Don't Be Afraid Of Your Anger

Plus: Here For It, Sonic The Hedgehog, And What's Making Us Happy by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when the inevitable happened: [we saw the Baby Yoda merch](. It was the week when fans and friends [bid farewell to Ja’Net DuBois]( the legendary actress and the powerhouse composer-singer behind The Jeffersons’ theme song, [and to Kellye Nakahara]( the beloved Nurse Kellye on M*A*S*H. And it was the week when “Take On Me” [hit one billion views](. Let's get to it. Opening Argument: Don’t Be Afraid Of Your Anger There’s a Clem Snide song that begins, “Don’t be afraid of your anger / I’ll drink it with mustard and wine.” The song is eventually about making out and having a pillow fight, but those are the words that have always stuck with me. It’s remarkable how many kinds of anger popular culture can embrace with the right protagonists. There’s the kind that Jack Nicholson has during the big courtroom scene in A Few Good Men, the “how dare you challenge me?” kind of bully anger. And there’s the kind that Tom Cruise has in that same scene, the “how dare you not be decent?” kind. When I think about anger on TV and in movies, I think about Don Draper barking “That’s what the money is for!” and Walter White seething “I am the one who knocks.” I don’t have a good controlled experiment for whether women and people who aren’t white get to thunder at others in all those same ways; I don’t have a survey of all anger in all films and on all shows; I am unfortunately left with gut feelings about my own points of reference, which are mostly American English-language film and television. Certainly, women’s anger has a longstanding place -- even Scarlett O’Hara’s “as God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again” is anger of a kind, but it seems different. It’s an anger of coming through suffering; it’s not aimed at a person. I thought about Celie in The Color Purple saying “I’m poor, black, I may even be ugly, but Dear God, I’m here!”, and it’s hard not to notice that her anger, too, is technically prayer. Part of her victory is her mastery of her anger -- she stops her abuser in his tracks by raising a hand in stillness. (Both of these are from books, of course; this is not a phenomenon invented by, or for, television or film.) But I also think about Betty Draper, Don’s wife, who is one of the angriest characters I’ve ever seen. Not because she yelled, which she often did, but because she drifted through her life suffused with anger, constantly, for the things she had given up and the little she thought she’d gotten for it. This was true, too, of Peggy Olsen, the other woman in Don’s life, who lived her anger more than yelled it. I think about one of the most indelible slaps in film -- the one where Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier) slaps the white man who’s just slapped him. It’s not even clear that that’s a straightforward result of anger, though, even though he’s certainly angry -- maybe the slap itself is simply an equal and opposite reaction. Sally Field in Steel Magnolias, angry about the loss of her daughter. Countless women on crime procedurals angry about being victims of crime. Men of color angry about being falsely imprisoned; I’ve certainly seen a lot of that. As I said, it’s not a survey or a study; it’s just something I’m thinking about -- whether the kinds of anger that characters get to express is different, based on who they are. For instance, do women on screen express anger more at their circumstances, and at mistreatment, where men (particularly white ones) express anger at a broader variety of things: perceived slights, breaches of integrity and morality, bruised egos. It’s obviously one of those things where I’m sure counterexamples exist, but I’m not sure it’s not a legitimate pattern of some kind. I do believe this much: Don’t be afraid of your anger. --------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter continues after sponsor message --------------------------------------------------------------- We Recommend: One of our very favorite writers is the great R. Eric Thomas. His new book, Here For It, happily carries his unforgettable, hilarious, deeply felt style. [Check out an original piece he wrote for Oprah!]( (Full disclosure: Eric’s book is from the same publisher as mine, although my love of his writing greatly predates that situation.) Look, I am not telling you that it’s a good idea for you to watch Netflix’s trashy marriage show Love Is Blind, but I am telling you that we’ll be talking about it on the show next week and it is weirdly mesmerizing (and trashy) and you may want to be prepared. It is weird but true that our friends at Maximum Fun have unleashed yet another weird podcast upon the world, this time from John Hodgman of Judge John Hodgman and Elliott Kalan of The Flop House. The new podcast is called I, Podius, and it recaps the surprisingly sexy BBC-to-PBS ‘70s miniseries I, Claudius, one episode at a time. Hey, I said it was weird but true. What We Did This Week: [PCHH Sonic Image]( Courtesy Paramount Pictures and Sega of America. On Wednesday, we returned to our show about the Netflix film To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, in recognition of the sequel, P.S. I Still Love You, [which I also wrote about for NPR](. I was on vacation for a good part of the week, so I wasn’t even on our Friday show, on which [Stephen and Glen talk about the huge hit Sonic The Hedgehog]( with pals Petra Mayer and Tasha Robinson. I’m back now! More shows to come! [Glen wrote about]( the TV adaptation of the podcast Slow Burn. What's Making Us Happy: Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: - Stephen: [Laura Stevenson’s Tiny Desk]( - Petra: [The Queen’s Bargain by Anne Bishop]( - Tasha:[Brit Marling’s essay]( and [The OA]( - Glen: [The Expanse on Amazon]( What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: [pchh@npr.org](mailto:pchh@npr.org?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback) Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can [sign up here](. Looking for more great content? [Check out all of our newsletter offerings]( — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Pop Culture Happy Hour emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 [Unsubscribe]( | [Privacy Policy](