American Beauty 1999 Essay

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Hey I need help on this please I get exam and have to study for it ;)About the film:American Beauty (1999)Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is a gainfully employed suburban husband and father. Fed up with his boring, stagnant existence, he quits his job and decides to reinvent himself as a pot-smoking, responsibility-shirking teenager. What follows is at once cynical, hysterical, and, eventually, tragically uplifting.please write a short (1000 words) essay about the American Beauty 1999 focused on the following question: Can you identify and describe gender bias in the performance? You may use the Bechdel test or any other indicator. Select a film and describe how the actors perform as masculine, feminine or neutral gender. You might examine elements such as the portrayal of women, the number of characters who are male or female, how their relationships are shown, or the number of scenes with sex or violence. Consider whether the film passes the Bechdel Test. PLEASE NOTE I uploaded an example about the film you can read it and rewrite using your words instead of watching the film ( paraphrasing )

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The film that I choose to analyze is the American Beauty that was directed by
Sam Mendes in 1999. This movie is considered as an emotional movie in which it shows
a man who is suffering from the midlife crisis. Furthermore, the movie talks about a
family which is consists of three members and how they can deal and solve their
problems. In fact, even though that the name of the movie is the American Beauty, the
movie is trying to show something different to the audience. In other words, it is trying to
show the negative side relations between the family members whether if it is going to
make changes to their lives or not. This essay is going to cover the other subjects of the
movie that were played by the actors such as gender bias, materialism, and sexuality. In
fact, each member of this movie has played at least one of these roles in the movie.
Gender bias was mentioned in different situations in the American beautify movie
and they were played by the both gender including males and females. For example, the
movie shows a marine colonel whose name is Frank Fitts and how he was acting tough
and strict. Furthermore, he did not believe in the relationships between the same genders
or being homosexual. Nevertheless, it turned out that colonel fitts is bisexual in which he
kisses Lester. In fact, colonel fitts was a homosexual from the beginning but he was
trying to act as a homophobe in order to live his normal lifestyle. Another example of
males appeared when colonel fitts met his new neighbors and when Lester was running
with his homosexual neighbors. In fact, men always appear being tough or trying to act
masculine when they could. However, the homosexual couple were different in which
they seemed to be normal and not acting as many other men. Because of that, the movie
is trying to show how gender cannot affect the sexuality in life. Females were also
mentioned in this movie about being on a different point of gender view.
The movie showed also Lester’s daughter whose name is Jane and how she was
the only daughter in her family. In addition, she had almost everything that she wanted
and her parents were treating her differently that the others she knows. Nevertheless, Jane
was not feeling satisfied with herself because of some factors, for example: Jane’s’ best
friend was considered as the beautiful girl whose conversations are always about males
and she was always talking about males with Jane. In addition, the gender bias about
women can be seen in the movie in which they viewed Jane and her best friend in a weak
and unsteady situation. Furthermore, I think the Bechdel test cannot be applied to their
situation in which all their conversations were focusing on males. So, the movie showed
different situations of gender bias including 3 males and 3 females. However, some other
factors made other changes to the movie’s point of view such as materialism.
Materialism in the American Beauty movie can be seen in which there was not
that much love presented in the family and how they were careless for each other. For
example: at the scene where Lester wanted to kiss his wife in which he was about to spoil
the beer on the couch, his wife was thinking only about the couch since it coasted them
couple thousand dollars. However, Lester did not care that much about the couch as long
as he was trying to make a difference in their relationship. Another scene showed how
Lester’s wife was materialism is when she was telling her daughter that she should not
complain and how she should be thankful for the way how she lives. In fact, she meant
that she should be thankful for the stuff that was provided by her mother. So the director
showed how Lester’s wife was always thinking about herself and how she wanted to be
the best at most times. That might clarify the reason in which she betrayed her husband
with the king of the real estate man. Thus, materialism was one of the factors that made a
change in this movie. However, there are other elements that had a great contribution on
this movie such as connecting sex with violence.
The violence on the American beautify can be seen when colonel Fitts shooted
Lester without his knowledge since he thought the Lester is having something with his
son Ricky. Furthermore, colonel fitts punished his son several times until he was bleeding
and he did not know what was the reason for that. Sexuality can be seen in the American
Beauty movie in different situations since it is a dramatic type of movie, for example:
when Lester was supporting his daughter since she was with the cheerleaders, he felt in
love with his daughter best friend. Furthermore, he started to imagine her naked like if he
would have a shower or something like that with her in which she was lying in a red bath
full of roses. However, Lester realized after that this cheerleader is virgin and he would
not ever do that. Furthermore, when he had the chance he did not do anything for her. On
the other hand, Lester’s wife slept with the real estate king man without offering her
anything. So sometimes some factors like the getting the wrong idea in the relationships
could cause violence like what happened in the movie.
To conclude, American beauty movie used some important factors like gender
bias, materialism, and sexuality. In fact, those factors helped the director and the movie to
send their main message of the movie. In fact, the movie is trying to make it simple and
realistic for the audience so they show how everyone in this life is trying to be satisfied
with him/herself, and how everyone in this life is suffering or struggling with something
in life, as if they were trying to say that the key is to accept whatever you have. Finally, I
think the characters of the movie also made a different in the content of the movie in
which they were perfect at their characters.

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American Beauty

Kevin Spacey

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