American Beauty The Movie Essay Research Paper

American Beauty The Movie Essay, Research Paper

American Beauty

In the movie American Beauty we see a commentary about people in

contemporary society both as individuals and as members of families. I selected the

character of Lester Burnham, played by Kevin Spacey, and did a psychological

examination on him using the biopsychosocial model.

I noticed many important details that had to be read under close evaluation which

represented the heart of Lester. He is a man weighed down with a soul-sucking job as a

corporate slave at a media marketing magazine. And he hates his life. He doesn.t have a

good outlook on much. He starts out as sort of a schlep with bad posture & is out of

shape. He jump-starts each day by masturbating in the shower, and it’s all downhill from

there. He masturbates because of the fact that he does not get sexually fulfilled by his

wife. Lester is slipping deeper and deeper into a hopeless depression, but ironically he is

downright lively about his own misery. He is so depressed but yet he has this feeling of

making a joke about it. I believe he is repressing feelings and trying to get others around

him to feel sympathetic. Biologically this depression could be from lack of serotonin

produced by his endocrine system. Which his psychological stress brang about the

neurotransmitter imbalance. Their could also be reasons for a genetic hereditary

component for his depression which did not manifest until later in life.

Many people would love to have the luxuries this man has and not think of the

severe problems with his family communication. Today their is not a majority of people

who do not live in a successful middle class society. Maybe his depression turned the

wife off and their for he created his own downfall.

His job of fourteen years is now letting him know how irreplaceable he is.

This makes him feel worthless. Which decreases his self confidence also. This is one of

Lester’s first snaps to his change . His second snap is when he has an eye-opening

encounter when he sees his daughter.s cheerleader friend Angela. Instantly he.s obsessed

with her and becomes fed up with his life. Ricky also has influences in Lester by turning

him on to some primo mind-altering marijuana. This pot might be a temporary biological

condition to dramatically affect his functioning in behavior that he normally would not

use. He provides an example for Lester on how to approach life. Lester calls Ricky his

“hero,” when Ricky unemotionally tells his catering boss, “Then don’t pay me.” Here,

talking with Lester was more important to Ricky than a paying job. This gave

Lester an example of how to view his horrible job. He even thinks back to his

past on how happy he was getting laid and partying, how he did have his whole

life ahead of him. But he remembers the feeling of irresponsibleness and not

being nervous to not have stability. He now discovered that he no longer feels

fulfilled in his job or his personal life and now attempts to make a critical shift in a

career and his lifestyle; A midlife crisis. The next day Lester snaps for good. He

turns in a devastatingly honest job description, which results in forcing his corrupt

boss to pay him a sizeable termination bonus. Facing a midlife crisis, Lester

looks at his life and decides to live it the way he wants to, he no longer can live

life like a prisoner: he quit his job and works at a fast food restaurant because of

the lack of responsibility, starts smoking pot, and begins working out in a

persistent hope to impress Angela. He sees in her something that has been

missing in his life. His physical appearance I believe made him also feel less

confident and had to do with his depression. As he became more fit he became

more confident. He also purchases the car he always wanted. One of his

dreams and fantasies coming to reality also like Angela.

He goes through a kind of decision to rediscover himself, he tries things

he’s never tried, or at least go back to things that he’s long-since forgotten.

Psychologically I believe in his unconscious mind is becoming more conscience

when he fantasizes and dreams about Angela. These sexual feelings have been

submerges into his unconscious thoughts and are now being repressed. They

are life instincts which constitute his libido. But his id cannot take action.

Eventually his ego is demanded by the id to move forward and make a pass to

Angela.

Over the course of the story, Lester Burnham transforms his middle-aged

self into a lean and fit shadow of his former self. I think Lester is very much like a

lot of men in American life, who start out having certain ideas about the kind of

life they will have, but somewhere along the line, they get squashed down. I

believe Lester grew up in a family where the husband had to have certain

responsibilities to raise a family and be the breadwinner. He had viewed this

Внимание, отключите Adblock

Вы посетили наш сайт со включенным блокировщиком рекламы!
Ссылка для скачивания станет доступной сразу после отключения Adblock!

Скачать