Stepford Smiler: Difference between revisions

** The anime version of [[Psycho Lesbian|Shizuru]]: She manages to keep up a cool and semi-cheerful facade for the vast majority of the series, all while trying to content herself with being Natsuki's friend despite believing that she can't tell her how she feels. We don't see it break until Natsuki rejects her.

* The [[Genki Girl|over-enthusiastic]] [[Royals Who Actually Do Something|princess]] Amelia from ''[[Slayers]]'', if one looks deeper, is a Type A; as a daughter of a prestigious and powerful royal family, she is subjugated to horrific violence and carnage between her family over her kingdom's inheritance. Her [[Missing Mom]] was murdered, in-series she sees one of her uncles and her cousin get killed for similar reasons, her sister has long run away, and her father (the current heir apparent) is a go-to target for assassins. It's summed up well enough in the [[Light Novel]] she's introduced in:

* Kyouko Mogami from ''[[Skip Beat]]'', due to having had an abusive, unpleasable mother, and later living and working in a ''ryokan'' (Japanese inn) where she picked the attitude of "clients shouldn't see you upset ever". Any time her real feelings and temper come to surface, she managed to put them back quickly, to not disturb the people around. Kyouko only breaks with this when she is properly informed that all her efforts will be not rewarded at all, and then realizes that living like she was constantly tending clients neither does her any good.

** Complicating Kyoko's case is that after [[Unlucky Childhood Friend|she]] discovers her "prince" Shou's heartless betrayal of her and snaps (in the first chapter), she continues from there. And the skills and habits she learned in her previous life and her tendency to live for others coexist really ''strangely'' with her new life goals. She wouldn't have made it so far if she wasn't the person her childhood made her, but she had to break with her childhood to go anywhere.

* Most characters in ''[[Pleasantville]]'' are a [[Stepford Smiler]], what with it being a [[Trapped in TV Land|1950s sitcom world made real.]] Eventually the teens who zapped into Pleasantville help break the townspeople of the trope.

* Gina McKee plays a particularly creepy variant of this in ''[[Mirror Mask]]''.

'''Black Queen:''' Exactly! }}

* ''The Chumscrubber'' is essentially about an entire suburb full of [[Stepford Smiler|Stepford Smilers]].

* Katherine in ''[[Cruel Intentions]]'' pretends to be an upstanding Junior League-type schoolgirl, when in reality she's an oversexed, scheming coke fiend who takes out her frustrations on her fellow female classmates by persuading them to sleep around and ruin their reputations as a result.

* Asami Yamazaki in ''[[Audition]]''. The male protagonist Aoyama is instantly smitten with [[Yamato Nadeshiko|her beauty and demureness]], and ignores his friend's comments on how there's something ''wrong'' about her. She turns out to be a [[Freudian Excuse|victim of childhood abuse]] ''and'' an [[Ax Crazy]] murderer, which would be a spoiler if not for [[Trailers Always Spoil|the DVD cover and trailer showing her wielding a syringe]]. The climactic scene is made all the creepier by her perky voice and grin.

* The Other Mother in ''[[Coraline (animation)|Coraline]]''. Along with those button eyes... [[Uncanny Valley|brr...]]

* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[Shock Treatment]]'': Denton is a hybrid of a TV station and a town, so naturally it encourages its residents to be shallow, cheerful consumers.

* From ''[[Toy Story]] 2'', we have the Barbie dolls, whose gleaming smiles never falter, not even once. In the [[Hilarious Outtakes]], one of them was complaining about how her face hurts from all the smiling.

* The film version of the book ''[[Dangerous Liaisons]]'' (from which ''Cruel Intentions'', above, was adapted) has the Contesse de Merteuil (Glenn Close) outright state that she learned to smile even when she didn't mean it.

* Played with in the film ''[[Far From Heaven]]'' in that the housewife genuinely had a wonderful cliche 1950s suburban life. Then it began to crumble around her....

* Parodied with the camp counselors in the second ''[[The Addams Family|Addams Family]]'' movie. Also, Wednesday's (fake) smile while at the camp, which is met with a "She's scaring me!" from another camper.

* [[Amy Poehler]]'s impression of Hillary Clinton on ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' seems to draw a good deal of inspiration from this trope.

* The ''[[Lexx]]'' universe has a [[School of Seduction]] that ''raises'' women to be [[Stepford Smiler|Stepford Smilers]].

'''Matron:''' Very good, Zev. Your reading was an 8.3% deviation from standard. }}

* One of Tara's [[Split Personality|split personalities]] in ''[[United States of Tara]]'' is a "perfect 50's housewife who's secretly filled with ''seething rage''", according to the press releases.

* ''[[Chuck]]'''s [[Action Girl|Sarah Walker]]. In ''Chuck Vs. Santa Claus'', {{spoiler|she kills an enemy agent, and almost immediately puts on a cheery smile and tells Chuck that he was taken into custody. Of course, [[Downer Ending|Chuck saw the whole thing]].}}

* Quinn of ''[[Glee]]'' tries this, hoping to hide her pregnancy from her family and the rest of the school and continue to play the part of the popular, celibate cheerleader, until such point as the truth becomes too obvious to ignore. {{spoiler|It doesn't work - and when words get out, she loses her popularity and even ''gets kicked out by her parents''.}} And according to Quinn, her mom is one of these as well (what we know of her makes it obvious she's at least a [[Lady Drunk]]).

** Episode 12 hints that Rachel might be one of those as well (especially the Lily Allen version of "Smile"), or might become one someday (when she tells herself that "it's lonely at the top" when Finn apparently abandons her when the Glee club is due their photos for the school yearbook).

** Terri ''tried'' to be one of these with her fake pregnancy.

== [[Music]] ==

* Smokey Robinson's "Tears of a Clown" is practically the musical [[Trope Codifier]].

Like a clown I pretend to be glad }}

* The song "Happy Go Lucky" by Steps is made of this trope.

* The main character of the music video for "Everybody's Fool" by [[Evanescence]].

* Morrissey (in his solo career after [[The Smiths]]) has When I Last Spoke To Carol, where she said:

since the day I was born in 1975." }}

* Everclear's ''Wonderful'' hints at this.

* The song 'Ah, but Underneath' from 'Follies.' The entire song sings about a woman who seemed to be something on the surface, but was something different underneath the top layer. But that layer, too, was 'just a shell,' and so it continues. The very last line is 'Sometimes when the wrappings fall, there's nothing underneath at all!' making this a type B.

* The chorus of [[Taylor Swift]]'s "Tied Together With A Smile" is about a Type 1 childhood friend of Taylor's who had anorexia.

But you're comin' undone" }}

* "Smiling Faces", sung by The Temptations, the Undisputed Truth, David Ruffin solo...

Of the evil that lurks within..." }}

* "The Places You Have Come To Fear The Most" by Dashboard Confessional is about a Type A:

perfect makeup, but you're barely scraping by. }}

* [[Lady Gaga]]'s "Dance in the Dark" is surprisingly dark. "Baby loves to dance in the dark / cuz when he's looking she falls apart".

** On that note, Stella and especially Blanche from ''[[A Streetcar Named Desire]].''

* In ''[[Mary, Mary]]'', Mary accuses her ex-husband Bob of having forced her into this type when they were married:

* Jennifer in ''[[When Midnight Strikes]]'' is a Type A example, the perfect hostess who is smiling and keeping the party going even though she's falling apart inside. Her song 'Little Miss Perfect' makes this very clear.

* Edith in ''[[The Women]]'' has one pregnancy after another, even though she hates babies and doesn't like being pregnant. She seems to do a lot more complaining than smiling, but nevertheless insists that "I'm the only happy woman you know." Perhaps she does more smiling in mixed company.

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* [[Yandere|Berry]] from the ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]'' episode "Berry Scary". She at first appeared overly cutesy and kind, especially around Bloo, who she had fallen in love with, but when faced with obstacles to her perceived "relationship" with Bloo, she dropped the cutesy persona and went off on bouts of jealous rage. Her mask eventually cracked at the end of the episode, when Bloo finally spelled it out for her:

'''Berry:''' [[My Name Is Not Durwood|MY NAME IS BERRY]]!!! }}

* Lois in the [[Christmas Episode]] of ''[[Family Guy]]'' tries mightily to salvage Christmas despite her family's efforts to the contrary, climaxing in a [[Break the Cutie|nervous breakdown]] over [[Rant-Inducing Slight|missing wash towels]] and an epic [[Beware the Nice Ones|freakout.]]

** Manga!Millie, who's dumbfounded by this, eventually compares Vash's fake smile with the grey colour you obtain when you mix paints of all colours.

*** That's in Maximum #39 'Colorless Emotions,' the first time Vash reflexively uses the angel arm to block a bullet in a relatively casual gunfight. (Read: the people trying to kill him aren't plot-related characters.) Meryl cracks up briefly at seeing it after the trauma she had last time he used it, and the townspeople conclude he's a demon and start [[Bullying the Dragon|''stoning'' him]]. Wolfwood snarls at them. [[Crowning Moment Of Heartbreaking]]:

'''Vash:''' [Beat panel, still smiling.] What other expression should I make? I don't know anymore. }}

** Nicholas D. Wolfwood himself thrives on this trope, although it's clear almost from the beginning he is a dark, conflicted, and potentially angsty character.

* [[D.Gray-man|Lavi.]] Or perhaps in this case we should say [[No Name Given|Bookman Junior]], since "Lavi" is just another one of his aliases. ([[Becoming the Mask|He started changing]] once he started to get into his new role more and came close to his teammates though.) But what was the actual person like before joining the Order? During the fight with Road, Lavi gets flashbacks- what we see is a jaded and cynical young man who has lost all the faith in humanity, who doesn't give a damn about anything. He socializes with people only because it helps him to get information more easily ("Let's be frivolous and friendly like always"), face all smiles, not being a bit like [[Keet]] we know he is in the series. It's even mentioned in Reverse Novel 2 how his eyes seemed dead when he first came to Black Order.

** But when you consider his past, is it any wonder he turned out like that? After all, growing up while recording wars and seeing bloodshed wherever you go isn't exactly the happiest childhood there is. To sum it up: Bookman Junior is Stepford Smiler Type B, perhaps a bit milder version since he's not totally soulless, maybe a bit hollow, yes, but not empty. After becoming Lavi, his fake smiles have started slowly turn into genuine ones.

** Some interpretations of Allen's character. Allen tends to smile and throw out optimistic and enthusiastic support at the drop of a hat when around his friends, but whenever he's alone he tends to be either beating himself up, wallowing in some deserved self-pity, or worrying about his entire freaking existence.

* Ewon from the manhwa ''Totally Captivated.'' He smiles, he's friendly, and he will be an [[Extreme Doormat]]... until you push him too far. But he's been so [[Break the Cutie|utterly and completely broken]] [[Dark and Troubled Past|as a child]] that if you dig a layer beneath his engaging exterior he's basically an [[Empty Shell]]. As a result, he's [[Really Gets Around|pretty damn promiscuous]], and will shy away from any serious relationship. Fast ([[Your Cheating Heart|this may coincide with the promiscuity bit]]).

* ''[[Yami no Matsuei]]'': Tsuzuki appears cheerful and childish, but in fact is a [[The Woobie|woobie]] with many issues.

* Shouma Takakura from ''[[Mawaru Penguindrum]]'' is a male [[Yamato Nadeshiko]], but [http://ninteenpointzerofour.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/spinning-penguin-drum-novel-chapter-1/ in the novels] he describes himself as a textbook Type B.

* ''[[Togainu no Chi]]'': Keisuke has shades of this in Episode 5 where he smiles at Akira despite it being clear he is disturbed by what Akira had done. Naturally, Akira [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|calls him out on it.]]

** {{spoiler|Rin could count as a Type A, though instead of depression he mainly wants to kill Shiki out of vengeance.}}

== [[Fan Fiction]] ==

* Zirah, from ''[[The Sacred and the Profane]]''.

"Why not?" }}

* In ''[[Code Geass: Mao of the Deliverance|Code Geass Mao of the Deliverance]]'', the titular character not only displays a blend of Type A and Type C--exuding cheerfulness and cool self-satisfaction while really [[Unhappy Medium|suffering from insanity]] and desperately [[Love Makes You Crazy|pining after C.C.]]--but deliberately affects an image of wealth and taste so people won't treat him with suspicion.

* In the ''[[Redwall]]'' fanfic [http://www.rovl.org/vi/?p=display&e=8482 It Makes Me Happy That I'm Not Them], Swartt Sixclaw's [[Ironic Hell]] involves him being forced to become one of these. He's stuck with demonic copies of the wife and son he abused, and is forced to perpetually be the perfect husband and father figure to them. It's not really shown what'll happen if he doesn't, but considering [[Gorn|what happens to the point-of-view character later]], we can guess it's not good.

* In the few fics that actually center around and/or care to develop Big Macintosh from ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', he's generally portrayed as being a Type A or B for one reason or another. Hinted at in the example below, from the heretofore-unfinished shipfic "Like I Imagined":

"'Cause when he gets like that, he looks darn near fifty." The earth pony shook her head. "It ain't right for a colt to look twice his age." }}

 

* [[Tim Burton]]'s ''[[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (film)|Charlie and The Chocolate Factory]]'' has Willy Wonka recast as a [[Stepford Smiler]].

* Norman Bates from ''[[Psycho]]''. Outwardly smiling and charming, but oh so unwell behind the mask. It's even more unnerving because Norman himself is so unstable that he acknowledges his Stepford mask slipping on and off:

'''Norman:''' but I say I don't. }}

* From the Trope Namer, the 2004 version of ''[[The Stepford Wives]]'' had a gay couple, one of whom, {{spoiler|played by Roger Bart}} was a male example. The {{spoiler|main 'leader', played by Christopher Walken}} was one, too. {{spoiler|Said male leader was a ''robot'', built and programmed as "the perfect stepford husband" by Glenn Close's character to cope with her husband's adultery, and perhaps even her murder of him.}}

** Another codependent one.

** [[Playing with a Trope|Played with]], Season 7's episode 11 gives us this advice:

** Which leads us to the ending of the episode where Dean, as he's driving, tries to smile and utterly fails.

* ''[[Dexter]]''. On the surface, Dexter Morgan affects a harmless, chipper personality to fit into society and hide the fact that he is a sociopathic serial killer. And empty. Over the course of the series, however, he becomes more in touch with his feelings and enjoys periods of legitimate happiness.

* Nick Cave's "Good Son".

* "The Tracks of My Tears" by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles:

The tracks of my tears }}

** Smokey Robinson also had "Tears of a Clown", which is similar.

It's only there trying to fool the public }}

* The subject of "Everybody's Fool" by [[Evanescence]] is somewhere between Type A and Type B. In the video, the dissonance between the facade and the emptiness inside results in some [[Rage Against the Reflection]].

* [[David Bowie]]'s "D.J." is sung from the perspective of a Type B radio deejay who's "got believers" but is losing his mind and approaching Type C status; the [[Concept Video]] contrasts his happy public facade with his increasingly violent, despairing nature in-studio. "I am a D.J., I am what I play/Can't turn around, no, can't turn around..."

* [[The Beatles (band)|The Beatles]] I'm A Loser," mostly written by Lennon:

Is it for her or myself that I cry? }}

* [[Queen]]'s "The Show Must Go On" describes a Type B (it could also fit a Type A, but Type B fits better)

But my smile still stays on. }}

* The Simon and Garfunkel song "Richard Cory," based on the Edward Arlington Robinson poem. The song's chorus, an [[Every Man]] wishing he could be Richard Cory, becomes ironic when repeated one final time after we learn about Cory's suicidal depression.

* C.B. the Red Caboose in ''Starlight Express'': "Under the smiles and under the fun, I'm Public Enemy Number One!"

* [[Cyrano De Bergerac]]: Cyrano is a Type A obsessed with not projecting an image of sadness in order to be accepted by his peers the [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Gascon cadets]] and show [[Of the People|everyone else he does not care]]. Inside, [[Beneath the Mask|Cyrano feels very sad and depressed because his enormous nose]]. In Act II Scene VII, Cyrano displays his sociopathy when his friend Le Bret mentions he seems sad. At Act V Scene V Roxane calls Cyrano “melancholyc”, he collects himself and denies it immediately. And in Act I Scene V, after talking with Le Bret why he will never win Roxane’s love, Cyrano declares himself unworthy of crying and feeling sadness: those are [[Serious Business|beautiful feelings]] and if he would cry, it only would seem ridiculous:

The grave emotion that a tear engenders! }}

 

* Flippy of ''[[Happy Tree Friends]]'' is very [[Ax Crazy|Type C]].

* Like the [[The Nostalgia Chick]], [[The Nostalgia Critic]] also delves into this on occasion. Mostly when a movie does something good then completely fucks it up but also when he was talking about his parents.

'''Critic''': (cheerfully) "I had issues." }}

 

** There are no indications that Spongebob is sane. The flavor of his apparent insanity varies.

* Ned Flanders of ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''. He is perpetually happy, refusing to let ''anything'' get him down or bother him - even if it really should. Maude's funeral may be one of the few exceptions to this. One episode, which sees him suffer a nervous breakdown after trying to cope with the people of Springfield (very shoddily) rebuilding his house after it's been destroyed, implies that this is a result of him misinterpreting some advice given to him by the therapist who saw him for his anger management problems, when he was a teenager (and rebelling against his beatnik parents by being an angry, angry square).

*** In fact, in one Halloween special, Ned Flanders becomes an Orwellian figure and makes sure ''everyone'' smiles - or go through "Re-Neducation", aka lobotomy.

* An episode of ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'' has Timmy Turner's dad become this as a result of Timmy travelling to the past to prevent him from winning a race and thus meeting Timmy's mom. This results in a dystopian future in which Dad becomes a [[Stepford Smiler]] to cope with his loss and forces everyone else to be one as well.

** There is a hint of this lampshaded by Timmy's mom after being swapped into dad's body in one episode, where she mentioned that she had a sudden feeling of giving up on her dreams. This could mean Timmy's dad gave up on his old dreams sometime ago.

** Also, in the FLARG episode when Timmy is trying to stop Mark from exploding:

* The titular ''[[Kung Fu Panda]]'' Po. It's implied that he has that cheerful front to hide his insecurities. Subverted because some of his smiles are genuine.

* The title character of ''[[Hey Arnold]]''. Most people see him as a sweet, friendly little boy...however, he's really just hiding his sadness due to his parents being lost in the jungle and not seeing them in ages.

* In ''[[Invasion of the Body Snatchers]]'', being absorbed by the pods turns you into a [[Empty Shell|Type B]] version of this. {{spoiler|By the end of the movie, this happens to either an entire town or to the entire U.S., depending on whether you're watching the original version or the 1978 remake.}}

* There's a rare humorous example of a Type B Stepford Smiler in ''[[Annie Hall]]'', with a couple that Alvy Singer approaches on the street for relationship advice:

'''Alvy Singer:''' I see. Wow. That's very interesting. So you've managed to work out something? }}

* Chris and Belle in ''[[The Woman]]'' are a happy, successful, traditional couple with three children in the suburbs... who keep [[Wild Child|a feral woman]] locked in the cellar, ostensibly in an attempt to "civilize" her. And even before she came into the picture, there was a heaping helping of [[Domestic Abuse]] going on. Belle eventually snaps out of it once she realizes that {{spoiler|her husband and her son are raping the feral woman}}.

== Tabletop Games ==

* Every vampire from ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]'' slowly loses its [[Karma Meter|Humanity]] as the years go by, but the [[Vampires Are Sex Gods|Daeva]] [[The Beautiful Elite|clan]] are particularly prone to this. They are presented as [[Evil Is Sexy|sexy]] and [[Manipulative Bastard]] [[The Casanova|men]] and [[The Vamp|women]] that ooze sensuality, and maintain the image of the perfect vampires, but inside they're completely rotten. Years of manipulation drain their ability to feel true attachment until they can no longer [[What Is This Thing You Call Love?|comprehend human emotions]] and even though they seem to be passionate and claim to understand desire, they only feel need. This causes many Daeva to became [[The Hedonist|depraved]] and desperate to feel again. Things get worse each passing decade, because vampires tend to forget to fake breathing and blinking, gradually turning them into [[Empty Shell|Empty Shells]] and truly establishing their Stepford Smilers status and [[Uncanny Valley]] natures. This, of course, makes humans (as well as [[Evil-Detecting Dog|animals]]) feel that there's something atrociously wrong with them.

* ''[[Paranoia (game)|Paranoia]]'' features a dystopic world run by a power-mad AI that demands that all citizens be happy, under penalty of summary execution.

* ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' features Grandfather Nurgle, a (seemingly) nice guy who is also the god of [[Body Horror]] and expresses his "love" to his followers by handing them down diseases.