Tenets of social constructionist theory weave threads through the film American Beauty. Released in 1999, the film stars Annette Bening and Kevin Spacey as a suburban couple watching their marriage and their relationship with their daughter (played by Thora Birch) deteriorate before their eyes. By the time the film picks up the story of the Burnham family, their interpersonal situation is already past the point of no return, and what the viewer is left to admire is akin to watching a run-down house rotting beam-by-beam.
Constructionists argue that the manner of interpersonal communication is often more important than the content. This particular theory holds true for the Burnham family as it would for any other people. Carolyn Burnham (Bening) rarely speaks to her husband without a sarcastic snipe to her voice. As she, husband Lester (Spacey), and daughter Jane are heading for the car to go to work/school, Carolyn demands of her harried husband, “Lester, could you make me a little later, please, because I’m not quite late enough?” Later, when Lester faces the loss of his job, his wife’s operative question is, “Oh, could you be a little more dramatic, please?”
Carolyn’s bitter sarcasm and constant reproach force Lester into a posture that alternates between defensive and beaten. It doesn’t do much for Jane, either. After a performance that Jane gives with her school’s dance team, the greatest praise Carolyn can offer is, “You didn’t screw up once!” The bitterness that all three carry inside has been nurtured by years of fighting and/or neglect.
Jane doesn’t spare her father from responsibility for their strained relationship, either. Early on, Lester asks about Jane’s day at school as a precursor to a rant about his own difficult work day. When her complete lack of interest becomes obvious, her explanation is, “You can’t all of a sudden be my best friend just because you had a bad day…you’ve barely even spoken to me for months.” This may speak more to a lack of content in the communication between Lester and Jane, but the context in which he finally decides to reach out to his daughter causes the gesture to ring hollow, since he automatically dives into a purge of his own worries and problems.
For her part, Carolyn doesn’t appear to be high-strung and brittle because it sounds like the fun thing to do at the time. After a blowup at the dinner table, Carolyn tries to console a not-all-that-upset Jane in Jane’s bedroom with the “most important lesson in life”: a person cannot count on anyone in life but him- or herself. She’s been pounded into a glossy, fragile shell by a difficult upbringing of her own, it seems. Being driven to succeed was likely the only way to improve her situation, and it’s made her less patient and able to relate to others who don’t share the same needs.
The one time we see her happy and loose is when she’s having lunch (and then some seriously noisy sex) with real-estate-sales competitor Buddy Kane (played by Peter Gallagher). During that lunch, Carolyn almost melts into a puddle right there in her chair when Buddy says things like “being driven to succeed [is not] a character flaw” and “in order to be successful, one must project an image of success at all times.” This sort of language, directly out of a self-help book though it may be, is much more compatible with Carolyn’s world view than Lester’s more idealistic statements. And apparently that’s all it takes for her to be down for gettin’ freaky in a motel.
Even when Lester and Carolyn are struggling to make themselves accessible to Jane, they still keep up a dominant, parental pattern of dialogue that infers, “I am parent, therefore I must make this a teaching experience for you, my child.” After Jane accuses Lester of not speaking to her for months, he follows her into the kitchen and tells her, “You don’t have to wait for me to come to you, you know.” It’s a statement that sounds conciliatory to his ears, but to her ears, it sounds like a lecture. Likewise, when Carolyn is in Jane’s room giving her the “most important lesson in life” speech, she’s a quivering, teary mess, ill-equipped to be offering life advice to anyone at that moment. Jane’s refusal of the lesson is greeted with a slap across the face, sending the mother-daughter relationship spiraling even faster.
Coordinated management of meaning theorists are occasionally dubbed “social ecologists,” examining the cumulative effects of every statement and interaction on a person or group’s communication practices. If angry statements and insults are to communication as pollution is to the ecology, the Burnham family spends the entirety of the film, brief outsider-induced moments of euphoria aside, living under a smog cloud that would make Mexico City look like Waikiki Beach. None of them appear to have a great understanding of the effect that their angry exchanges have on each other’s lives. Many times, when people exhibit anger toward each other, they do it with an expectation that the situation will change for the better. It’s as if pointing out a person’s every flaw and making them feel terrible about it will magically improve the situation.
CMM theorists tell us differently. According to their findings, anger begets anger. Certain moments in every conversation present the speakers a choice between a positive and negative reaction. The choices that are made in those moments build upon themselves to create the attitudes and reactions that will color nearly every interpersonal interaction that either party will have going forward. Whether it’s overbearing parents, bratty kids, or complete strangers, everyone we meet leaves us a piece of themselves and we do the same for them. It’s not until much later that we get to examine the sum of all those parts.
