American Beauty: The Film through Platonic Eyes
American Beauty is a film that I first heard about in my Philosophy of Film class, just in passing. One of the older students mentioned it as one of those films that are just “great” and everyone knows is “good” (Calvin professors especially seem to have an appreciation for it), but when pressed to explain why it is good, there usually isn’t a substantial answer. I’d like to do a sort of exegetical study of the film highlighting the platonic themes and the Augustinian themes as well.
The first thing that comes to mind in regards to the platonic nature of the film is the emphasis on the image of appearances throughout the film. Plato’s analogy of the cave is a good example of his ontology: there is the world of the “real,” and then the world of illusions, and in his hierarchy of existence model, all the illusions are just shadows of what is really real (for him, the Forms). Plato thought that earthly things, the world of the senses, are ultimately a shadow of the real, and as such should not be valued in and of themselves. Even though the world of the senses seems as if it is real, it is deceptive. Similarly, the film consistently has a theme of false appearances.
When I was younger, I used to be fascinated by the text on car review mirrors. I would sit in the passenger seat, staring out the window, and see the review mirror on the side of the car. In it, I might see a reflection of a car behind us or something of that nature. But the text over that image said, “Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” I could not understand why the images in the mirror would lie to me like that, then, if the text was to be trusted. Why wouldn’t the mirror present the object exactly as close as it was instead of making it appear farther away? Why wouldn’t it show reality exactly as it was instead of deceiving me? Although of course, the image could have been the truthful one and the text could have been the deceiver; that’s the conclusion I actually came to because of my foundational trust in appearances.
For Plato, a mirror is something that distorts reality because it is in fact a copy. Not only mirrors create a copy of reality, however; sensible things do as well. In American Beauty, these themes are touched upon by showing the distinction between that what seems to be and that which is. The Burnham family has to present an image of themselves to the outside world that they are in fact “real”: that is, really happy. But in fact, they are “phoney” and not real at all, despite the appearance that they are. Just as in my mirror analogy, mirrors in American Beauty are things that have the potential to distort reality. Jane looks at herself in the mirror and sees ugliness; Lester looks at himself in a window and sees ugliness as well. The opposing force to the symbol of mirrors is Ricky’s camera. Unlike the mirror that distorts reality, Ricky’s camera is the way in which one sees the truth underneath things. Ricky comments, “Welcome to America’s Weirdest Home Videos.” He sees how strange the people really are; but simultaneously, he sees true reality that way. His camera tends to either capture the worst reality that appearances have shown to be beautiful, or it captures things that appearances claim are ugly and shows them as beautiful.
The character who can be read in a platonic manner most vividly is Carolyn. She is so focused on money and stuff that she forgets to live, as Lester points out to her numerous times. Her $4,000 couch is just a couch, he says. It is just stuff; life does not exist in the stuff she cares about so deeply—it shows up in Love, which for Plato, is true reality as one of the Forms.
The other platonic thing about this movie is the voice-over. The movie opens and closes with a disembodied voice, floating over the world as if it has escaped from its prison-like body. In the ending monologue, parallel to the Phaedo, Lester is free, even though he is dead: “I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me… but it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst… And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life.” It is only after Lester has died and can realize that the beauty in the world is a part of this disembodied Form that he has as he floats over the city; and arguably he could not see it while he was still enfleshed. Ultimately, the world is not something he wants to hold on to in his afterlife. It was beautiful only because it pointed him here to this existence. Now, this is a bit of a simplification so that the film can be interpreted as Platonically as possible; really, he could have recognized the beauty while he was still in his flesh, since he was looking at the picture of his family as he got shot. It could be argued that, had he lived, he would have seen much more beauty that was very embodied. Also, the character of Ricky poses a problem to this interpretation, since he saw the beauty in sensible things. But even then, the beauty of the bag only was beautiful in that it was being tossed around by the invisible wind: “that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and… this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video’s a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember… and I need to remember… Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.” It is that benevolent force, similar to Plato’s world of the Forms, that is truly beautiful and truly real.
Also, what can be noticed about these two key quotes, the fundamental aspect of the human being is his “heart.” Ricky noted that he felt his heart was going to “cave in” and Lester said that his “heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst.” His body is not what matters, since the true Lester is the one giving the monologue; his heart, or soul, is all that matters at the end of the day, and its recognition of beauty; i.e., the Forms. This movie fits in very nicely with Plato’s ontology, I think.
Phaedrus: Part 2– The Speech of Lysius and the First Speech of Socrates
It is noteworthy, first, to recognize that Socrates will not allow Phaedrus to recite the speech if he can hear the speech read instead. The spoken word for Socrates is closer to the Forms (since it is immaterial) than the immaterial. By copying it into words on a page it is “killing it” in a sense, or making it a copy. To have Phaedrus recite it from memory would be to copy the copy, bringing to mind Plato’s ontology as portrayed in the allegory of the cave.
Socrates, despite Phaedrus’ praises for Lysius’ speech, reacts to it with utmost sarcasm. Phaedrus calls for him to do a speech on the topic then, and to get Socrates to agree, he decides to swear by the tree they are near that he will never let Socrates see or hear another speech he comes in contact with. Oddly enough, the threat works on Socrates, despite his disbelief in the true reality of the tree, and the reader might wonder why he wouldn’t just find his speeches through some other source. Perhaps when his dear friend Phaedrus swears by the tree, which Socrates knows to be a useless oath (in his metaphysics), he decides he must try and enlighten his friend by giving him a speech that is closer to the truth. This theory is reinforced when Socrates begins his first speech by stating that most people do not realize their ignorance about the essential nature of something; in this case, he is setting himself up to define the notion of “love.”
People are characterized by two different types of aims: the rational, which is seen by those who desire excellence or beauty. The other aim is toward pleasure, which is irrational. Socrates interrupts himself to ask Phaedrus if he thinks he is inspired, and when Phaedrus answers in the affirmative, Socrates mentions that the nymphs might take possession of him soon… or perhaps that he may be gripped by irrational desire for lyrical pleasure in his speech. This clarification allows Socrates to argue that a “lover,” or someone enslaved by the desire for pleasure, will only use the object of his desire, which means it is better to have a friend than a lover.
Then, abruptly, Socrates stops. Phaedrus and the reader alike wonder at the unbalanced treatment, since Socrates did not explain the benefits of thwarting a lover. Socrates marvels at the love Phaedrus has for rhetoric, which will undoubtedly appear later in the work, and then is about to leave until he receives his “supernatural sign” that which makes him a gadfly in the lives of the people of Athens. This sign reminds Socrates that Love is a god, and that the two previous speeches were blasphemous. It seems rare to find Socrates in the wrong; usually he exposes the errors and indiscrepancies of others, yet here he is, apparently bewitched by Phaedrus (whom he perhaps loves), falling into a contradiction himself: claiming that lovers are bad while believing that Love is a god, and thus belonging to the immaterial world of the Forms.
Phaedrus: Beginning scene
But when I read the beginning dialogue between Phaedrus and Socrates, I was struck by the same thing. There has been debate over what the Phaedrus is really about, but one of the candidates is the topic of the speeches themselves: love. The descriptions of the setting that begin this dialogue seem to reflect that: love for nature. Which seems strange that it occurs in a platonic dialogue… I mean, isn’t Plato supposed to hate the material world? Yet Socrates remarks about the beauty of the world in which he is. It is notable that he has not often traveled outside the city, if ever. I think for Plato, that means that Socrates is a lover of beauty– and although he recognizes it in the landscape of the country, there is a place in which even more true beauty resides: other people.
The friendship he has for Phaedrus is already evident, and it is no accident that the speech they are to read together is on love. This presentation of their relationship is a foreshadowing of the dialogue that is about to take place: Socrates is going to discuss love as a physical, erotic thing, and then will find that his “divine sign” is telling him he has blasphemed true love. True love is not the “happily ever after” man and woman presentation that Disney has portrayed. Instead, it is a type of homosexual love in that two males are like minded enough (i.e., rational) to be friends.
There are many platonic themes in the Phaedrus, and the next blog post will deal with the speeches themselves.
Update: Prayer Request
A quick update: I have been posting about once a week on theotherjournal.com, so if you get a chance you can check them out. I can’t vouch completely for the good quality of those posts… mostly I’m just trying to sound more intelligent than I actually am, and I come up with cheesy titles that I write at 3am or something. But there might be some valuable gems hidden somewhere in them.
I got the co-editor position of the news section of the college newspaper. It’s been a learning experience; I think I’ve gotten better at writing, and interviewing, although I’m still not very confident of my interviewing skills. But I have learned how to construct a news piece relatively well, and then the editing portion of putting together the section is relatively easy, especially after having to work with a much more flawed program for yearbook the last three years.
Why I decided to write today however is because of a prayer request. I found out on Monday that my mother was going in for surgery Tuesday morning to have a hysterectomy. First I wasn’t even quite sure what it was and so I called my grandma (the nurse!) and she explained. I did end up talking to my mom, who told me she had cysts on her ovaries. Not to mention she’s had six pregnancies… (quite a few miscarriages) and so her cramping and bleeding every month is pretty bad. This will improve her “quality of life,” I guess you could say. I talked to her just now, she was drugged all night and so didn’t sleep, so she was pretty groggy, but the surgery went well. It took a little longer than expected; there was some leftover scar tissue from her previous C-section surgeries, and some other unexpected things the surgeon encountered, but everything went successful. She will have a period of 4 to 6 weeks of recovery, but she’s already trying to walk around and stuff so I’m guessing she’ll recover pretty fast. Part of the reason she had the surgery now is because she’s unemployed; which ironically is convenient, considering the amount of work she would have to miss if she was working. But, part of the prayer request is that she can find a job after she recovers.
And, one more note about me: I’m going to be home in a week and a half or so for Spring Break, which I’m really excited about, but only half of the break will be spent at home, the other half I’m spending with my boyfriend at his house in the Detroit area. Hopefully meeting the parents won’t be that bad! We’ll be in Portland for our four month anniversary. Haha, I realize that’s not that big of a deal, but it’s kind of exciting. Yay for the cold Oregon coast as a romantic outing!
Alright, that’s all from me now. Maybe I should talk about my classes, since it’s almost half way through the semester; I guess I could say that I don’t like my philosophy classes as much as I hoped, and I really like my sociology class. I have a lot of reading all the time; last week I didn’t read at all for one class, so that was fun catching up over the weekend. I’m not so worried about the philosophy part as of right now, because I remembered the person who encouraged me to take philosophy said that the old stuff was kind of a drag, but what was really exciting is the contemporary stuff. That’s why I’m at Calvin, because eventually, once I get the basics of the historical philosophy down, I’ll be able to interact with what’s going on in the philosophical world right now which is pretty cool. Yay Jamie Smith! Oh, speaking of, I didn’t get the summer research job I was hoping for. Partly due to the economy, which is weird that it would affect me in a way, but also I just don’t think the idea was developed well enough and that Prof. Smith and I had the right characteristics to do it in a manner that the teaching institute would want, i.e., an end product of curriculum. It would be more theoretical than anything I think.
Okay, now I really am done!
End of Christmas Break
Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on here… WordPress has changed everything around on me! If you read my last post, I said that I’d be writing more academic stuff on theotherjournal.com and I’d be on here for just casual updates about my life and stuff. Well to be honest, in the last few months my blogging desire has decreased dramatically. But I made a commitment to theotherjournal, and have been trying to keep putting something up there that sounds somewhat interesting once a week.
But, it is nearing the end of my Christmas break, the first time I returned home after 4 months… and because blogging helps me process, I wanted to go ahead and post a blog that was pretty personal, which I don’t really feel like I can do on the other one. There’s not a whole lot of academic stuff in this post, just the thoughts of a disappearing teenager. (Disappearing in the sense that I’m supposed to be becoming an adult now).
The nation got hit with some pretty crummy weather across the board the week I came home, but the Northwest weather was particularly momentous, as those living here know. The worst weather in 30-something years. It was pretty gross. I didn’t enjoy the snow, since I get plenty in Michigan, and I was ready to come home and hang out with my friends the entire time. But, instead I was under house arrest for a week, leaving my friend-time to only a short week. And since I’ve made friends in different circles, that meant I had to plan the whole week out more-or-less as to when I’d hang out with what friends. Because I knew that my time here was short, I was ready to live it up to the max and appreciate every second I got with them, especially the ones I really missed. But the first ocassion I got out of the house, I planned a get together with a few guy friends of mine that I especially missed. And it was great to see them! But it wasn’t a big deal to them that I was there, I thought. They just chatted about cars and video games or whatever, which I couldn’t really be included in. It wasn’t as if my presence really seemed to make a difference. And after moving 2000 miles away, and missing them buckets while I was gone, it felt like that wasn’t returned.
That was a definite let down. So I shouldn’t have been surprised that getting together with friends from high school would feel like… well, high school again. And now that I’ve been at college for 4 months, and love it, I realize, over all, I hated high school. Not to say I hated my friends… I didn’t at all. But I just thought, I feel like I’ve changed so much now that I’m in college, I would have expected my friends to change that same way so that we could all be college-kids together! And of course, that was the case in a lot of ways. But I didn’t feel like they changed as much over the past four months as I have. But maybe moving clear across the country does that to someone.
Another item that made this break especially odd is that I started dating someone at school now. We’ve only been dating about a month and a half, but we’ve been good friends for about 3 months, and I really miss him. But it’s weird to me that I can be hanging out with friends of six years and miss someone I’ve only known for a few months. And because it’s so early in our relationship, in a lot of ways I really don’t know him that well, so much of my time this break has been spent worrying that since I’m not with him, he’s going to get over me. That’s what happened with the last guy I dated, and unfortunately the fear of that happening again is ever-present.
Also, my boyfriend has a great family. Not perfect, of course, but he has two siblings and two parents still married, and he spent a lot of time at his grandparents house (probably too much time, but that’s beside the point). So since I talk to him and am sharing his life and whatnot, his life this break is providing a direct foil to mine, almost causing me to be jealous of him. Not that my family is horrible, but I’ve lived with my grandma the past six years, and my parents both have screwed up lives that they sometimes try and include me in, but for the most part I don’t know them and in some ways don’t want to. When I don’t think about parents, usually I’m okay with my situation, and I appreciate what I have. But with his life serving as a reminder to what I’m missing… it’s been hard this break.
So for the past four months I’ve gotten homesick and missed the familiar things from the Northwest. But now, once I got here, I realize… where I feel most comfortable has shifted. I do not feel comfortable here, I feel like a visitor. I feel alone and unappreciated and imprisoned by the mistakes I made in high school. I’ve been able to start fresh in Michigan, and that’s what I needed. I’ve been able to be more confident, more comfortable, and if I dare say it, less sinful. Or at least, the sins that plagued me all through high school are not an issue in college, thankfully. I don’t want to say I’m a completely different person. Those who have met me again see me as the same. But I think underneath, if one looks hard enough, I have changed quite a bit.
I look forward to going back. I admit, I’m not as interested in academics as I used to be. In high school, that was the only thing that kept me going. But I still get excited about it enough that the rest of the school year should go by beautifully, I think.
Update: The Other Journal
Hey, I realize it’s been a while since I’ve posted, that’s mainly because I’m a busy college student. But, for those of you still interested in following my blogs, I have recently begun blogging for Theotherjournal.com. My blog is called Ex Veritate Vita, “Out of Truth [comes] Life.” They put a stellar picture with it too. Those posts should be more academically based, and probably will be the result of something I’m learning about in one of my classes.
Also, other exciting news… I most likely will be staying in Grand Rapids this summer and working on a project with Jamie Smith regarding K-12 education and/or classical education in light of the considerations brought up in his new book Desiring the Kingdom coming out this summer. I don’t want to jinx it by announcing it before its finalized, but I’m pretty excited.
On top of that, I have been writing for the student newspaper here at Calvin, the Chimes, and again, I don’t want to jinx it, but I will probably be able to be co-editor for the News section next semester. One of the editors is graduating early.
Needless to say… I am definitely enjoying college. 
This blog will probably become an update center for more personal stuff for friends and family. But again, check out the blog on theotherjournal.com!
Living in History
Occasionally I imagine how the future generations will view our time in history. History had always been somewhat interesting to me, particularly because I like learning stories, but it really became important when studying the person of Christ and the Incarnation. I became convinced that history was important to God. Through the Incarnation, he came and became bound by time and a particular culture and place in history… to be more like us. So time is important. Humans are necessarily time-bound beings. Which is to say, humans are historical.
So, that begs the question, what will our time in history look like when it is the past? We are able to look at the centuries that have come before us and analyze them… how will we be analyzed? I don’t think most people go around living their life in terms of how they will be analyzed in the future… ocassionally, perhaps, but people are much more concerned with living in the present. I don’t think Martin Luther wondered what a college student in 2008 would think about his 95 Theses… he was much more concerned with the current state of affairs.
So in light of these thoughts, I thought it worthwhile to read Frank Viola’s assessment of the Emergent Church movement. he writes it as one who is thinking historically; who has looked at phenomena that are just as reactionary, and how most people don’t acknowledge the flaws until it is too late to change them. Here is a call to change the emergent church before it is too late. This article is a bit dated, but still interesting. His bias is quite clear in that he supports house churches, which undoubtedly have their own problems, but still is a really good article for explaining some of the main components of what Emergent churches tend to look like, and what those flaws are.
God Probably Doesn’t Exist.
The British Humanist Association, supported by Richard Dawkins and others like Ellis have tried a new method to make their opinion heard that religion is worthless: plaster it on buses in Britain.
At first glance, this may seem horrible. But does Dawkins have a point? What he’s reacting to are the religious posters that say things like, “Repent! Or go to hell!”
The full slogan says: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
Who knows what the affect would be. People are getting so cynical of advertising in general…. Why not post something like that? Will it really matter either way?
Pacifism… Not sticking one’s head in the sand
One of my friends was in a debate tonight regarding war, specifically the current war. The opening question was whether or not America should pull out of Iraq and into Afganistan. There were a number of good points raised by the five students, some more than others, and I have to say that my friend did a remarkable job as an informed individual that answered the question comprehensively.
There was one student who, in his opening statement, made extremely clear that he is a pacifist. I am a pacifist too, as one would know from my previous entries, so at first I was interested in how he might relate that to the current situation. But that was the problem… he didn’t. He “answered” the question, saying that America should not move out of Iraq, and should not go into Afganistan. Then he went into what might have been a good argument for pacifism in another context… however, it had no bearing whatsoever on the actual topic being discussed. He was the only one of the five to bring his Bible up to the debate table (although he didn’t open it; maybe it was just there as moral support), and he argued that murder and killing and violence are unnatural. Very true. But what does that look like for this situation?
A lot of the other students had obviously been well informed about specific cultural and political tensions between not just the three countries mentioned, but Iran as well. They addressed each others’ concerns well, and then the need for clarification about the pacifist’s position arose. When the moderator asked for clarification of what it looked like to stay in Iraq but not be at war, the pacifist opened a whole other can of worms: he said that our government is a Christian nation, and as such we should be “pushing” Christianity, although not in a military sense.
I’m sure that shocked a lot of us. He went on to say other things that are clearly fallible, or at least need a lot more clarification, like the Roman empire fell because of the pacifism of early Christians, and that the Christian force he’s promoting will not disrupt any current cultural tendencies, essentially taking out the “Christian” aspect of Christianity, since a “secular” group could promote justice and peace just as much as Christians.
All that to say…. I really wish he hadn’t given pacifism such a bad rap. Pacifism isn’t a denial of all reality. It is ascribing to a higher reality. There are governmental issues that need to be discussed pragmatically as well, and if as a pacifist who thinks that those ultimately will fail, and want to abstain from that, like me, that’s fine. But if you go as far to say we are a Christian nation, and ignore the specific issues that are making this a complicated topic, just trying to promote pacifism in the process, I wish you wouldn’t. Really. Be a closet pacifist or something.
All this political talk!
I keep posting all these blogs that have to do with politics, and I realize it is somewhat onesided, but that’s the culture I’m breathing right now. How can one not?
Here’s another item about politics. I read an essay by Emma Goldman, and I was struck by how much she focused on the economic aspect of her times. Her explanation for crime was that it was “misguided energy”: people were being forced to make ugly things, and they found no joy or pride in producing something beautiful. They were trapped inside a prison that made them go crazy.
I brought the topic up in my political science class, and I did a poor job of trying to phrase it into a question; it wasn’t really a question, I just wanted to talk about it more. What resulted from the discussion however was the notion that economic power feeds into state power. I had known that corporations and nation-state governments were extremely similar. But what if this was taken to its extreme?
The Pixar movie Wall-E indirectly addresses this. I watched it again last night, so it was fresh in my head, and this time I noticed that the person in charge is the CEO of Big N Large. He has a podium that looks very much like it came out of the White House… but there is no governmental presence in the movie– just a corporation.
Is that an accurate depiction of what this would look like at its extreme? Would we be any worse off if a corporation was running our country instead of a government? Sometimes its hard to tell the difference between the two anyway.
