Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Rachel Marin
Prof.McLaughlin
7 March 2017
The film Happy is a documentary about what makes people happy and how to live a
happier life style. This film was released in 2011 and is comprised of interviews of a variety of
different people from different places to find out what happiness means to them and what it can
tell us about happiness overall. Looking into these people's lives lead to new discoveries about a
new field of psychology known as positive psychology. The aim of positive psychology is to
help people have a positive outlook on their experiences and life in other words it simply looks at
happiness. This film is targeted toward anyone who is looking to live a happier life or people
who believe they cant find happiness. The specific audience of this film are middle class to
upper class Americans who are unhappy or just tired of their mundane lives. This film address
many common misconceptions about happiness such as the more wealth we have the happier we
effectively present an idea. The film, Happy, supports the idea that material wealth does not buy
happiness by using rhetoric that assists advocacy and rhetorical devices such as framing and
emotional appeal.
In the film Happy the idea that wealth or material goods does not bring happiness is an
integral part of the film and can be seen in almost every scene. In the film they interview a
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variety of positive psychologist who present the claim that once all our basic needs, such as food,
shelter, water, and clothing, are met wealth beyond doesnt increase happiness. Once we attain
basic needs we are stuck on a hedonic treadmill. This idea is that once we reach a certain level of
wealth we will just want more and more. To support this claim they use rhetoric that assists
advocacy. In Herricks, The Overview of Rhetoric, he describes assisting to advocacy as, [it] is
the method by which we advocate ideas we believe to be important (17-18). In other words this
is when people effectively support a certain claim or idea. In the film they use positive
psychologist to explain the idea that we just need our basic needs to be met in order to be happy.
Positive psychologist spend most of their time researching happiness and optimism, which
makes them a perfect example of people who support something they believe to be important.
They also use psychologist to present us with information about what causes us to be happy and
how our experiences affect our happiness. They do this by having people who look very
intelligent and who have large credential to make us believe it is true. The people telling us this
information also look a certain way and dress a certain way. Every time they interview these
psychologist they are sitting in front of a shelf full of book to make us believe how smart they
are. For example, in the film they interview Sonja Lyubomirsky who is a professor of
psychology at UC Riverside. When she is speaking her credentials appear on the bottom left
hand side of the screen. She is also wearing professional clothes while sitting in front of large
bookshelves filled with a variety of books. She speaks very properly and the parts of the movies
where we see these people are very serious as compared to when they view other people in their
personal setting. She also presents us with statistics about happiness using a pie graph, which
shows that 50% of our happiness comes from genetics and only 10% of our life circumstances
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such as wealth, age, and social status actually contribute to our overall happiness (6:10 - 6:35).
The way Sonja Lyubomirsky and other positive psychologist present their information about
positive psychology, persuades us that in fact more wealth does not make you happier.
Another way the film Happy supports the idea that wealth doesnt bring happiness is in
the first personal story. They begin by bringing us to a slum in Kolkata, India where a man and
his family live. Manoj Singh and his family live in a small house made out of tarps with only one
window. He wakes up at five in the morning everyday to do some chores around the farm and
then works long hard days transporting people in his rickshaw. While at work he is often
mistreated and abused by his customers, but he never fights back because he doesnt want to be
without work. He endures these hard conditions in order to be able to provide for his family.
Everyday when he gets to go back home he is filled with an overwhelming feeling of happiness
because he can see his family. He says, When I see my childs face I feel very happy. I feel that
I am not poor, but I am the richest person (3:37 - 3:40). He finds his happiness through
meaningful relationships like the one he has with his son and daughter. He acknowledges the fact
that sometimes life is tough but it doesnt matter because he is filled with happiness because of
his family and neighbors. In Lancionis text she emphasizes the importance of framing and how
it can change a scene. Lancioni states, the slow camera movement also gives viewers time to
contemplate the image and to question its significance (Lancioni, 110). For example they zoom
in on the wheel of the trolley he pulls people in and the image become blurry until we can no
longer see it. This evokes the feeling that his days are never ending and it also emphasizes the
dirty work conditions. We are forced to stare at the overwhelming dirt on the ground as they
slowly pan on the wheel of the trolley. The emotions this scene evokes causes us to initially
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believe he is unhappy and struggles to make ends meet until he explains how he gets his
happiness. The use of rhetoric in this claim is very essential because it emphasizes how poor this
man is to then show that although he is poor he is still happy. Another example in this scene they
use framing to emphasize the conditions the man has to work through. He talks about how he has
to work during monsoon season and in the summer heat. During the scene when he talks about
preferring monsoon season the movie slowly zooms in on a puddle that Manoj walks through
while working. This scene is gloomy and washed out of almost all color to emphasize the
conditions he has to work through and make the viewer think about what he endures on a daily
basis, yet he is still very happy. This makes us question the significance of this scene in the
movie. This scene effectively displays the horrible working conditions this man must endure to
be able to provide for his family which would give us reason to believe he is unhappy. Then the
film flips this to show that although he does go through this he still lives a happy life with his
Lastly they supported the idea that more wealth does not make you happier using the
rhetorical device of emotional appeal. In the film they interviewed the Blanchard family from
New Orleans which personally appeals to me because I am from New Orleans. They mainly
focus on Roy Blanchard who finds happiness in nature and spending time with family. They
have family get together where they come together and eat crabs that they catch. When they get
together they dont spend any money because they live off the land. This scene emphasizes the
idea that they do not need to spend any money in order for them to have a good time. He says,
[Nature] is good medicine. This is my medicine (8:57 - 9:17). When he is speaking about this
we are shown a beautiful sunset which is something mostly everyone his seen in their lifetime.
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This also causes an emotional appeal because we have experienced what he experiences
everytime he goes out on his boat and watches the sun set. Blanchard family has very little
material wealth but is one of the happiest families. To support this claim they use many
rhetorical devices such as appeals. Appeals, as defined by Herrick in The Overview of Rhetoric,
[are] symbolic strategies that aim either to elicit an emotion or to engage the audience's loyalties
or commitments (Herrick, 13). This scene engages the audiences loyalties because almost
everyone has a time when their family gets together to spend time together. By showing the
Blanchard family together it creates a positive emotion of togetherness and happiness. When
watching the scene for the first time it elicited a certain emotion by the use of imagery and
music. The imagery and music in this scene is added to evoke a sense of happiness. They include
beautiful images of nature and scenes of the Blanchard family laughing and smiling. The music
included in this scene is very upbeat and also adds to the overall sense of happiness. Personally,
this scene reminded me of home and I felt more connected to his story. I found what he was
saying to be more relatable and true because I felt an emotional connection to this person. They
use many personal experiences to appeal to different people and make viewers feel more
committed to certain stories throughout the film. This helps support the claim that wealth doesnt
buy happiness.
Some viewers may argue that more wealth does bring more happiness, because they have
everything they need. At times there seems to be a bit of a disconnect when they talk about
people finding a job that makes them happy. Some people find high paying jobs enjoyable and
that is what will make them happy. If this is the case, then are these people destined to be less
happy than those who would rather a lower paying job. Although this may seem to be true the
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film presents a wide array of examples to support their claim that wealth does not bring more
happiness. They may also argue that people who are wealthier dont stress and are less likely to
become stressed, but this film gives many clear examples of how this isnt true. For example, the
film says that Manoj who live in a slum in India is just as happy as the average American (2:28 -
2:38). Another example in the movie Happy tells us that economic wealth has increased over the
last fifty years,but overall happiness has remained about the same (24:24 - 24:45). The movie
also mentions that there is a significant jump in happiness between those who have basic needs
met and those who dont. Once we have basic need such as food, water, and shelter there is no
difference in happiness (24:45 - 25:20). This shows how money doesnt buy happiness, because
if it did there would be a significant difference between people who are wealthy and have their
basic needs met. The reason some viewers may think that more wealth will bring them more
happiness is because we as humans are designed in a way that we just want more and more.
Once we get what we want we find something else that we want and work until we achieve that.
This is known as the hedonic treadmill and can be a big factor in unhappiness and why viewers
believe more wealth correlated to more happiness (25:20 - 25:36). Another way the support the
theme that more wealth doesnt cause us to be happier is by looking at people who became
paralyzed after an accident and people who won the lottery. By looking at these groups of people
they found that after three years neither of the two groups was happier than the other. These
examples clearly support the idea that more wealth doesnt cause us to be happier. The only
thing more wealth does is cause us to want more things and can even make us unhappy.
In conclusion, this film uses rhetorical devices in a way that it supports his claims about
happiness and positive psychology. This is important as more and more people are finding way
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to become happier people. In the film he takes advantage of rhetoric to support his idea that
money doesnt buy happiness. Although some viewers may argue that more wealth does bring
happiness it is topic that is very important especially in America as more and more people are
trying to find the answer to happiness. Happiness is also something that affects everyone
worldwide and that many people believe defines a good life. After viewing the film Happy we
are given plenty of evidence from psychologist to philosophers to support the idea that more
wealth does not cause more happiness. This idea can be beneficial to our overall happiness and
our outlook on the world. Viewers should view this theme and try to apply it to their own lives to
become happier people. As seen throughout the film we are given many examples of people who
dont have material wealth but still find happiness in other ways or areas of their life.
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Works Cited
Herrick, James A. The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction. London: Routledge,
Lancioni, Judith. "The Rhetoric of the Frame Revisioning Archival Photographs In The Civil