I think that's somewhat unfair.
Yes, American Beauty has aged poorly in comparison ... but so has Gone with the Wind.
So has Back To The Future. So has The Terminator. So has An American Werewolf In London. So has, in fact, pretty much everything from the '80s: The Breakfast Club? Really? Teens so rebellious they actually turned up to detention (it wasn’t Pump Up The Volume, or Heathers, was it) ?
And the ’70s. The new lease of life for Westworld is fantastic (for now at least, but I suspect it will withstand the test of Time) … but there’s no way I’d ever watch the 1973 version ever again — indeed, I haven’t watched it since the 1970s!.
The ’60s. Psycho? It’s laughable at best … stupefyingly turgid for the most part (like pretty much all of Hitchcock’s oeuvre in fact ¹).
The ‘50s? ‘40s?
Star Trek (any generation)?
Star Wars after The Empire Strikes Back? (Return Of The Jedi was shit when it was first released!)
Beavis And Butthead?
Man, it pretty much all sucks …. and the further you get from it, the harder it does so.
But not everything need stand the test of Time. Sometimes it’s sufficient to have the impact it has when it does. Not everything needs to be a once-in-a-lifetime inoculation or even require regular booster shots. If your observation about it being by, and for, Boomers is correct (I don’t think that’s all there is to it ²) then, so long as it got the message across to them and then, it did its job.
If American Beauty has aged poorly … and I’m not saying it has (I think there’s more to it than simply being a movie about an actor who later turned out to have statutory paedophilic tendencies ³) … then it isn’t because the movie was bad or because it addressed themes that are no longer relevant. Nor is it because it was, somehow, advocating paedophilia or even <clutch pearls> age-inappropriate relationships … at no point in the movie is he ever made out to be some sort of hero nor do things go well for him as a result of his (ironically ⁴) adolescent crush.
It’s a classic tragedy in the Shakespearean-Greek tradition of the seeds of his downfall being due to a fatal flaw of character. And that is why it won the accolades it did … because it is not only beautifully scored ⁵, acted ⁶, filmed, lit, paced, etc. … but also pays homage to its heritage and Art itself.
I don’t know your musical tastes, but for me any use of the Amen Break, the James Brown/Bobby Byrd “Woo! Yeah!” sample, or Kelly Charles’ “You’re no good for me” will instantly raise a smile from me not simply because of the humour but because it tells me that the producer knows their roots and is paying homage. And I guarantee you that when the time comes for the cognoscenti to decide which track/tune is worthy of an award, it will be the one that is not only good in and of itself but also does that that will get it. Is that right? I couldn’t say. But music, like beauty, is in the ear of the beholder, so, who’s to say my feelings that a better track was overlooked in favour of one that simply shows the producer is part of the Establishment, simply because it shows they are part of the establishment, is a genuine reflection of things? I may just have unrefined tastes.
The same criticism could be levelled at Academia: you don’t get marks in the exam for being an iconoclast but for showing you went to lectures, read the books and know what everyone else is talking about when they do — you might be a genius and can, therefore afford to ignore it all in favour of your pet theories but, first, just reassure us that you do actually know what it is you’re dismissing rather than spouting a load of horseshit you made up in a haze of hashish and Fruit Loop crumbs ⁹.
I don’t think it’s really appropriate to dismiss one movie because another that deals with entirely different themes is more to your taste — there’s no more overlap between the two than there is between Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas and Mission Impossible.
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¹ Unlike Laurel and Hardy, Hitchcock never managed to imbue his slapstick with humour.
² Male pattern ̶b̶a̶l̶d̶n̶e̶s̶s̶ mid-life crises have been with as as long as there have been sufficiently wealthy men living long enough to have one
³ And it’s a cliché that they lust after the youth they feel they’ve lost …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLPYK-nY2Mk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0E4p23xuzs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu8Lwcx7Iwg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg_xkIm3kYQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQHdGaMxzxQ
if you have a problem with Spacey now it’s because he was rapey, not because he interested in young men who were half his age — or, at least, it should be (he’s not Woody Allen or Roman Polanski).
⁴ Which is the whole point of the thing: he needs to grow up.
⁵ Given how many adverts the theme was used in, if Thomas Newman has ever been obliged to work since, I’ll be very surprised indeed.
⁶ And don’t forget the performance of the young Mena Suvari amidst your obsessing over Spacey’s taste in younger actors — are you sure you shouldn’t be asking yourself whether you aren’t as guilty of casual misogyny as any Boomer?
⁹ Which is how Barney The Dinosaur was conceived.
