American Beauty is (weirdly) the movie of 2026

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American Beauty came out in the Fall of 1999, stars Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, Thora Birch, Mena Suvari, Wes Bentley and Chris Cooper. It received tons of critical praise upon its release and made a shitload of money at the box office and on home video. At the 2000 Academy Awards it won the awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Spacey), Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography. It was a movie I loved very much at the time of its release and a movie I thought deserved all of its success and accolades.

Watching it in 2026 is really fucking weird. 

And it’s weird for all of the obvious reasons, most notably watching Kevin Spacey – someone who was accused by multiple people of sexual assault and sexual harassment, particularly of minors (although he was acquitted in lawsuits filed in both 2022 and 2023), – play a character who lusts after one of his daughter’s teenage friends. If you’ve spent any amount of time on the homepage of any porntube recently, you know that premise (or some variation on it – who the fuck has a “step-aunt?”) animates a lot of their most popular shit. It’s yet another reason living in this country in 2026 makes me want to chug bleach.

And yeah, the hardcore Marine (played by Chris Cooper) who seems to hate gay people more than anything else in the world turns out to be a closeted homosexual. We’ve seen some version of that story play out dozens of times in public over the last decade and a half. His shame is so overwhelming he (spoiler alert, I guess) shoots Kevin Spacey’s character in the back of the head after making a failed romantic move on him. That whole arc just makes me sad because so many people live their lives masquerading as who they think they’re “supposed to be,” and contort themselves to hate anyone who resembles who they actually are and could be. The man lives in a prison of his own construction with bars made of self-hate and repression.

No, what’s really fucking weird about this movie is how so much of the shit that dominates our entire culture and political discourse has been hiding in plain sight this entire time. What am I talking about? Let’s start with the Epstein Files. Check out this clip.

Lester lies in bed picturing a naked Mena Suvari on the ceiling, herself lying in a bed of rose petals, where they gently fall toward him, land on his face and all around him. She gives him a flirtatious wave.  In voiceover, he then says, “It’s the weirdest thing. I feel like I’ve been in a coma for 20 years and I just now feel like I’m waking up.”

You’re waking up from the coma of your shitty, unfulfilling life because you’re fantasizing about fucking a child? Jesus Christ, man. And if you're reading this and feel compelled to defend this character, I'll stop you right there. Don’t turn into noted goblin Megyn Kelly and try to defend any of this shit by telling me Mena Suvari was 18 when they filmed this. I don’t care! The desire to fuck a child is immoral and you should feel bad about yourself if that's what you want.

Look, I will say that with the benefit of hindsight, I can understand why I personally was so into this movie. In the Fall of 1999 I was 18 years old and Lester quits his job, extorts his dipshit boss, buys a cool car, and then proceeds to smoke pot and lift weights for most of the rest of the movie. Bitchin’ life goals for a petulant 18 year-old! But more germane to my central thesis, I reckoned who wouldn’t want to fuck Mena Suvari? She’s hot! Fuck yeah!

I’m now 44 years old, and the idea of a man my age lusting after a high school girl is fucking disgusting. The movie at least has the good sense to pull Lester back from the edge when he seems to snap out of it and realize that he is, in fact, about to fuck a child. Apparently that impulse doesn’t exist for the scores of people who took a plane to a private island to do just that over and over again.

And let’s go back to Megyn Kelly for a second who says in that contemptible clip linked above that lusting after girls who are 15 is distinct from lusting after girls who are, like 10 or younger. Amazingly, Mena Suvari’s character has dialogue for this, too.

“I’m used to guys drooling over me. It started when I was about 12. I’d go to dinner with my parents. Every Thursday night – Red Lobster! Every guy there would stare at me when I walked in. And I knew what they were thinking. Just like I knew what guys in school were thinking when they jerked off.”

I can’t recall ever drooling over a 12 year-old. Even when I was 12! Because when I was 12, and I had little crushes, I think I pictured myself kissing these girls or like, holding hands with them or slow dancing or something. But the idea of a grown ass man drooling over a 12 year-old is just so goddamn gross, I want to puke.

Let’s shift gears into another theme I thought was too outlandish in 1999, but turns out might have been underplaying things.

Just how many closeted fucking Nazis are actually out there? I’m too terrified to guess, and too baffled to analyze this in any great depth. My entire life Nazis have been the most useful villain to hang anything you want on. Their cruelty is nearly unfathomable in its scope, their regalia and symbols would be downright hilarious if they didn’t evoke such pain and suffering for so many, and most importantly: NAZIS ARE FUCKING LOSERS.

They lost World War II, their sawed-off little prick of a leader killed himself in a bunker like a coward, and Germany has spent the time since the end of WWII working tirelessly to educate about the damage this group of fascist asswipes did to their country and warning everyone else against ever glorifying them in any way.

Yet here’s another sawed-off little prick cosplaying like them because he thinks it makes him look tough. Here’s another shot of this dickwad. Again, American Beauty came out in 1999 and the movie’s creators knew enough about this execrable subculture to include it as a character beat for a very troubled man.

The year before, SLC Punk featured some Nazi sympathizers in Wyoming in the 1980s. I thought this scene was outlandish because who the fuck could look at Nazis as “a gathering of people?!” Apparently way more than I ever hoped!

And now look where we are. This shit comes from the top, and they’re unashamed about it. Unembarrassed. Unafraid to embrace the most hateful ideology there is. Smug. Self-satisfied.

Re-watching American Beauty is a lesson that apparently all of this toxic, horrifying shit – sex with children, embrace of history’s greatest monsters – has been simmering underneath the surface this whole time just waiting for someone (or a group of someones) dumb enough, evil enough, hateful enough, craven enough, and with enough brainwashed mouth-breathing sycophants to give them cover, to emerge once again.

And now here we are. Anonymous, unaccountable, jackbooted thugs are executing American citizens in the street for made-up crimes, after which our so-called leaders shamelessly lie to everyone’s face about what we’ve all seen clear as day.

Powerful elected officials cover for pedophiles, obfuscate, obstruct, and excuse their behavior preventing them from ever facing consequences for their crimes.

American culture is now the absolute worst impulses of Col. Frank Fitts and Lester Burnham with the volume turned all the way up and the backing of the government behind them. American Beauty is surprisingly relevant to life in America in 2026. For anyone with an ounce of morality left or who isn't blinded by their own bullshit equivocations enough to excuse any of this shit, it’s enough to make you want to crawl into a bath and open a vein or two.

But don’t do that. Don’t ever do that.

Fight back. And if you’re wondering how to get started, just ask Denver punk band Cheap Perfume.