Happy Go Lucky
Happy Go Lucky is a movie directed by Mike Leigh. It's about a British school teacher. Her name is Poppy, and she is happy.
If that doesn't sound like much of a plot to you, you might have to see it to understand. Happy Go Lucky is a movie that explores the idea that there must be something wrong with someone who is perpetually happy. Unlike most, our heroine isn't bitter, troubled, or feeling overworked. Things do go wrong - as they always do. But somehow they never manage to have the devastating effect on Poppy that it seems like they should. Does that make her amazing, or annoying? As the movie portrays it, it might be a bit of both.
Lately, the theme of happiness has been coming up more and more in conversations around me. It rears its head when discussing why we don't like to read comments on the web, and again whenever an old movie is playing at movie night.
So the first question that comes to mind is...
When was the shift from happiness seeming normal to happiness being obnoxious?
My understanding is that in the 1950s, people were expected to be happy. The man was to come home to a clean house and dinner on the table. The children were expected to be good while daddy was home. And whenever you socialized, you put on a good front - or else risked being ostracized!
Obviously, this model has some drawbacks. Things aren't always happy - and it's a tremendous strain sometimes to pretend that they are. Bottling up the negatives is hardly a healthy full-time lifestyle. On the other hand, today we recognize that depression is an illness that can be treated; we also recognize abuse and other real problems in life, and give people outlets to escape them without being stigmatized. In the modern world, when things go wrong, we talk about them, put them on TV, and get help from our friends and our therapists. It's a much more relaxed social atmosphere when things aren't perfect.
When you look back at the movies from the golden age of film, the men are mostly charming and the women tend to be coyly reserved. Even the scalliwags have a certain amount of decorum and happy-go-lucky charm. (Casablanca excepted, of course; the decorum is there, but not so much with the happy-go-lucky).
In contemporary film, on the other hand, men are mainly portrayed as emotional, aggressive, or just plain dumb - while women are almost exclusively quirky and filled with emotional issues, or else chillingly cold. In modern TV shows and movies, family life isn't the holy grail anymore; parents in film are to be dealt with, scoffed at, or overcome. The extended family is usually full of black sheep and crazy problems, and even friends have their own baggage. The way the media tells it, everyone in the world is just one teaming ball of neuroses and everyone you encounter might be a tickin' time bomb 'o' trouble.
Today it seems like the portrayals of happiness are usually at someone else's expense. Cackling over the mishaps of others is just the way it's done.
Which brings me to reading comments on the web. Anywhere on the web that has a space limit, really. Facebook pages, newspaper articles about the environment, all of it. That same cackling seems to be everywhere I look. Facebook is frequently an environment where people say a lot of things they'd never say in front of 180 friends in person (like "Had a hot time with you for your birthday - call me, sweetie!" or "Snort! Your friend in the back's mom looks ugly [in that 80s photo]! Thank god big hair will never come back!") If you've ever read the commentary underneath a controversial article, it's even worse. The dripping hatred and hurled insults on some of them make me want to run screaming for the hills and not come out.
The strong language and angry thoughts aren't really thought-provoking. But they sure are prominant!
Still, saying the things that aren't rude - like, "Thank you for the insightful review on that issue - but I do have one question" or "Smoothies are wonderful, congrats on getting your recipe down" doesn't fit as well into the atmosphere created by the switch from the 50s to the '00s.
The truth is that people who are regular and active posters/commenters on the internet tend to be good at one-line cleverness (or at least attempted cleverness). In a world where statements must be 140 characters or less, "Great work" is sometimes honest, but it isn't very clever. Especially when you're the 9th person to say it. So anyone who doesn't want to sound dull (and evidence suggests dullness is even worse than being happy) must aim for a more interesting statement. Whatever that statement might imply.
It's a game, in its way. People playfully banter back and forth, and talking to other people becomes a performance art.
If you tease someone to make the audience laugh, it's not rude - it's just the cultural norm. We find common ground through one-upping other people. People don't offer pure support nearly as often as clever comebacks (or attempted cleverness, at least) because the expression of happiness isn't valued as highly. Today, the web's a place we perform... and that means showing off, not just showing up and cheering.
To be happy in the modern world is just not normal - certainly not on a persistant basis - we're told. Not when you could be witty and full of quirks instead. From the silver screen to the twitter nest, happiness has transformed from being the goal of performance art... to performance being it's own satisfying goal. Win friends! Influence people!
And the truth is that it's often fun. (I have a lot of very funny friends, and I love reading some of their responses). But is it the right way to go?
I've had three conversations in the past month started by puzzled writers, all realizing that when you are earnest or happy and put your true feelings out there, it's more likely to be viewed with suspicion, searched for ulterior motives, and have its building blocks given a good kick - all in good fun - than to be shared (weddings and births excepted). On an individual basis, that's usually ok. But when you're prolific in public, the cumulative pile-up of clever people tearing you down tends to have a chilling effect. Eventually, all three expressed the urge to pull back on the writing, or join in the oneupmanship and take it to a fiercer notch, just to get some distance.
Happy Go Lucky has a point, that way. We all meet happy people (or are happy people). But do we value them as much as we do the performers and dramatic ones? Do we support their happiness the way we applaud others' cleverness? Or is being happy in public just not ok anymore, with all the problems in the world? Glee just seems a bit unseemly these days - and some of us are starting to be puzzled as to why.
If that doesn't sound like much of a plot to you, you might have to see it to understand. Happy Go Lucky is a movie that explores the idea that there must be something wrong with someone who is perpetually happy. Unlike most, our heroine isn't bitter, troubled, or feeling overworked. Things do go wrong - as they always do. But somehow they never manage to have the devastating effect on Poppy that it seems like they should. Does that make her amazing, or annoying? As the movie portrays it, it might be a bit of both.
Lately, the theme of happiness has been coming up more and more in conversations around me. It rears its head when discussing why we don't like to read comments on the web, and again whenever an old movie is playing at movie night.
So the first question that comes to mind is...
When was the shift from happiness seeming normal to happiness being obnoxious?
My understanding is that in the 1950s, people were expected to be happy. The man was to come home to a clean house and dinner on the table. The children were expected to be good while daddy was home. And whenever you socialized, you put on a good front - or else risked being ostracized!
Obviously, this model has some drawbacks. Things aren't always happy - and it's a tremendous strain sometimes to pretend that they are. Bottling up the negatives is hardly a healthy full-time lifestyle. On the other hand, today we recognize that depression is an illness that can be treated; we also recognize abuse and other real problems in life, and give people outlets to escape them without being stigmatized. In the modern world, when things go wrong, we talk about them, put them on TV, and get help from our friends and our therapists. It's a much more relaxed social atmosphere when things aren't perfect.
When you look back at the movies from the golden age of film, the men are mostly charming and the women tend to be coyly reserved. Even the scalliwags have a certain amount of decorum and happy-go-lucky charm. (Casablanca excepted, of course; the decorum is there, but not so much with the happy-go-lucky).
In contemporary film, on the other hand, men are mainly portrayed as emotional, aggressive, or just plain dumb - while women are almost exclusively quirky and filled with emotional issues, or else chillingly cold. In modern TV shows and movies, family life isn't the holy grail anymore; parents in film are to be dealt with, scoffed at, or overcome. The extended family is usually full of black sheep and crazy problems, and even friends have their own baggage. The way the media tells it, everyone in the world is just one teaming ball of neuroses and everyone you encounter might be a tickin' time bomb 'o' trouble.
Today it seems like the portrayals of happiness are usually at someone else's expense. Cackling over the mishaps of others is just the way it's done.
Which brings me to reading comments on the web. Anywhere on the web that has a space limit, really. Facebook pages, newspaper articles about the environment, all of it. That same cackling seems to be everywhere I look. Facebook is frequently an environment where people say a lot of things they'd never say in front of 180 friends in person (like "Had a hot time with you for your birthday - call me, sweetie!" or "Snort! Your friend in the back's mom looks ugly [in that 80s photo]! Thank god big hair will never come back!") If you've ever read the commentary underneath a controversial article, it's even worse. The dripping hatred and hurled insults on some of them make me want to run screaming for the hills and not come out.
The strong language and angry thoughts aren't really thought-provoking. But they sure are prominant!
Still, saying the things that aren't rude - like, "Thank you for the insightful review on that issue - but I do have one question" or "Smoothies are wonderful, congrats on getting your recipe down" doesn't fit as well into the atmosphere created by the switch from the 50s to the '00s.
The truth is that people who are regular and active posters/commenters on the internet tend to be good at one-line cleverness (or at least attempted cleverness). In a world where statements must be 140 characters or less, "Great work" is sometimes honest, but it isn't very clever. Especially when you're the 9th person to say it. So anyone who doesn't want to sound dull (and evidence suggests dullness is even worse than being happy) must aim for a more interesting statement. Whatever that statement might imply.
It's a game, in its way. People playfully banter back and forth, and talking to other people becomes a performance art.
If you tease someone to make the audience laugh, it's not rude - it's just the cultural norm. We find common ground through one-upping other people. People don't offer pure support nearly as often as clever comebacks (or attempted cleverness, at least) because the expression of happiness isn't valued as highly. Today, the web's a place we perform... and that means showing off, not just showing up and cheering.
To be happy in the modern world is just not normal - certainly not on a persistant basis - we're told. Not when you could be witty and full of quirks instead. From the silver screen to the twitter nest, happiness has transformed from being the goal of performance art... to performance being it's own satisfying goal. Win friends! Influence people!
And the truth is that it's often fun. (I have a lot of very funny friends, and I love reading some of their responses). But is it the right way to go?
I've had three conversations in the past month started by puzzled writers, all realizing that when you are earnest or happy and put your true feelings out there, it's more likely to be viewed with suspicion, searched for ulterior motives, and have its building blocks given a good kick - all in good fun - than to be shared (weddings and births excepted). On an individual basis, that's usually ok. But when you're prolific in public, the cumulative pile-up of clever people tearing you down tends to have a chilling effect. Eventually, all three expressed the urge to pull back on the writing, or join in the oneupmanship and take it to a fiercer notch, just to get some distance.
Happy Go Lucky has a point, that way. We all meet happy people (or are happy people). But do we value them as much as we do the performers and dramatic ones? Do we support their happiness the way we applaud others' cleverness? Or is being happy in public just not ok anymore, with all the problems in the world? Glee just seems a bit unseemly these days - and some of us are starting to be puzzled as to why.