Film Summary
Silver Linings Playbook, directed by David O. Russell, is a dramatic romantic comedy about an adult former teacher, Pat, who after spending some time in a mental institution, moves back in with his parents and dedicates his time to reconciling with his ex-wife. During this time, he meets and builds a bond with a troubled and mysterious girl, Tiffany. I came across this film shortly after it came out in 2013, but in this case my motivation was not inspired by Tumblr. Instead, I saw many trailers and commercials on the tv before it came out. Looking back, though, I found it interesting that each trailer I saw rarely highlighted the fact that the two main characters were mentally ill-- instead, the focus was on their romantic relationship. In reality, this film had everything to do with mental illness. After watching the film once, I did some research to see how other scholars, critics and viewers felt about the representation of mental illness throughout the film before watching it again with a more informed eye. The majority opinion seemed to generally be that the film would be a hit for those who view hyperactivity as a failure and depression as a bad attitude; it goes against the medical establishment and the ability of medical science to bring about results (Brauser, 2012). At first glance you may not notice this, and most viewers aren’t necessarily thinking about representation when they watch a movie for entertainment, but these themes and messages are still being subliminally instilled into us as viewers.
GIF Analysis
Stripped of all context, this GIF is a long (roughly 6 second) looping sequence of a woman yelling at a man about how she feels empty because she exerts all her energy into helping everyone else but herself. The GIF feels very manic in nature, as the woman is flailing her arms around and being extremely expressive with her facial expressions and movements. GIFs are typically not this long, so I’d like to offer another possible motive for the creation and deployment of this GIF...The way that the text is lined up perfectly with what the woman is saying demonstrates to me that this content was created to express something the user who created this felt like they couldn’t say themselves, but deeply related with. In other words, the GIF and its contents are acting as a stand-in for the creators emotions, as well as the emotions of those who interact with it. Based on the woman’s words and facial expressions, I would argue that the emotions felt by the creator of the GIF were situated along the lines of anger, sadness and frustration.
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