From Issue 6, September 2002:

Satire and American Beauty

by Martina Nagel

Satire is one of the most satisfying, stirring, even life-changing experiences that art can provide. British writers have excelled at it since the early eighteenth century when Dryden, Swift and Pope imbued their poetry with a strong satirical tone. George Orwell’s Animal Farm developed the satirical style into a political metaphor, and the magazine Private Eye and the television programme Spitting Image used satire successfully to produce yet new forms. Last year satire crept on to the big screen and caused a surprising and extraordinary success with American Beauty. Martina Nagel explains the secrets of its success.

Alan Ball’s biting script American Beauty, together with directing from Sam Mendes, put America’s suburban life under the magnifying glass, exposing its absurdity. What is the secret of American Beauty’s success? Why does satire appeal to us and make us pay to see ourselves – humanity – ridiculed?

Well, when satire aims its sharp sting at public figures, its effect on the audience is almost therapeutic. It releases a mixture of anger and powerlessness, fear and frustration in the exclamation, ‘Finally someone has put their finger on it and spelled out who these people really are.’  When satire is aimed at us we like to recognise our neighbour in it. ‘I know so many people just like that,’ was the common expression after American Beauty was released in cinemas. Many years before Swift had observed that satire is like a mirror in which people see everyone’s face except their own. The truth is that satire sits right on the back of hypocrisy, always on the look out for new discrepancies between values and actions, between people’s lip service to virtue and their actual performance in life.

What sets satire apart from comedy – which only reminds us of our incorrigible human limitations – is that satire is dedicated to a shared sense of value. Its aggression draws upon an implicit moral agreement between satirist and audience, so that anything identified as being contradictory can become the butt of the jokes.

American Beauty targets the lives of perfectly normal middle-class individuals. Their positions in society as workers and consumers, the ones who live comfortably but desire more comfort. The main character, Lester Burnham, finds himself trapped in this perfect set-up behind the bars of an apparently harmonious façade. Instead of enjoying his job, Lester is overwhelmed by the meaninglessness and monotony of the work that drains the life from him. Instead of valuing the achievements of his marriage, Lester feels intimidated by his wife’s respect for an Italian silk settee that inhibits the slightest touch of intimacy between them.

Instead of enjoying their daughter’s adolescence, both accuse each other of not making the effort and withdraw to their own worlds. The daughter escapes to the drug-dealing neighbour and Lester to the garage to pump up his body so as to be attractive to his daughter’s girlfriend.

This is the basic structure from which the filmmakers will peel off layer after layer to make us look more closely, but not at the deep feelings and psychological bonds. No. Satire does not invite the audience to speculate on any complex motives of the characters because this would result in empathy with the characters’ inner struggles and longings and make it impossible for the audience to respond to the satire. As the French say: ‘To understand everything is to forgive everything.’ 

Satire does the opposite; it exaggerates and distorts the target in ways that emphasise the behaviour that the satirist wishes to attack. Alan Ball succeeds in painting a picture of suburban life that is close enough to be recognised but sufficiently distorted to be funny. The depiction is not life-like. Much of the best satire depends on skilful caricature rather than any attempt at an authentic rendition of the subject. Ball chooses Lester Burnham as the narrator and through him displays his distinct point of view and critical attitude towards the world that he puts on screen.

CONT. in Issue 6.