The Cultural Relevance of the Smile Films Within the Current Zeitgeist: An Introduction to Mental Health and Trauma in the 2020s as Reflected in Film

Towards the end of Smile 2, at the culmination of a frantic sequence of events, Skye Riley has a sudden realisation, that the entity, or demon, or whatever it is that has latched on to her, only exists inside her head. If true, then it is surely her who is in control. This realisation reinvigorates Skye, enabling her to take on the entity with the aim of destroying it completely, even at the risk of her own life.

This character development also occurs in the first film, in which Dr Rose Cotter concludes that she can take control by being alone. Only by being alone, she reasons, will she be able to confront the entity. For if she is alone, how will the entity have any way of latching on to anybody else? And, by confronting the entity, alone, she will be able to conquer her own inner demons, and to heal from the trauma that the entity is feeding off.

For both characters, the realisation comes at a breaking point. By now, the entity has blurred the boundaries between what is real and what isn’t, submerging them in prolonged hallucinations. Interactions with the people they know (therapists, work colleagues, friends, parents) are shown to be phantasmagoria. There is no way out now, no way of escaping the entity or the damage it has done, not just to their inner selves, but to their reputations and relationships.

This reputational damage is more palpable for Skye. As pop superstar, her torment is public, perceived as another mental breakdown, commodified for public consumption. As we see in the bar scene with Morris (whose existence is unclear), phones are whipped out at the sight of her. The bar goers, every day, normal people, gather round to film and laugh. Her perceived mental breakdown has become subject matter for TV shows and social media discourse, which, in real life, would no doubt become reduced to a meme, something that is indicative of the dehumanisation of individuals and the trivialisation of trauma in the digital age.

These breaking points, unravelling on the cusp of the films’ climaxes, takes us to the heart of both Smile films. Being hardly subtle, the films’ major themes of trauma and mental illness are widely acknowledged, and something, I feel, that makes the viewing of both films more uncomfortable, unnerving, and, ultimately, more impactful on audiences. It does something that all great horror films do well, by tapping into subtexts of something relatable, taken from the real world, to be used as metaphor. Take the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, for example, widely seen as metaphor for the ‘Red Scare’ of 1950s America. This film, like others of its time, took the fear of Communist infiltration (that was very real for a lot of people), and put it to use in the guise of an alien invasion (which, for all intents and purposes, is what the Soviet threat was seen as).

The scariest moment in Invasion of the Body Snatchers does not involve the ‘pods’ or subsequent ‘pod people’ (seen as metaphor for those subverted by communist influence), but comes in the penultimate scene when, staring directly into the camera, a hysterical Dr Bennell cries - “They’re here already! You’re next!” For audiences at the time, this moment was a not-so-subtle nod to the mass hysteria of an imagined, or exaggerated, threat of Soviet style Communism. The scene mirrors the fears people had of a prospective insidious communist takeover, and of the commies being ‘here already’.

Yet whereas the scares of 1950s horror and sci-fi were in relation to paranoia, the Smile films (as well as other contemporary horror such as It Follows, The Babadook, and Hereditary), are built upon something much more concrete. By dealing in mental illness, how mental illness manifests itself, and how individuals carry with them their own traumas and inner demons, the Smile films have a much deeper resonance, one that propels them above other films within the genre. Far from being just another horror about demonic possession, the Smile series, through the prevalence of its subject matter, confronts audiences with something analogous to their own experiences. The horror is from within, the monster, demon, or entity an internal torment, as opposed to an external threat. Of course, there are the usual jump scares and grotesque visuals, but the suspense, the fear, unravels through a terrifying descent into psychological chaos. And though the metaphor in the Smile series might feel too obvious, it works. It works because of that resonance with the real, with an element of the human condition that is not readily touched upon. And it works because of its place within the current zeitgeist, in which mental health is more broadly recognised and understood. Again, contrast this with the typical, worn-out demonic possession film, where priests and nuns encounter the devil and all the Biblical elements that come with them. To put it bluntly, nobody cares.

2023’s mediocre The Pope’s Exorcist is just one recent example. How many times are audiences expected to sit through scenes of people crawling up walls, and of a Christian based take on the devil possessing young girls and grown women? Fifty years on from The Exorcist, the tropes are all played out, the themes irrelevant, and the result is another pointless film, forgotten about minutes after viewing.

Yet, some subgenres of horror can still hit. Take the zombie film, for example. The reason why a zombie film can still find popularity, in contrast to demonic possessions, is down to adaptability. There is a malleable quality to zombies that allows a filmmaker to apply different themes or meanings. A zombie film can make comment on government control (The Crazies), outbreaks of disease (28 Days Later…), on Capitalism itself (Dawn of the Dead). Consequently, zombie films, some good, some bad, retain significance and popularity.

Of course, making a film that has cultural relevance is easier said than done. Going back to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Don Siegel (director), Kevin McCarthy (lead role), and Jack Finney (author of the original novel), in various interviews, all pushed back on any perceived political allegory. The closest we get comes from Siegel, who in one interview spoke about the inclusion of a ‘pod people’:

“I think the world is populated by pods and I wanted to show them. I think so many people have no feeling about cultural things, no feeling of pain or sorrow…” (Lovell, A. 1975.

So, there is, at the very least, an awareness of societal mood, of which there is a willingness to critique, lampoon, or to simply just depict for purposes of social commentary. Siegel’s allusion to pod people (akin to the modern concept of NCPs and arguably more relevant now than back then), gives insight into the mind of an artist who has something to say. Contrary to his protestations regarding the films anti-communist satire, his thoughts on ‘pod people’ are a case in point of a filmmaker tapping into real-world anxieties in order to make effective, engaging horror. The films relevance, legacy, and iconic standing in film history is built purely on the foundation of a social and cultural awareness of its time.

Parker Finn, director of the Smile films, has also spoke candidly on his ideas, specifically around mental illness:

“…what was really, really important to me was to tell a human character story that was exploring the human condition. I think we are all walking around with these things inside us. Whether it’s traumas or grief or anxieties or fears and the way we mask those from the modern world.” (McGrew, S. 2022)

Finn’s words, despite the general openness that now surrounds mental health, allude to people’s persistence in bottling up their emotions, or hiding away their inner struggles. The idea of seeking help, or expecting help, however, in a society as alienated as our own, is not just daunting, it is still, in many ways, frowned upon. Consider attitudes towards people in the grip of a mental breakdown, particularly a public one (something Smile 2 depicts so viscerally). There are still heard utterances of disapproval, ones lacking in empathy, and outright ridicule towards people in the grip of mental illness. Furthermore, the ‘man up’ attitude still retains its dominance, particularly in places of work, and even between friends and family. The objective is to ‘just get on with it’. To keep smiling.

We know now, of course (or at least we should do), that bottling things up, not seeking help, and of being met with ‘tough love’ or outright indifference only leads to bad outcomes, ranging from the tragic to catastrophic. Generations of people can attest to this. In many ways, we live in a traumatised world, populated by traumatised people, all living their own lives, in their own heads. Each morning, for example, in cities all over the world, there is the march to work and then, much later, the march back to bus stations, train stations, and metros to carry us home. We are surrounded by people, everywhere, and all those people are dealing with their own traumas and anxieties, and yet we carry on, marching, because that is, we are told, what we have to do.

If we take a moment, though, and consider the amount of variable types of abuse and wrongdoing in the world, cumulating over generations, and the effects that inflicted trauma has on mental health, then the idea of a traumatised world, populated by traumatised people, dealing with their traumas in various ways, as individuals, having their worldview shaped by these traumas, enables us to recognise why various kinds of artists are, whether consciously or not, producing works focused on the inner self, and inner demons. Put simply, the current mood is one of fear and anxiety. Responses to trauma, both domestic and public, transcends political divides, the so-called ‘woke’ and ‘anti-woke’, as well as religious and moral differences.

One of the most striking things about the Smile films is the portrayal of trauma and mental health as a contagion. The entity in the film spreads through traumatic experiences, form one person to the next, reflective of mental health conditions that are intergenerational, cumulative, and collective. The focus is on the various societal dimensions of trauma and mental illness and how they shape, and are shaped by, wider society and culture.

By turning trauma into a literal entity that torments its victims, the films offer a stark metaphor for the ways in which unresolved trauma and mental health conditions can consume us, solidifying the idea that horror, as a genre, is at its best when confronting the anxieties of an era. In our time, generational and cumulative trauma, combined with the very real and current fears of war, climate change, and the rise of a new brand of Fascism, not to mention the profound restructuring of society that we are now entering on the back of recent technological advancements and the emergence of AI, meander us in an age of palpable anxiety, one that exposes the fragilities of the human psyche.

References

McGrew, S. 2022. https://www.nightmarishconjurings.com/2022/10/04/interview-parker-finn-for-smile/

Lovell, A. 1975. Don Siegel. American Cinema. London 1975.