American Denial
Carolyn (Annette Bening) and Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) are an ordinary suburban couple and parents of a teenage daughter, Jane (Thora Birch). American Beauty (1999) begins with a peek into their ordinary world of oblivion and denial. The Burnhams both believe that they have a perfectly normal, happy daughter. Despite Jane’s permanent grimace, black clothes, dark makeup and constant negativism, they would be surprised if you told them that their little girl was profoundly depressed, fed up with her home and school life, and suffering from a negative body image disorder. But the Burnhams’ denial does not end with their attitude towards Jane. They are in utter denial of the fact that their once happy marriage has become empty, joyless and bereft of love. The fact that a complete lack of sex, constant bickering and emotional distance did not cue the Burnhams in on their marriage troubles is a clear testimony to the pervasive psychological force of denial.
The Burnhams, however, are a regular “Brady Bunch” compared to their new neighbors. Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper) and his wife Barbara (Allison Janney) have completely opposite personalities. The one thing they share in common is their denial of their son’s problems. Barbara is completely oblivious to everything. Since it isn’t clear what is going on with her character, the viewer is left to assume that something traumatic happened to her in the past, which has caused her to shut herself off from the outside world. Sadly, she is still a better parent than her husband, who can express only two emotions, silence and rage. Between his mother’s obliviousness and his father’s abusiveness, young Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley) lives in a world of emotional isolation. He survives by locking himself away in his bedroom. The only comfort he gets is from drugs, which provide him with psychological solace. Meanwhile, his drug dealing provides him with the expensive stereo and video equipment that insulate the private world of his bedroom. Surprisingly, Ricky is the only character in American Beauty who seems to be aware of the peek-a-boo game of denial that everyone around him is playing. At one point, he tells Lester about the treasure trove of stereo equipment in his room: “My dad thinks I pay for all this stuff with catering jobs…. Never underestimate the power of denial.”
The Perfect Block
Repression is the unconscious withdrawal from conscious awareness of an unwanted idea, memory, feeling or desire. The unwanted information is pushed down into the unconscious and hidden, just as old suitcases get hidden in the dark corners of our closets. But unlike old suitcases, repressed feelings are psychologically charged because they represent a primal urge that will not go away. If we apply Einstein’s theory of relativity to Freud’s model of psychic energy, we see that energy, like mass, can never be eliminated, it can only be transformed. Similarly, the libido energy behind id impulses does not go away.
Conrad’s primary defense mechanism in Ordinary People is repression. He has horrible feelings of guilt, emanating from the fact that he survived the boating accident that killed his brother. He also feels anger at his brother for “screwing around” on the boat, then “letting go” of Conrad’s hand and drowning. Conrad cannot allow himself to feel negative emotions towards his beloved, deceased brother. On top of all this, Conrad also has feelings of anger and hatred towards his mother, who has treated him like an unwanted stranger since the tragedy. Conrad’s superego will not allow him to express anger or rage toward his mother, because every good boy knows that he must always love and cherish his mother. So all of Conrad’s anger is repressed, causing him to live in a constant state of fear that he will “lose control” and release his emotions in an explosion of rage. His desperate daily efforts to repress his feelings drain his energy, making him look and act like a lifeless zombie. In a key scene with his psychiatrist, Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch), Conrad admits to his repression: “I can’t let it out…. It takes too much energy to get angry.” Dr. Berger wisely responds: “Can you imagine how much energy it takes to keep it in?”
Ordinary People is an exposé of the pervasive repression endemic in the lives of average, upper class, white Americans. Conrad’s emotional disturbance is merely a product of the same repression exhibited and required by his “uptight” parents. Calvin sees that his wife and son are at odds with each other, but he represses his feelings about it and says nothing. However, it is Beth’s need to control her emotions and the emotions of everyone around her that emerges as the root of the family’s problems. One symbol of Beth’s obsessive need for control is her perfectionism, especially in the appearance of her house—the representation of the self. Everything in Beth’s house must be absolutely perfect. Her need for total perfection keeps everyone on edge, in fear that they might break something or leave something in the wrong place. Beth’s need for control and perfection makes her family feel like uncomfortable guests in their own home.
But the person who feels most uncomfortable is Beth herself. When Buck died, her dreams of a perfect life with a perfect family were shattered. Her love for Buck was so strong that she could not express them at the time of his death. Making an emotional scene would have been the epitome of her greatest fear—being emotionally uncontrolled and making a mess. Instead, Beth blocked her emotions and repressed them. The emotions were so strong that she had to build a floodgate of repression so sturdy that no emotions could come out at all. The result was that Beth could no longer express any affection whatsoever, even to Conrad, who so desperately needed his mother’s love.
Both mothers in American Beauty suffer from the same kind of controlling behavior and perfectionism. Barbara Fitts directs all of her energy into keeping a perfectly ordered and neat house. When Ricky and his new girlfriend, Jane Burnham, enter the Fitts house, Barbara tells Jane, “Oh my … I apologize for the way things look around here.” Jane immediately recognizes that Barbara’s perfectionism borders on the psychotic, as the house is completely immaculate. Barbara’s need to repress any messiness includes her control of emotions as well. At the end of the movie, when Ricky—beaten half to death by his father—tells his mother that he’s leaving the house and never coming back, all she can say to him is “Wear a raincoat.” Her inability to relate to any inner emotions, even with her own son, leaves her only his external clothing to focus on.
Carolyn Burnham is a piece of work as well. She demands complete perfection in her house, in her family and in herself. After seeing Jane’s cheerleading performance, the only praise she could offer was “…you didn’t screw up once.” The viewer gets the sense that she judges Jane as she judges herself—by punishing every mistake rather than rewarding every good effort. This mentality is seen clearly in the scene in which Carolyn, a real-estate agent, tries to sell a house. She drives herself so hard in preparing the house and trying to sell it that it becomes obvious that there is more at stake for her than just a sale. Selling the house represents her life, which must be absolutely perfect and spotless. When she fails to sell the house, she begins to cry, but then quickly stops this release of emotion by slapping herself brutally on the face. Emotions, for her, are a symbol of weakness. As her mentor, Buddy the “King of Real Estate” (Peter Gallagher) says, “One must put forth the appearance of success at all times.”
Carolyn must repress every emotion completely, just as she must scrub away each spot of dirt from her house. Her desire to repress messy emotions spreads to her husband and daughter as well. When Jane finally expresses a real feeling to her mother, Carolyn responds with a cruel slap to the face, repressing Jane in the same harsh way that she represses herself. In a later scene, Carolyn and Lester are finally about to experience a moment of intimacy. As Lester seduces Carolyn, he says: “Whatever happened to that girl who used to … flash the traffic helicopters? Have you totally forgotten about her?” Apparently she has, because Carolyn promptly destroys the moment by saying: “Lester, you’re going to spill beer on the couch!” A drop of beer on the couch would be as unacceptable to Carolyn as a pile of feces. Repression, for the perfectionist, is analogous to anal retention. Both of these psychological funct
ions are aimed at controlling and inhibiting any impulsive release.
The core plot of American Beauty is Lester’s infatuation with Angela (Mena Suvari), Jane’s best friend. Lester’s infatuation is socially inappropriate on many levels. Angela is young enough to be his daughter, and she is also his daughter’s best friend. An affair with Angela would be illicit, figuratively incestuous, and adulterous as well. Lester represses his desire for Angela by channeling his desires into masturbatory fantasies. Other than sex, masturbatory fantasizing provides the most direct release of pent-up libido energy. However, when Lester’s repressed impulses are released, his desires gush out with full force.
Unblocking
Since Conrad in Ordinary People is seeing a psychiatrist, it is only appropriate that he should become “unblocked.” Instead of repressing his feelings all the time, he begins to express them openly. He reacts to his mother’s coldness and controlling perfectionism with explosive bursts of anger. The unbearable tension that now arises between mother and son forces Calvin to finally open his eyes and see what’s going on in his family. Towards the end of the film, Conrad gives his mother a warm hug, and she cannot even hug him back. Beth’s inability to express any affection to Conrad makes it clear to Calvin, and even to herself, that she has repressed her feelings for so long that she has lost the ability to let them out.
After only one session with Conrad’s psychiatrist, Calvin becomes unblocked as well. He goes home and tells Beth all of the things that he’s wanted to tell her since Buck’s death. Unfortunately, Beth cannot change. Needless to say, she will not see a psychiatrist—because only flawed, imperfect people see psychiatrists. Calvin finally admits that he will not live with a woman who cannot express love to her only living son. In Beth’s final scene, as she packs her suitcase to leave the house, she begins to cry. But in a massive Herculean effort, she forces her mouth and tear ducts shut, repressing all of her feelings, even as her whole life falls apart. After Beth leaves the house, Calvin and Conrad have their first unrepressed heart-to-heart talk. With the cold, restrictive presence of the repressed mother gone, father and son are finally able to open up and tell each other: “I love you.”
The plot of American Beauty gets rolling when Lester becomes “unblocked.” While Conrad learned to let go of his repression through psychoanalysis, Lester’s catharsis is drug induced. After smoking some incredibly potent marijuana with Ricky, Lester finally releases his libido energy and indulges every impulse that he was so earnestly repressing. Lester quits his stifling office job and gets a minimum responsibility position flipping burgers at a fast food joint. He buys his dream car, a 1970 Pontiac Firebird. He begins smoking pot regularly, and he even stands up to his dominating, castrating wife. But most significantly, Lester begins to act on his fantasy of an affair with Angela. He starts working out, hoping that he may become more sexually attractive to her. Ironically, while too much repression alienated Beth from her husband and son, it is the loss of repression that alienates Lester from his wife and daughter.
Inside-out
Projection is the process of attributing feelings about one’s self to another person. In American Beauty, Frank jumps to a rather rash conclusion that his son Ricky and his neighbor Lester are homosexuals. In actuality, Frank’s deepest fear is that he himself is a homosexual. But Frank is a man’s man—a tough marine officer and the epitome of masculinity. Since Frank’s homoerotic feelings are completely unacceptable to his own sense of manhood, he projects homosexuality onto the “cocksuckers” and “faggots” that he perceives all around him. However, Frank’s projection is a phantom, psychological trickery that represents his own unconscious issues rather than reality. Frank’s projection of homosexuality onto Ricky leads to a final confrontation, in which Frank beats Ricky to a bloody pulp. Frank’s fierce words, however, pack an even harder punch than his fists. He tells Ricky, “I’d rather you were dead, than be a fucking faggot!” Frank’s projection causes a tragic distortion of reality, which leads to an irreparable split between him and his son. In the end, Frank throws Ricky out of his house forever.
Displacement is the redirection of an impulse onto a substitute outlet. The classic example of displacement is a vignette, in which a man is yelled at by his boss for doing a lousy job. The man can’t talk back to his boss, so he holds in his anger until he gets home. At home, the man yells at his wife for a lousy dinner. The wife can’t talk back to her husband (this is a very old vignette), so she yells at their son for having a messy room. The son can’t talk back to his mother, so he goes into the yard and kicks the dog. In each instance, the original feeling of anger and hostility is not directed towards the person causing the anger, but rather it is displaced onto a weaker or more socially appropriate substitute. The mechanism defends the ego by releasing negative psychic energy onto a substitute outlet, typically someone who cannot strike back.
A similar vignette is played out in American Beauty. Lester is forced by his much younger boss to write a demeaning letter, explaining how he is “useful to the company.” Lester cannot express his anger and resentment to his boss, so instead he displaces his pent-up hostility onto his wife and daughter at the dinner table. Later on in the film, Lester displays an even harsher example of displacement. Lester is feeling a lot of anger and bitterness towards his wife, but it is displaced onto his daughter when he tells her: “You better watch yourself Jane, or you’re going to turn into a real bitch, just like your mother.”
Conrad in Ordinary People displaces his repressed feelings of hostility for his mother and brother onto himself. Rather than seeing that she has become distant and unloving since Buck’s death, Conrad blames himself for his mother’s coldness, feeling that he is unworthy of his mother’s love. And rather than accepting the fact that his brother died as a result of his own carelessness, Conrad blames himself for the tragic accident. Consequently, Conrad punishes himself for being a bad brother and an unlovable son. Conrad displaces his hostility onto himself in the form of guilt and self-loathing. Conrad’s suicide attempt was his ultimate expression of displaced hostility.
Strippers
Sublimation is the channeling of sexual desire and libido energy into socially valuable pursuits. Returning to the hydraulic model of libido energy, if guilt is the dam that stops the raging force of the libido, then sublimation is the turbine underneath the dam, which redirects the energy into a different pathway and uses the pressure to generate electricity. Sublimation turns negative energy (psychological lemons) into positive works (psychological lemonade). Freud interpreted Leonardo da Vinci’s life and works as a triumphant example of successfully sublimated libido energy.
Carolyn and Lester Burnham have no sex life, and Barbara Fitts is married to a latent homosexual. We could assume that both Carolyn and Barbara are sexually frustrated. Their repressed energy is sublimated into their obsessive perfectionism. Sublimation of libido energy is especially evident in the scene in which Carolyn is preparing a house for sale. Carolyn strips out of her clothes and cleans the house in her slip. Her intense scrubbing and cleansing is so impassioned and driven, she seems to be purging her own sexual impulses. Carolyn’s husband, Lester, also displays some vintage sublimation. Lester overhears Angela tell Jane: “If he just worked out a little bit, he’d be hot!” In the following scene, Lester strips out of his clothes and stares at his naked reflection in the mirror as he lifts weights. Lester sublimates his sexual desire into a sexually charged physical activity, which is driven towards the goal of sexual intercourse with Angela. Clearly, the channeling of libido energy does not have to be completely asexual in order for it to be a successful display of sublimation.
The Gay Gay-basher
The reaction formation is possibly the most complicated of the defense mechanisms because it results in people behaving in a way that directly contradicts their initial impulse. Frank Fitts’s behavior is possibly the best example of a classic reaction formation in film. Frank has latent homosexual desires. These impulses are
completely unacceptable to Frank’s superego. Frank represses his homosexual stirrings, but since the desire and resulting guilt are both so powerful, repression alone is not enough. Frank feels the need to prove to himself and to others around him that not only is he straight, but he is the straightest man on earth. He’s more than just not gay, he is the antithesis of gay—he is the anti-gay. This intense, overstated reaction against the initial urge is the external manifestation of the reaction formation.
By reacting strongly against the primal impulse, the reaction formation defends the ego in two ways. First, the unacceptable impulse is disassociated with the ego to a maximum degree. Frank cannot possibly feel guilty for being gay, because he is clearly not gay, his anti-gay position being manifest in his frequent hostile and derogatory statements against gay people. And second, the libido energy created by the urge does not have to be repressed, since it is redirected into overt hostility and rage against the people who represent the original urge. Frank does not have to expend psychic energy repressing his homosexual impulses, he simply vents all of this energy into his homophobic rage. An impassioned reaction against a subject (usually a sexually charged subject) is a red flag for a reaction formation. If Frank truly disliked homosexuality, he would simply avoid the subject altogether. But by acting like a raging homophobe, Frank makes it clear that he is expressing his own latent homosexuality through his intense and overstated reactions against homosexuals.
Like the other defense mechanisms, reaction formation can be extremely dangerous and self-destructive. Homophobic reaction formations tend to be so intense that the frenetic energy often becomes violent. Homophobes frequently express their reactions against homosexuals through brutal and occasionally lethal gay bashings. Frank Fitts’s reaction formation becomes extremely violent at the end of American Beauty. After he brutalizes his son Ricky for being a “cocksucker,” he approaches Lester, believing that he is gay, and makes a pass at him. Frank’s sudden decision to reveal his latent homosexuality is a bit inexplicable, though it does much to explain the inner demons driving his character. When Lester rejects Frank’s advances, Frank’s emotions explode in an eruption of violence. Frank must once again hide his shameful desires to himself and to the world. But because he revealed himself to another person, Frank must also blot out the only witness to his shameful secret. In an ultimate act of reaction formation, Frank destroys the thing he desires the most: Frank kills Lester.
Movies and the Mind Page 21