Nihilism in Hollywood

Once again James Pinkerton plays film critic (“And the Oscar Goes to . . . Nihilism,” Commentary, March 28) and gets it all wrong. The beauty of “American Beauty” is precisely that it is a work of art, and as such it challenges us to think. Yet for Pinkerton such “transgressive” art is to be tolerated only when “confined to literature and museums,” where few notice. He is terrified that the film is a “cultural breakout” that will speak to a mass audience.

Its message, which he finds so disturbing, is that material wealth, a fine home and a well-paying career are no guarantee of spiritual satisfaction, that the shiny but mind-numbing veneer of the American Dream may conceal an aching void for only so long. The recognition that something is lacking is hardly the definition of nihilism. More often it’s the first step on a spiritual journey. Bravo to “American Beauty” for jolting us out of complacency.

DAVID NELSON

Santa Barbara

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Poor Mr. Pinkerton! He just doesn’t get it. To the rest of us it is clear that “American Beauty” is one of the quintessential morality tales of the era. The film does, indeed, get “under the skin” and “into the skin” of American culture and reveals the vulnerability and the capacity for love and respect therein. Someone should explain to Pinkerton that it is about all kinds of love--as is “Boys Don’t Cry.”

Nihilism? What has that got to do with any of it? They are affirmations of self and the capacity to love. I do not admire Hollywood films that much either, but in these cases, Pinkerton is quite wrong.

ROCHELLE HOFFMAN

Corona del Mar

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As Pinkerton wisely suggests, I did indeed look closer at “American Beauty.” We have to. For behind the seamless beauty of movie-making at its best lies the coarse and unsightly reality of increasingly self-indulgent, irresponsible and unaccountable American cultural sensibilities. Neurosis. Adultery. Promiscuity. Illicit drug dealing and abuse. Child delinquency. Voyeurism. Teenage alienation. Child battery. Child molestation. Selfish physical or emotional abandonment of family, job, the merest moral consciousness and self-respect. Murder. Death. Oh, what a mess!

The overwhelming embrace of “American Beauty,” so-called, invokes for me a new, more sobering look at just what “life imitates art/art imitates life” means. Beauty (and “Beauty”) is in the proverbial eye of the beholder. America, it’s time for a make-over.

LAUREL J. DAVIS

Valencia