Suburbian utopias

American Beauty

Part I – Suburbs

Bourdieu's concept habitat

 a habitat is a social environment in which we live: it is a product of both its position in the social space
and of the practices of the social beings who inhabit it;

 the social space is, for Bourdieu, a multidimensional map of the social order in which the main axes are
economic capital, cultural capital, education, class, and historical trajectories, whose operations structure
the practices of those who inhabit different positions and moments of it, and their cultural tastes, ways of
thinking, of dispositions.

Suburbs – an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon

 there are several general criteria defining suburbia: the idea of safety and security, its residential
character and its new and rapid growth in post-war America;

 the suburbs as we know them are a typical Anglo-Saxon phenomenon, quite popular in the US and the
UK, as well as in Canada and Ireland, and to a lesser degree in Australia and New Zealand. Contrarily, in
continental Europe, Asia and Latin America, “the cities’ fringes are most commonly the home to the most
destitute, not to middling and affluent property owners.

Suburbs & suburbia

 often used as synonyms, however, they are two distinctive terms;

 suburb (noun) – is the denotative, or objective location and built form;

 suburbia (noun) – culturally connotative; refers to a lifestyle, i.e. the way(s) of life of the people living in
suburbs, portrayed as an identifiable group, community or class in society: suburbanites; it is a state of
mind, a set of ideological understandings;

 the suburbs are seen in popular imagination as the land of milk and honey, where couples can have their
fairy-like life, including the ideals of the quiet, the cleanliness, and the sense of living decently;

 utopian ideal of family, neighbourhood, goodliving that sometimes vs. dystopian nature-devouring
sprawl, vacuous aesthetic wasteland, anti-intellectual, intolerant, an atmosphere of numbness and apathy,
and middle-aged familial suffocation, etc.
Philip J. Ethington’s characteristics of suburbia
 peripheral location (the suburb is located at the edge of the urban core);

 relationship to the urban core (functional dependence, sometimes with political independence);

 density (low, but relative to the urban core);

 housing type (residential character, most commonly single-family dwellings with gardens);

 social (class, race, ethnic) segregation;

 transportation (commuting relationship to the urban core);

 distinct lifestyle (domestic, middle-class, materialist, gendered).

Part II – Suburbian codes and pathologies

Utopia based on exclusion

 suburbia is more than a collection of residential buildings; it expresses values deeply embedded
in bourgeois culture. From its origins, the suburban world of leisure, family life, and union with nature
was based on the principle of exclusion;

 work was excluded from the family residence; middle-class villas were segregated from
working-class housing; the greenery of suburbia stood in contrast to a grey, polluted urban environment.
Middle-class women were especially affected by the new suburban dichotomy of work and family life.
The new environment supposedly exalted their role in the family, but it also segregated them from the
world of power and productivity;

 suburbia also reflects the alienation of the middle classes from the urban-industrial world they
themselves were creating. Suburbia is a product of urban expansion and a protest against it > a cultural
in-betweenness and ambivalence.

The features of the suburbia

 genderism (gender roles: women as housewives and men as hunters, earning a living);

 whiteness;

 straightness and heterosexual coupledom;

 political conservatism;

 narrow, parochial view of the world;

 nuclear family;

 consumerism and materialism;

 economic status;

 binary gender roles;

 perfectionism (superficial).

The ideal: picturesque architecture & suburban iconography

 suburbia includes middle-class residences and second excludes all industry, most commerce except for
enterprises that specifically serve a residential area, and all lower-class residents (except for servants);

 derived from the English concept of the picturesque, this tradition distinguishes the suburb both from the
city and from the countryside and creates that aesthetic “marriage of town and country” which is the
mark of the true suburb. At the same time, suburbia is neither urban, not rural;

 a powerful suburban iconography served up through popular culture: picket fences, picture windows,
sunshine gates, semi-detached dwellings topped off by green lawns and well-kempt hedges. These
symbolic landscapes say much about idealized, dominant values fed to us of suburban cultures.

American Beauty – TEST

Watch the film and answer the questions giving your own opinion (3-5 sentences):

1. What do you think about the portrayal of the suburbs and suburbia in the film? Which features of
this lifestyle are shown?

2. Is Lester Burnham a hero, or an anti-hero?

3. What is American beauty?

4. This film puts into question what a normal family is. What does it tell us about what’s normal and
what’s dysfunctional? Are any characters in the film portrayed as mentally unstable? Which ones and how
are they portrayed?
5. What did you think of Ricky’s film of the blowing paper bag? Was this event ordinary or
beautiful? Please support your view.

6. Carolyn Burnham and Buddy Kane say that “in order to be successful, one must project an image
of success at all times.” Do you agree? How can you tell if someone is successful? In your opinion, were
these characters successful?

7. Life as a lie – which characters live in a lie? Who are they lying to and why?

8. What are the expected suburban roles and values depicted in the film?

9. What do you think about Lester’s pursuit of personal satisfaction and happiness? Is it OK for him
to do as he pleases and not care about his family?

10. Existential crisis vs. mid-life crisis – which one does Lester have?