Is American Beauty anti-military or pro-homosexuality?

okay, first of all, who cares if i got a +1 for my post and you hadn’t (yet)? rep means nothing. i would much rather have someone respond thoughtfully to something i say than to simply +1 it –which he DID, and rightfully so. i don’t agree with your theory in this instance, but you get points from me for creativity and thoughtfulness (well, not literally, because i can’t dole out rep on my phone –which is another reason why i didn’t say more than that at the time).

secondly, i can appreciate the amount of thought you put into it. i always think theorizing about movies and television is fun and a good mind exercise, even if they are way out there or we know for a fact it wasn’t the film makers intention –because whether or not Alan Ball intended for the character of Frank to be obsessed with... frank, i do like to think that filmmakers do what they do in part to give people a lot to think about. i know, as an amateur writer, i’d be like “hell, yeah!” if i became a published author and threads about outlandish theories on my novels started springing up on the internet.

anyway, i think my main issue with the whole thing is that there just isn’t enough character development to say what the intention was.

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letterboxd

Ya didn't need to, but thank you anyway.

You're not wrong about the downtown thing. For all we know, though, Frank does do that. I mean, the guy never comes right out and says, "I'm repressed. I haven't done a dude in a long, long time."

I do believe that the aim of American Beauty is probably just to showcase the suburban closet case, but I find things about Frank that could point to something deeper. "Look Closer" the film's tagline reads, you know. Baby, when it comes to men, I'm an electron microscope.

I find the kiss to Lester actually rather odd. It's also not really romantic. I mean, those two hardly know each other. I suppose he could be infatuated with Lester. He was watching him go jogging everyday. There are plenty of guys I'd go up and kiss just based on seeing them. I dunno... still going with my c**ksucker theory, maybe Lester was just the first guy he had more feelings for. Maybe he did have a secret lover in the military - or maybe he just wanted one - and maybe he was trying to get it. It's hard to really figure out, but I'm gonna have to watch the movie again and look for new clues.

What the hay, I thought at the end of the year the person with the most rep got trained in the Force by Yoda.

I suppose next you'll tell me he isn't the real Yoda, either.

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Shut up and start fapping.

You looked like you needed it.

Of course. Everyone's free to do his own interpretation. I'm only saying that I don't think the filmmakers themselves put half as much thought into it as you and I do.

It is kind of romantic. I don't necessarily think it's Frank falling in love with Lester. I think it's rather a case of Lester triggering something in Frank that Frank ultimately cannot stop from coming out. I don't remember exactly, but it's all a misunderstanding, right? Frank thinks that Lester is gay, which he is not. But Frank sees Lester living there in Suburbia, seemingly comfortable and successful in combining his homosexuality and new found freedom with the suburbian lifestyle. I think Frank realizes that he wants to be like Lester and, therefore, wants to be with Lester.

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The novelist does not long to see the lion eat grass. He realizes that one and the same God created the wolf and the lamb, then smiled, "seeing that his work was good".

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They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

It's definitely a sexual kiss, I'd say, though that doesn't automatically mean that Frank must be gay. It could be an attempt to become closer to his son/understand his son. Sounds strange but because Frank believed that Lester had known his son intimately, he wants to become closer to his son through Lester. It might be a case of general sexual repression, or an admiration of Lester knowing who he is, or perhaps he simply wants to give it a go. Frank clearly shot Lester because he was the only witness and there was a threat that the 'truth' might come out- the truth being something that suburbia wants to cover up.

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I've not kept up with this thread... You guys sure do write a lot. That's a good thing, but I'm lazy. On the topic of My Own Private Idaho, I'll just make a quick list of things I like about it.

1. Excellent use of pop music... "Cattle Call" and yes the odd playing of "Cherish" as a young man talks about his experience with a client.

2. River Phoenix is great in it - does well showing pain of not having a mother or father

3. The Shakespeare stuff is amazing! I like how the Henry IV play's plot/dialogue are worked into a contemporary setting and seperate storyling. Perfect and unique juxtaposition, which has never been done before or since that I've seen.

4. Bob as Falstaff.

5. The campfire scene.

6. Random images of barns falling, fishing jumping in slow motion, the highway.

7. Metaphor of the road/highway as a meaningless search for something... love.

8. Keanu Reeve's character's betrayal.

9. The two main "gay" characters are really not the quintessential gay characters as it's more of an emotional love than physical... at least Phoenix toward Keanu Reeves. Which is why when Reeve's character finds the girl and runs off with her, it's simply a devastating moment.

10. Northwest setting. Some nice photography putting the viewer in the place.


I wrote a paper on the film back in 2005 for one of my college classes. I'd have to dig it up, but that's just a quick summary.

And I dig the choppy style of the very film much so. It's a bit off-putting at first but it grows and eventually seems like it is the only way the film's narration could have gone.

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the movie is pro-life

Why can't I have a pro gay war movie? I want a platoon of patriotic pillow-biters popping caps in purely pernicious plunderers.

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One of my favorite movies of all time and I never got the sense that it was anti-mil (but certainly pro gay). Frank may have been in the Marines but I don't see that he was supposed to be representative of all military people. The guy had Nazi paraphernalia in his house! I think he was seen as more of a 'Nazi'-like personality than this being some sort of take on the military.

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Movie Eagle

I don't know but it's a d*mn great movie

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I agree with you in general, but perhaps not specifically. There's nothing in the film to suggest that it's anti-military per se (and, whatever the stated views of the filmmaker over time or whatever, one must take the film on its own terms).

This is not to say that American Beautyis not de facto liberal. It obviously is. But I think Cooper's character is a critique (or rather criticism) of conservatism rather than of the military. Ball chose the most macho/conservative thing he could think of (his imagination having always been quite poor) and, well, you know the rest.

I'm a liberal (as you well know), but I think this approach is cheap. (I've never much liked the film, but for an array of other reasons.) But it's cheap anti-conservatism rather than cheap anti-US military jive. (I nearly wrote "anti-US militarism," but my god. We're all against that, I'm sure...)

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