American Beauty

There is a family which have three members; Lester Burnham (the father), Carolyn Burnham (the mother) and Jane Burnham (their daughter). This family has serious problems about the relationships between them. They do not have any money problem, not so rich perhaps but they are doing well. In general they have interaction problems, they do not spend any special moments together which a family should have, they are just doing their jobs and do not allow any time to each other, Lester and Carolyn go to work and Jane goes to school, the family means like a shelter to them. The parents just try to live together without any love, for example; they do not have sex anymore, maybe once or twice in a year, and Lester tries to get his sexual needs by masturbating a lot. He does not feel any response about all these bad situations and their daughter’s problems. Carolyn tries to take the authority and take care of Jane but she is not succesful, either. Also, she has problems about the goods, for example she wants her furnitures to be always in order and look beautiful. Lester hates her about this issue and so they mostly disagree. All of these problems affect every members of the family in a negative way. Carolyn starts having sex with another man from her business life who has a very good career but then just left her, Lester starts buying marijuana from a boy in their neighborhood named Buddy and using them, the girl, Lester, who has grown up without any care and love and who does not like her breasts and even collects money to make them bigger starts having sex for the first time at a young age with Buddy. As a result, every members are looking for something to have satisfaction because of loneliness. They might be seen like living together but in fact the situation is so different. So, the family is one of the most important things in people’s social lives. Even at the old ages, people can suffer from the troubles in the family.

In Tiny Little Smiling Daddy, the father is clearly against Kitty’s choices and he does not respect her at all. When Kitty said she is a lesbian he refused her and did not want to see her again. He felt really ashamed of her own daughter. In fact that was not the only time he refused her but in any time in anything about Kitty which he does not like. He is a dominant person, behaves without any respect to anyone and wants to have the authority in the family. So Kitty moved away and really hated her father (she wrote something bad in a magazine) In the movie, Sum of us, Harry (the father) is always respectful to Jeff (the son) and he is so friendly to him. So Jeff is always being honest to Harry, never lies and talks about everything with him. Even if he does not like the situation (Jeff’s being a gay) and always hoped that he would just love a girl for once, he never felt ashamed and always talked to him so kindly. He even met his mates and let them in their house who were having sex with his son, drinking together and spending romantic times etc. The most different part between these stories are the fathers. Kitty’s father was ashamed of his daughter but Harry would never be. So the results were different too. Kitty moved away and her father was really in pain but Jeff did not think about going anywhere and stayed with his father even when he had a stroke all over his body and Jeff looked after him. Although Harry had a stroke, he was happier than Kitty’s father. As a result, the situation was like Kitty’s father was punished by the girl’s hate and her article in a magazine and Harry was rewarded because the son never left him even in his very bad days and looked after him without any being tired. So both of them argues that good fathers win, bad fathers lose.