's father was always there for him, despite how messed up their relationship seemed. Ricky's dad, Frank, wanted Ricky to stay out of trouble and lead a normal life. He was there for him in the way that Jane's dad never was for her. That's the beauty of the whole thing. That's the beauty in the Fitts' family's struggle.

Or, maybe...just maybe...it's pro-lifestyle. As the title and actions of the characters would suggest that you find beauty in everything.

Maybe...

Everybody has a lifestyle.

I do hate the plastic bag scene. I hope it was some sort of joke. Yes, one might find a plastic bag floating about quite whimsical and perhaps humorous but hardly beautiful.

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I thought Ricky was the best thing about the movie. The plastic bag seemed like it was a metaphor for how precious and beautiful life is, not in spite of the chaos and randomness but because of it.

Sure, I think it is a metaphor, and it's an apt one. But I still find it unbearably cheesy. There are lots of things films can do that make sense, are thematically consistent, et cetera, but still reek of art house cliche.

What was cheesy about it? It was a plastic bag, a trivial object that Ricky saw as symbolizing the transcendent beauty hidden behind the "plainness" of ordinary existence.

Which works fine. It goes back to the theme of waking up to your life and really seeing it, not just going through the motions.

Guys, remember that Ricky smoked really good pot. He might have been high when he filmed the plastic bag. If not, something went on inside of him that made him experience such a profound thing out of that bag -- he said it made him realize that there was a force behind all things that let him know that he never needed to be afraid, that everything basically had life. Why should we discount this if it actually happened to him? That is what happened to that character. If you find the plastic bag cheesy, you don't know what he's talking about. It wasn't really about beauty, it was about a force of nature, God perhaps.

But don't worry. You will, someday.

American Beauty and the Marijuana thread might as well sync up together. This is an Academy Award winning stoner movie.

Exactly. American Beauty is about celebrating the choices we make and the lives we lead. It's actually, dark as it is, a very sunshine and lollipops kind of flick.

Seeing the beauty in everything. Even a piece of garbage or a job at a local burger joint.

It certainly has a negative side, though. Insofar as it's celebrating "living your life" or some other Hallmark-level sentiment, it's condemning the failure to do the same. It's definitely taking a negative view of suburbia. Whether or not we're meant to focus much on that is up for debate, I guess, but it's there.

I think it frowns on suburbia because you stop leading your life and become a robot of sorts. The beauty in choice and freedom is gone in Suburbia. At least in Mendes' eyes.

It's not a sentiment I agree with and the film is more than a little liberal, but it's still very good. Hokey as it is under the surface.

I think it wasn't so much about suburbia. I think the setting just happened to be a good fit for the idea of people being entrenched in the superficial. It's really quite a spiritual film that pokes fun at materialism.

You could even see it as the story of a man who becomes enlightened, in a sense.

It's not hallmark at all. It's rather profound.