'American Beauty' and the psychology of the American dream

April 1, 2024

Having a home of their own, an emotionally stable attractive couple who is madly in love with us and with herself, three healthy children and two dogs; or maybe, a cat? ... A car, a successful job, attractive salary with benefits, paid vacations ... Ah yes, and a friendly boss who does not demand too much.

These are some of the idealistic expectations not always reached of almost everyone who aims to achieve a standard of living more or less in accordance with what marketing has tried to convince us. Will these ideals be just a dream that is transmitted from generation to generation? Or is this really the expectation of life that the majority craves? Too good to be true? It's possible.

The movie American Beauty by American director Sam Mendez It shows us how, regardless of the period of life, people are in a constant struggle with themselves and with others to find a place in society that allows them to feel that their life has a meaning.

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American Beauty and the ideal life

This psychological film allows us to reflect on how we look at our individual ideals, forgetting that sometimes it is necessary to work together to achieve them.

This narration shows us the reality seen from the perspective of the main character; Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) , a man in adulthood to which life shows him in more than one way that the decisions we make can change what happens to us and that we can not take anything for granted. In a somewhat uncertain way, Lester understands that we are the ones who have the power to give a beginning and an end to the situations that overwhelm us .

Economic success and family happiness

Nobody imagines himself immersed in a neurotic relationship with someone who represents not only a competition but also constantly reminds us of what we are not. With a disoriented adolescent daughter who has grown up to realize that you are not the hero in whom one day she believed and with whom you seem not to have a minimum degree of kinship; a mortgage, with no chance of growth at work and high levels of stress just starting at forty, especially when you did everything you thought you could do to achieve it, (yes you did).

The American Beauty movie shows us through what is shown to us about the Burnham family, which Economic success is not always equal to a full and happy life . And getting what we want one day is not always an indicator of success. That is, "not everything that glitters is gold."

The current society seems to be programmed to want these things. There are a lot of media that distort the perception of what really matters to achieve the true common goal of people: happiness itself. Mistakenly, there are those who believe that the value of things is dictated by the price.

The existential crisis of Lester

The central problem of Lester is the existential void in which he finds himself not satisfied with what he has (a daughter, wife, home, employment, etc.) and being unable to meet the expectations and goals that he himself and the society have been imposed according to the role to play: being head of family, an exemplary father, a successful businessman, etc.

Among other things, Lester, he realizes that he has lost something and is determined to find it . Lacking apparent reasons to make a change and just when he seemed to resign himself to the course of life that he himself chose, he finds that "something" he had lost; a reason

The feeling of feeling that you can still achieve things to achieve your own happiness gives you a different perspective to what you thought was hopeless. The possibility of reaching what seemed lost (his happiness) allows him to regain the reins of his life and with this the necessary decisions to change his vision of the world and himself; He starts doing what he really wants for him and not for others. That's when Lester loses something that is no doubt a guarantee for failure: it loses fear .

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The fundamental questions

Everything has a limit; It is important to be aware of what is ours and, what is more important, to know the limits of others in order to establish before them and us the guidelines that will define the success or failure of our decisions, always seeking to be congruent to them.

Where do I come from ?, Where do I go ?, Who am I? ...The plot of American Beauty reminds us that it is easy to distract ourselves and divert attention from what is really vital to us, that "something" that makes everything have a meaning and a purpose. That answer to the most important of the questions, for what?

The decisions we make today will undoubtedly have an echo in our future in the short, medium and long term. It is essential to be honest with ourselves and to be clear about what is intended. , where we want to go, how we are going to achieve it and how far we are willing to go to make this happen.

But above all, be clear about the purpose and meaning of what we do. If we do not have defined the for what? we will hardly assign a value or meaning to everything that we possess; Only we ourselves have the power to achieve an effective change in our lives.