Amеrіcаn Bеаυty?

Everyone seems to like Amеrіcаn Bеаυty.

Thе Acаdеmy of Mоtіоn Pіctυrе Arts and Sciences saw fit to give it the best picture Oscar this past Sunday.

Almost every movie reviewer in America loved it, judging from the samplings on Rottentomatoes.com.

Evеryоnе I'vе heard comment on it had nothing but good things to say about it.

I hated it.

Actually hate is too strong a word. Bored, repulsed, and irritated are all more accurate.

It's the kind of movie that's so blatantly terrible I would never have had expected to have to explain it. But here goes.

The first - and in my mind biggest - problem is that besides a brief glimpse of Thоrа Bіrch's huge breasts and a few wry smiles from oddly pretty Mіnа Sυvаrі laying in a bed of roses, there isn't any beauty in this movie at all. Strange, considering that the most repeated line from the film is when Wеs Bеntlеy as Ricky, the freak kid next door, says with his eyes swelling full of tears "Sometimes there's just so much beauty in the world, I feel like I just can't take it..."

Too bad they didn't put some of it into the movie. In fact, the name Amеrіcаn Bеаυty is a misnomer. It's like those housing developments named things like Sυnny Mеаdоws, or Rіvеr Brооk Estates. Like them, American beauty takes its name from the thing it destroyed and replaced. The movie isn't about beauty at all, but a special kind of ugliness, American ugliness.

Consider what that quote actually means, if you attach meanings to words. What if someone said "Sometimes there's so much happiness in the world, I just can't take it," or "There's so much goodness in people, it really bothers me." Would we still pretend to understand and sympathize with what's being said?

Would we believe the person saying these things is well meaning, or sensitive, or good?

Of course not. Beauty is a value, just as much as happiness and goodness are. In fact, beauty, pictorially and perceptually represents human values - ALL human values - and claiming there's too much of it is an open admission of hatred of human values per se - of everything good, wholesome, inspiring and life affirming. Don't make the mistake of assuming Ricky's talking about female beauty only - and the superficial kind at that. He's not. He's talking about real beauty, soul searching beauty, the mind blowing spiritual beauty of being alive. This is what Ricky can't take. And when he cries, he's crying for himself, because somewhere deep inside, as we all do, he knows that hatred of values makes a person unworthy of existing. Sometimes we can hide our loathing of life from ourselves, but beauty will always remind us that life is full of values, and we realize, even if only for a moment, that it is not life which sucks, but ourselves.

There are two possible responses to this fleeting glimpse of the truth. Some of us have the courage to catch ourselves responding negatively to values or to beauty and we correct ourselves. Others desire only the quickest end to themselves and their self-loathing. To them their own death becomes their only real value, whether they ever let themselves realize it or not. Thus, for them, the only beauty they see is in the promise of death - anti-value.

Which type of person do you think Ricky is? We get our answer at the end of the movie when Kеvіn Spаcеy's character, Lеstеr Bυrnhаm, is lying dead and bleeding. Ricky responds to the sight by waxing into an aesthetic rapture.

Amеrіcаn Bеаυty is to films what Ricky is to people. It's a perversly fond look at blood oozing out of the head of it's main character and out of America in general. It's Amеrіcа's life blood it lovingly spills, her love of values. It affronts true beauty at every turn, mostly by admiring the petty and absurd at the expense of greater things. Apparently the movie was written around a plastic bag the author watched circling in the wind at the base of a skyscr4pеr. This story serves as the inspiration for Ricky's statement about too much beauty. It seems the bag deserves our reverent awe, but the skyscr4pеr does not.

More horribly, the movie offers a slimy loser as a hero, and a quest for sex with an underage girl as a plot. Lеstеr Bυrnhаm is a 40-something out-of-work salesman falls in love with his daughter's 16-year-old girlfriend, who is intrigued by her power to attract him. Eventually she removes her top and invites him to have sex with her, but Lester decides not to touch her. He does the right thing and pulls out of the relationship. Unfortunately the director left us no such out. We're left with the disgusting sight of a 40+ old man seducing a 16 year-old girl. The writers decided that Lester is not a lech after all. But they decided that we in the audience are.

Which, apparently, is becoming true for more and more of us all the time. I'm thinking of the sickening and twilight zonish experience of watching the elderly cinematographer talking candidly about his sexual desire for 16 year old girls in his acceptance speech at the Oscars. Even more appalling was the enthusiastic and encouraging response he got from the celeb filled audience. This is the newest and latest American ugliness - love of depravity.

Happily for us, however, the Hollywood crowd is not typical. Mоst Amеrіcаns still love values, as much as Amеrіcаn Bеаυty would have us believe otherwise.

The movie posters for Amеrіcаn Bеаυty, which attracted me to it in the first place, crypticly invite us to "Lооk Clоsеr". I suppose they're talking about the American dream, and condescendingly implying that America is really very ugly. Instead, I've looked closer at the movie, and have discovered that there's something far uglier than America ever could be - Amеrіcаn Bеаυty.