**WARNING**

Do you ever get the feeling that everyone is looking at something in a completely wrong way, except for you? Maybe it's presumptuous to say this (if so, I really don't care!), but that's the way I feel about "American Beauty" right now. This is a truly wonderful movie with a heartfelt message that (IMHO) is being misinterpreted and perverted everywhere I turn. Let's "look closer."

There is a certain faction of the religious community that blasts this movie every chance they get, claiming it promotes immoral behavior and disrespects Biblical values. I read a hate-filled piece of tripe in my local paper which referred to it as "American Ugly" and claimed that the plot was, "A middle-aged man lusts after a teenager and uses illegal drugs until he is finally murdered by his adulterous wife." WHAT?! While much of that does take place in "American Beauty," the plot is far more complex and the "middle-aged man" is murdered by his angry, intolerant neighbor, not his wife. The writer had obviously not even bothered to see the movie before he called it immoral and blamed it for all the world's evils! Now that's great journalism, folks.

This sort of thing is the most common mistake in regards to this movie. People assume that just because a movie depicts something it must promote it. Not true! Sometimes the best way to prove the sheer folly of something is to show it realistically and unflinchingly, so the world can see how utterly foolish it is. Yes, "American Beauty" has plenty of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll to go around. But it never says that any of those things are the answers in life; in fact, I thought it was awfully harsh on people who turned exclusively to material things and carnal pleasures in their search for peace.

I also find it ironic that the church beats on this movie for being "anti-religion" when Ricky has that huge monologue in the middle of the movie talking about how God is beauty and he sees God everywhere, telling him not to be afraid. (That scene is one of the most spiritual things I've ever seen in a movie. Sounds pretty religious to me.) The same thing happened to "Dogma" and "The Last Temptation Of Christ," both of which agreed with basic Christian teachings and (IMHO) were pro-religion movies that had a few issues with the trappings of Christianity. Good luck finding any religion in most movies. What's the message the church is sending? "Vulgar language, sex, and gore are okay as long as you don't try to reform our religion?"

But it's not the religious right (who think everyone is going to hell except them, so I'm not too surprised they hated this movie) but the other extreme that ticks me off the most. I know dozens of people who fall into this camp. This is how they interpret "American Beauty": "Yeah, Lester died, but before that he quit his job and bought the cool car and got in shape and did some drugs and acted like an teenager again and did everything he'd always wanted to do, so after he died he didn't regret anything. So the moral of this movie is to do whatever you want because we're all going to die." Also not true...and I'll tell you why.

I feel like people are forgetting about the ending. If it was really like that I think Lester would have gone all the way with the teenage girl and died before he had a chance to regret it. But Lester really couldn't bring himself to go through with it! And when his neighbor shot him, he wasn't smoking weed or screwing or driving that great car. He was looking at a picture of his family--the thing that mattered to him in the first place, but that he had lost sight of thanks to materialism and upward mobility and all the other voices that sicken and deafen our culture. If Lester had really wanted to be a perpetual adolescent, why did he get married and have kids? It's pretty clear that Lester didn't want to be 18 forever, it just took the midlife crisis for him to realize that.

I thought "American Beauty" was saying that there's a time and place to get a little crazy, because we all need that experience. (After all, Lester got to say and do whatever he wanted for the last few weeks of his life--what's not to like?) But in the end you have to find something more important than fast cars, good drugs, and beautiful girls and hold onto that. Maybe it's a family like Lester's, or a love like Ricky and Jane's. Live as you believe, and let others do the same. And, most importantly, appreciate the beauty that surrounds you and don't take a single moment of your life for granted, because before you know it the only chance you get is gone. Now there's a message that's a little more daring than "worship Satan" or "smoke dope." No wonder few people seem to want to face it.

Copyright (c) 2000 by Beth Kinderman. This is my original work, so please respect it.