Let's be honest here: all of the "controversy" over Django comes down to one question: is it okay for Tarantino to bypass education about slavery in favor of entertainment? To me, the question is obvious; of fucking course it is. It's not Tarantino's fault that there aren't many high profile films that tackle slavery, and he or anybody else shouldn't be obligated to sit down and hold the viewers hand and give them an in depth history lesson. Tarantino may have set himself up a bit for a lot of this because he was talking about 'exposing' slavery, and that can mean a lot of diffferent things, many of which he never intended to talk about. (A more accurate statement would be that he exposes the extent of the cruelty and dehumanization inflicted on black people in that era.) I mean, not every film has to move cultural perception forward, right?
This seemed really obvious to me until a while after I saw Silver Linings Playbook.
I was really ambivalent about this movie coming into the theater; it's been getting a ton of praise, critical and otherwise, and featured a mentally ill character that wasn't sensantionalized, so it piqued my interest. But it also seemed pretty damn cutesy, and Film Crit Hulk, probably my favorite film writer, accused the second half of making the entire movie insincere and straight up dishonest. But a friend offered to see it with me, and I hadn't spent a whole lot of time with her in forever, so I went.
And somehow I came out just as ambivalent as I went in. There are really great moments in this film; the core cast is outstanding, and there's a lot of truth towards recovering from a mental illness. And even when the film gets formulaic, I can somehow forgive it because I was invested enough in these characters and their struggles that I could watch things get a bit silly as long as it felt good. But for me, something in the film made me deeply uncomfortable in a way that nearly ruined everything. The first half, which just about every reviewer agrees is the better part of the film, hit some emotional button to the point where I was actually considering walking out of the theater, going home, and curling up under a blanket with a teddy bear. Obviously, I didn't, partly because I've never walked out of a film in my life, but also because I saw it with a friend and it would be a dick move to leave. That, and we were up in Kew Gardens; I had traveled way too far to run out on a film. It was strong enough that even though the second half followed the romcom formula to a tee, I was totally okay with it because it made me feel fluffy and good. My friend came out saying that she thought it was a great portrayal of people with mental illness, and for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to agree.
It took me a lot of time to realize why; there are some really mixed messages about Pat's illness. On one hand, we see that he's a regular guy who's had problems, but is attempting to work through them, first by himself, but then realizes he is much better on meds. His parents' worries and reactions towards his every move are sometimes frustrating, but completely understandable and accurate. He's not malicious or scarred from some childhood trauma, he just got dealt some shitty mind cards and has to learn how to get around them.
On the other hand, I feel like some of the humor in the first half undermines that level-headed and sympathetic look at him. Not to say that he needs to be handled with kid gloves; anyone who's been in a mental hospital can tell you that sometimes, in retrospect, some things people do or think because of their illness is kind of hilarious. But sometimes it feels like a line gets crossed. Pat throwing a book out the window and waking up his parents to rant about it? Funny, completely plausible for someone with poor impulse control. (Anyone who has tried to read through A Song of Ice and Fire would understand.) That kid who keeps trying to interview the Solitanos about Pat's illness. Funny, in that ha-ha wait-yeah-there-are-people-who-would-really-do-that way. Having Pat's dad chase him down the block? Cathartic. The actual conflict leading up to that is tense, raw, and upsetting, but then we get this scene of all the neighbors waking up and complaining, and it just felt so...false. It seemed like something out of a sitcom when the main characters are having a loud argument over something stupid, when in fact we just watched a pretty violent scene. The other thing it reminded me of was the nigger on a horse scene in Django, though in Django it's a standalone scene establishing the ridiculousness of racism (one dude on a horse is a pearl-clutching event!), whereas in Silver Linings, it directly follows something very serious. We laugh at the idea of Django on a horse being a spectacle, but in my opinion there's much less laughing matter about being woken up by an actual domestic disturbance. It's a cheap and hollow laugh that turns a serious scene into "Ha, look at these guys! Waking up the neighborhood with family members punching each other!" Both Pat and his father's anger problems are suddenly the butt of a joke.
The scene where Pat runs into his former boss also really bothered me; I just didn't find it funny that she genuinely scared for her safety. It's not even really expanded upon that people are afraid of Pat; I think it's mentioned once, yet that would be very important for someone trying to get their life back together. Instead, it's played for laughs, and not just 'oh hoho, misunderstanding!' laughs; we're supposed to laugh because Pat doesn't even get that he comes off as creepy. In the end, I realized that I don't think the film really cares that much about portraying mental illness as much as having quirkily fucked up people who can somehow fix each other by being together. Note that in the ending, we don't see if Pat has a job? Or possibly even his own place? All we know is that everything's well and good because golly gee, those two kids got together! When I think about it, the end suggests that falling in love with someone is just as important to well-being as medication and therapy. Maybe even more, since I can only infer that Pat is still on meds. And what about Tiffany? Pat is at least in therapy (with, of course, a charmingly foreign therapist because movies); am I really to believe that dancing and a new relationship has solved Tiffany's emotional problems? I guess. The film is iffy about caring about mental illness in the first half, and downright doesn't give a fuck by the second, and I think that's a serious problem.
Or is it? After all, I don't know if David O. Russell (or original novelist Matthew Quick) ever intended to make a film that furthered how mental illness is portrayed in pop culture; maybe they just wanted to tell a love story about some severely fucked up people. If Tarantino is allowed to wrap the horrors of slavery into a spaghetti western, why can't Quick or Russell mix some mental illness into a romcom? Do I expect this film to do too much like some expect Django to do? Is it possible that, being a Tarantino fan and a Russell neophyte, I'm giving Tarantino slack because I already really like him? Or that I'm being unfair because while the lasting social remnants of slavery affect me personally, it's not in the intense way that mental illness does.
You know what? I probably am, at least a little bit. In the end, even if Django deserved to be called out as much as other people have done, Silver Linings deserves to be called out even more because portrayals of mental illness don't get the same discussions that race does. Not to mention that Silver Linings can't help but sugarcoat some of the darkest moments with humorous situations or the Black Best Friend.
Also Django actually has complexity and sticks to doing something new, whereas Silver Linings decides halfway through to ditch originality and go full romcom.
I guess in the end, I really think Tarantino thought a lot more about showing slavery in Django than Russell (or Quick) thought about showing mental illness.
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