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Fascist Tart
It is probably inevitable that Sally Hawkins, the cheerful and indefatigable Poppy in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky (Miramax, 10.10), will be talked up as a Best Actress nominee once the film starts showing around. (It opened in England last April and came out last week on DVD over there.) An elementary-school teacher who happy-vibes just about everything and everyone, Polly is an unstoppable alpha dispenser -- spirited, effervescent -- and Hawkins certainly inhabits her whole-hog.
Sally Hawkins in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky
She carries Happy-Go-Lucky, she carries its spirit, and she does handle herself well in the sad-shock scenes at the end of the film with Eddie Marsan, the driving instructor with the correct manner and ferociously uptight, anti-immigrant attitude. In fact, the last 15 to 20 minutes contain the best stuff in the film, and I throughly respect Hawkins for her performance in this section. She handles her scenes with quiet maturity and resigned grace.
But her Poppy character epitomizes a sort of person I've never been able to tolerate -- the emotional fascist who's relentless about being happy, smiling and sparkly, but who also insists -- here's the problem -- on forcing her bubbliness upon others (acquaintances, strangers, anyone) with the ultimate idea of converting them to their way of looking at life, or at least giving them a contact high to take home.
What especially dictatorial about smiley-faced brownshirts like Poppy is their determination to gently bully you into submission. If you don't get on board with the mutual-alpha, they'll interrogate you like Laurence Olivier's Zell (the Nazi character in Marathon Man), looking at you with a quizzical grin and asking, "Are you happy?" or "Having a bad day?" Speaking from experience, I can advise that the best response is "I was feeling pretty good, actually, until you asked me that."
Eddie Marsan, Hawkins
Imagine if Poppy was a born-again Christian asking total strangers, "So have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior?" and "Would you like to be saved?" The police would be called, she'd be cuffed and thrown into a van and taken down to the station. But there's no recourse with the happy-happies.
I hate people who ask me if I'm happy because, of course, they're not really asking me that. They're saying they've observed my behavior, examined my vibe and decided that I just don't have the right peppy-happy attitude, and that I need to adjust it right away so that it pleases them. I do meet these people from time to time. They're like Moonies or Hara Krishna devotees -- they've got the beautiful inner force inside them, and they know they've got that wondrous glow in their faces, and they're determined to beat you over the head with it until you're on your knees, bloody and begging them to stop.
Poppy feels like a kind of symbol of the whole happy-face movement of the '70s, which for me represented a kind of alpha-vibe fascism that you could sense every so often in certain liberal-minded circles. Get with the positive attitudes or else! The late George Carlin once said on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" that "when fascism comes to America, it will not be in brown and black shirts. It will not be with jack-boots. It will be Nike sneakers and smiley shirts. Smiley-smiley."
The French poster for Leigh's film, called Be Happy over there, has a slogan at the bottom: "Adoptez la Poppy attitude!"
The term "emotional fascism" was first coined by Elvis Costello in the '70s, and it's real, you bet. There's a scene when Poppy's friend Zoe says, "You can't make everyone happy" and Poppy replies, "There's no harm in trying that Zoe, is there?" I am here to stand up and say that yes, there is harm in it, and would all the Poppy girls of the world please refrain from ever doing so again in my presence? It's oppressive. It's like being beaten with Mao's little happy-face book during the Great Cultural Revolution.
There are many of us, I'm presuming, who look upon cheery, cock-eyed optimists as people you sometimes have to speak to at parties -- sometimes it's better just to suffer quickly and get it over with so you can move on -- but if you see them coming down the street you cross over to the other side and duck into a book store or something, and you stay there for a good 15 minutes, just to be safe.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on August 26, 2008 at 8:59 AM
comment #1
T. S. Idiot says ...
Is Leigh endorsing her sunniness, mocking it, or staying neutral? Hawkins is also inexplicably sunny in CASSANDRA'S DREAM.
Posted by T. S. Idiot at August 26, 2008 10:10 AM
comment #2
gruver1 says ...
Wells to T.S. Idiot: Mike Leigh is endorsing Poppy's sunniness wholeheartedly.
Posted by gruver1 at August 26, 2008 10:15 AM
comment #3
joncro says ...
POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT---
I agree about how irritating she is, but at the end when the driving instructor loses it she realises that she really can't make all people happy. I think it was a great ending because she actually behaves with some force and forgets the smiley faced crap for once. It's a payoff for the whole rest of the film.
END SPOILER.......!!!
Posted by joncro at August 26, 2008 10:31 AM
comment #4
PerfectTommy says ...
I was surprised by what seemed like a promotion for this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Liberal-Fascism-American-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0385511841/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1219773471&sr=8-1
Posted by PerfectTommy at August 26, 2008 10:57 AM
comment #5
a1 says ...
'"There's no harm in trying that Zoe, is there?" I am here to stand up and say that yes, there is harm in it'
Then maybe you can point out where the actual harm comes in. Having someone being annoying and obnoxious isn't doing you any actual harm, unless your ego and tolerance for other people is as fragile as an eggshell in a hurricane.
And calling such behavior "fascist" actually manages to be offensively retarded.
Posted by a1 at August 26, 2008 10:58 AM
comment #6
gruver1 says ...
Wells to a1: Yes, people who are annoying and obnoxious perpetrate a kind of harm. There are other kinds of harm besides physical. The impulse of the fascist is to enforce uniformity, because from that uniformity comes great strength. I'm not lying or delusional -- there are people who will try to rough you up with their happy vibes, gently insisting in this or that way that you need to join their program. So nope, sorry -- I know what the happy-vibe liberal fascist mentality is, and so did Elvis Costello and George Carlin. (And no -- it doesn't matter if Costello wrote a song about "emotional fascism" or not. It exists, and that's enough.)
Posted by gruver1 at August 26, 2008 11:07 AM
comment #7
spoiled says ...
The impulse of the fascist is to enforce uniformity, because from that uniformity comes great strength.
This from the "liberal" who gets off deleting posts and quoting Politico!
Posted by spoiled at August 26, 2008 11:11 AM
comment #8
adorian says ...
Will this perhaps inspire you to update your Oscar Balloon?---adding Hawkins to best actress?--and moving Streep from supporting to lead?
Posted by adorian at August 26, 2008 11:13 AM
comment #9
MattyC says ...
I used to have a co-worker who insisted on walking around with a stupid grin pasted on her face, and if anyone did not immediately return said stupid grin, her response was to give them the imperative, "Smile!"
Nothing makes me want to smile less than someone barking the word "Smile" at me as though it were some kind of mantra.
I grant smiles when they are deserved, not because they are demanded. And when I do, I can light up a room. But you've gotta keep it neutral sometimes, or the impact of your smile is lessened.
Posted by MattyC at August 26, 2008 11:14 AM
comment #10
spoiled says ...
Hitler smiled, like, a lot. And you see what happened.
Posted by spoiled at August 26, 2008 11:15 AM
comment #11
Nowegian guy says ...
Good film this and Eddie Marsan is terrific as always. The scene with him and Hawkins in the end is very powerful. Great acting.
Posted by Nowegian guy at August 26, 2008 11:16 AM
comment #12
arturobandini says ...
Man, so little love for the great Mike Leigh! Wells, you and he are such kindred spirits, I'm surprised that you'd let a sour press conference remark turn you off to his remarkable body of work. Did Wong Kar Wai snap at you, too?
I do think Leigh peaked during his collaborative period with his ex-wife. Alison Steadman slayed in LIFE IS SWEET (easily one of my Top 10 movies from the '90s, along with NAKED). Have you seen ABIGAIL'S PARTY or NUTS IN MAY? There's a mindblowingly awful/hysterical hippie folk song Steadman wails at the end, something like "Cigarette smoke / Makes me choke / Litter makes me quiver..."
I honestly don't think Mike Leigh endorses sunny optimism, but is instead highly amused by it.
Posted by arturobandini at August 26, 2008 11:17 AM
comment #13
T. S. Idiot says ...
"Did Wong Kar Wai snap at you, too?" Wong stares intently at interviewers while translating their questions to Chinese and then his answers to English. Some find this intimidating.
Posted by T. S. Idiot at August 26, 2008 11:38 AM
comment #14
Rich S. says ...
Hollywood Elsewhere: defending to the death your right to be miserable.
Posted by Rich S. at August 26, 2008 11:40 AM
comment #15
Rich S. says ...
By the way, there's a great episode of Pushing Daisies where a "Make a Wish" type lady literally resorts to murder to try to cheer up a surly kid confined to a wheelchair. The kid is so defiantly antisocial and miserable, Jeffrey's latest posts actually remind me of him.
Posted by Rich S. at August 26, 2008 11:43 AM
comment #16
a1 says ...
a1 to Wells: Thanks for elaborating. Sure, intolerance for differing views is a part of fascism, but you're missing the much more critical part about those views getting forced on you. If it's your boss, government, or someone else with power over your insisting you be happy all the time, then you might be close to legitimately using the f-word. But unless you're extraordinarily sensitive to criticism, how can an annoying happy person "harm" you? They have every right to present their case, and you have every right (and ability) to tell them to f-off when they do!
Posted by a1 at August 26, 2008 11:56 AM
comment #17
MilkMan says ...
There's only one kind of person in Leigh's world: The Grotesque. All of the perfomances share a uniformity, so why keep people mythologizing his process is problematic to me. as the freedom he supposedly gives his actors is only the freedom to act exactly like each other. The only character who seems to work for me is Johnny in Naked, and that's because he expresses Leigh's misanthropy wholeheartedly and without apologies, not to mention that he is the most palatable of all of Leigh's Grotesques.
Posted by MilkMan at August 26, 2008 12:24 PM
comment #18
MattyC says ...
"They have every right to present their case, and you have every right (and ability) to tell them to f-off when they do!" -a1
Okay, except, not really.
The people who tell everyone to be happy are always seen as the "good" ones, and freak out (generally) whenever someone actually does tell them to fuck off. Or even, politely, "Please stop trying to make me be happy."
The melancholist always receives a "Geez, soooorry!"-type response, and usually a weird look.
So, yes, you do have that right, according to the law, but according to societal contract, you really don't.
Posted by MattyC at August 26, 2008 12:40 PM
comment #19
Dublin101 says ...
When this film had it's run over here about 6 months ago several reviewers also found Hawkins characters to be rather insufferable. Leigh was questioned about why he went with such a character and his general response was that there are characters like Hawkins in this world and he wanted to focus on them for a change of pace. Also Leigh was tired of his UK reputation for been a bit of a miserable sod.
I found Leigh's All or Nothing to be a depressive draining experience and Vera Drake was in the same mould. So I think I can understand while he wanted to try something else. Ironically he got slated for that, kind of a damned if you damned if you don't. Regardless Hawkins is very exciting new talent and I look forward to her future work.
Posted by Dublin101 at August 26, 2008 12:54 PM
comment #20
arturobandini says ...
MilkMan, if the "grotesque" Jane Horrocks didn't break your heart in LIFE IS SWEET, then check your pulse.
Posted by arturobandini at August 26, 2008 1:18 PM
comment #21
MilkMan says ...
I did Arturo, and I can't feel anything.
Posted by MilkMan at August 26, 2008 1:21 PM
comment #22
Jimmycrackcorn says ...
The Elvis Costello album that nearly was named "Emotional Fascism" is "Armed Forces." It is one of my favorite albums of all time, and there are no songs on it (or anywhere else in his catalog) about indefatigably cheerful people and the problems they pose for society, so I doubt Poppy-type people are what Costello had in mind, at all, when he coined the term (if he coined it).
I haven't seen the movie, but it's hard for me to believe, as kind of a Leigh fan, that he is wholeheartedly endorsing unalloyed sunniness. I can imagine him finding some level of sad heroism in it and not mocking it. But if he is really an exponent of extreme cheerfulness as the optimal approach to life, he's done a damned good job of covering it up through multiple films until springing it upon us now.
Finally, where do you guys keep running into these people who are constantly telling you to smile and be happy? I'm not a very expressive person, but I can't remember ever having anybody aggressively tell me to cheer up. Are these kind of people really a common plague upon society that I've just managed to miss by running in more sober-minded circles, or is it possible that extremely sour yin is a magnet for extremely sappy yang?
Well, my appetite to see this film has been whetted. And I wish Leigh would make a sequel where this woman enters the world of "Naked," kind of a like an "Alien Meets Predator" thing.
Posted by Jimmycrackcorn at August 26, 2008 1:24 PM
comment #23
arturobandini says ...
You made me laugh today, MilkMan. How dare you cheer me up!
Maybe it's because I have a family member who was on a journey parallel to the Horrocks character, but I admire the way she and Leigh made you laugh at that character, hate her, be repulsed by her and then suddenly sympathize with her. That scene where Alison Steadman finally pierces her daughter's fierce, self-destructive denial and then comforts her reduced me to tears. I didn't cry at another movie until SCHOOL OF ROCK, but that's another story.
Posted by arturobandini at August 26, 2008 1:37 PM
comment #24
bmcintire says ...
Thankfully (or conveniently), Jeffrey chooses not to hold bear-beating one-note cynincs with the same disgust as he does the happy-go-lucky emotional fascists or he'd shoot himself in the face. And then where would we all be?
Posted by bmcintire at August 26, 2008 2:21 PM
comment #25
bmcintire says ...
By the way, Hawkins was awesome as the irritating twunt Chav you couldn't wait to see get shot in LAYER CAKE.
Posted by bmcintire at August 26, 2008 6:39 PM
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