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When director Sam Mendes started working on the Academy award winning American Beauty, his goal was to encapsulate the stereotypical ideology that defines American society. American Beauty is a powerful character drama that allows the audience to use their signification system to extract the messages about contemporary society it presents. The film, at the signifier level, connects images from the lives of a family and the surrounding neighborhood in American suburbia to construct a text. At the signified level, the film deals with the various features of American ideology that are shown in pop culture, including materialism, the contrast between appearance and reality, the prominence of denial and repression, and the constant juvenilization of people. ...
This movie explores the typical American dream of living in a big house with a white picket fence, where everything matches and the dishes sparkle. ...
There are many inter-connecting themes in American Beauty. ... The “American Dream” is what the Burnhams seem to have - good jobs, a house in the suburbs, children, two cars, and a nice home. The Art Culture Film website describes them as "trapped by the ideology of the American Dream. ... The more unhappy the characters in the film, the more they cover reality with an illusion. ... In actuality, she has a very subtle beauty that is only recognized by Ricky. ...
Semiotic analysis of the symbols prevalent in American Beauty reinforce the themes presented. ... The recurring symbol is that of the red rose which signifies love, beauty and passion. ... Lesters sexual fantasies are bathed in red rose petals, flying in all directions to accentuate the beauty of his object of desire, Angela Hayes. The boring family dinner is center pieced by a tightly arranged little bouquet of red roses which highlights Jane, who is seated behind them, and brings her beauty to the forefront. The red color is a signifier of love, beauty, and passion and the signification extracted from the symbol accentuates the themes Mendes presents. ... The scene in which this symbol appears implies that if people took the time to see beauty in everything, even in things that may initially seem ugly, perhaps society would be happier and people would lead more meaningful lives. ... The plastic bag and music are symbols that help present the message of underlying beauty and reinforce the character traits respectively in the text, or film. ...
The various themes Mendes presents are solidified in the overall message of the film, which lies in its title, American Beauty.
Approximate Word count = 2012
Approximate Pages = 8
(250 words per page double spaced)
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