Counter-Currents
1,319 words
Any doubt that there is a concerted wish among influential Jews to guide gentiles into maladaptive behavior can be dispelled by watching the 2008 Mike Leigh film Happy-Go-Lucky. The British Leigh, whose family name was originally Lieberman, became famous as a director among the avant-garde crowd in the 1990s with true-to-life comedy-dramas such as Life is Sweet, Naked, and Secrets and Lies. As an actor’s director, Leigh typically relies more on improvisation and dialogue than on action or cinematography. In other words, his films are chatty, and in many ways harken back to the stage — albeit a long-winded, cockney version of one. At least that’s how Leigh was by 2008, when Happy-Go-Lucky came out.
This film is so offensive that I will provide spoilers in the most prejudicial manner possible. If there ever was a film deserving of being culture-of-critiqued as an insidious attempt at Jewish evolutionary strategizing (by encouraging dysgenic behavior among gentiles), this is it. Examples will appear where appropriate, hyphenated and, of course, in triple parentheses.
A 30-year-old, unmarried elementary school teacher named Pauline “Poppy” Cross, played by Sally Hawkins, cannot shut up with her inane small talk. From her wacky dress, clattering jewelry, cluttered London flat, lack of romantic interests, and overall unmoored lifestyle, we can tell she is some kind of free spirit — and her unswervingly chipper demeanor tells the audience that this is a good thing. (((Don’t get married. Don’t have children.))) One day she discovers that her bike was stolen, but is too kindhearted to get upset or look for the perps. (((Don’t be selfish. Let minorities steal what belongs to you.)))
She decides to learn how to drive and meets her new driving instructor, Scott, unforgettably played by Eddie Marsan. We see the disparity between the two right away. While she is irrepressible, open-minded, and ditsy, he is dour, reactionary, and — most importantly — perceptive. He scolds her incessantly about not driving safely and having a general lack of regard for the rules of the road. He also has unflattering opinions of non-whites and remarks on the Great Replacement as it is happening in London in real time. At one point he quite rightfully complains about how the London police ignore drug-dealers on the streets. This causes him to rant and seethe. (((Don’t be racist. It makes you unhappy.)))
Over the course of the film we learn that Scott believes there is some kind of secret plan behind it all. (((Don’t connect the dots. It makes you crazy.))) He soon unburdens himself of all his far-fetched — and curiously Christian — conspiracy theories, which makes him seem even more unhinged. (((Don’t be a Christian. It makes you crazy.))) Scott is lonely and attracted to Poppy, but clearly has no chance with her. (((Don’t be a racist. Racists are losers.))) He doesn’t take this very well and rage-stalks her when she develops an interest in another man. (((Racists are also psychopathic criminals.)))
You can buy Spencer J. Quinn’s novel Charity’s Blade here.
Beyond her relationship with Scott, nearly every situation Poppy finds herself in becomes a lesson for gentiles — especially gentile women — on all the perks of maladaptive, anti-evolutionary behavior. Early in the film Poppy has a long chitchat with a non-white friend in a restaurant. This scene has no bearing whatsoever on the plot, such as it is. Leigh had no reason to include it other than to make the audience like his muddle-headed heroine for having non-white friends. (((Don’t be racist. You’ll be popular.)))
Another jaunt in this meandering narrative occurs when Poppy develops a pain in her back. She visits a black immigrant doctor who takes care of her lickety-split. Again, no relevance to the plot. (((Always trust the competence of black people. They are just as smart as everyone else.))) Yet another irrelevant scene occurs when Poppy finds herself alone in a sketchy part of town at night. She meets a disheveled homeless man and, instead of running away like any sensible person would, compassionately engages with him. (((By all means, speak with down-and-out strangers at night when you’re all alone. What could possibly go wrong?)))
The most obnoxious scenes for me occur when Poppy visits her sister Helen. Unlike Poppy, Helen is married and pregnant. She also speaks a whole lot of sense to her wayward sister. For example, she tells Poppy to take life more seriously, not drink so much, and prepare for a future. Helen is literally the only character in the film with a substantial speaking role who has her life in order. The audience should sympathize with her, no?
Well, no, actually, since director Leigh prefers to paint Helen as judgmental, condescending, and intolerant. We can’t be sympathetic to that, can we? Not when it threatens the precious freedom of our spinster protagonist, who has no goals in life and no plans for her future whatsoever. (((You are an individual. Live for today.)))
Happy-Go-Lucky does have some redeeming qualities. Hawkins’ performance was spot on, and (my God) so was Marsan’s. Also, as a near-perfect example of Jewish subversion, this film is uniquely instructive, so it has that dubious distinction going for it as well.
To be fair, there is an admirable subplot in which Poppy intervenes on behalf of one of her male students. The boy is bullying other children, and instead of punishing him — or demonizing him and his family the way J. K. Rowling did with the Dursleys in Harry Potter — she applies her customary concern. She gets a social worker on the case and learns that his mother’s boyfriend has been beating him. Just getting the boy to admit this is a triumph, and soon, things are looking up for him. It was sweet, I have to admit. Poppy’s empathy for the child was depicted well by Hawkins, and Leigh played everything about it admirably straight.
You can say a lot of negative things about the Poppy Cross character, but insensitivity is not one of them. The child being white also makes Leigh’s decision not to henpeck gentiles over him a welcome surprise.
But this was a faint ray of light in an exceedingly sinister and nihilistic film. The Scott character in many ways represents both the best and worst of it. Through him, Leigh attempts to paint a type of person he does not like in the worst possible light. It’s not enough that Scott is a thought criminal; Leigh puts him on the verge of being a real one as well. But Eddie Marsan, it seems, played Scott a little too well in Happy-Go-Lucky. He tapped into something elemental in the European mind. Scott resents all the foreign intrusions into his country and looks to arcane Christianity for answers, since that is all he has. His frustration is all too real and, for today’s dissident Right, all too familiar:
You can laugh while Rome is burning, but believe you me, Poppy, it is burning, and if you don’t wake up, then you will be burnt to a cinder. I mean, look around you, what do you see? Do you see happiness? Do you see a policy of bringing happiness to people? No. No. You see ignorance and fear. You see, you see the disease of multiculturalism. And what is multiculturalism? Multiculturalism is non-culturalism. And why do they want non-culturalism? Because they want to reduce collective will. The American dream never happened. The American nightmare is already here. I mean, look at the Washington Monument. It is 555 feet above the ground and 111 feet below the ground. 555 plus 111 is 666. Six-six-six, Poppy! Six-six-six!
What a cheap trick: discrediting perfectly reasonable concerns about multiculturalism by linking them to batshit crazy theories about the Washington Monument and the Book of Revelation. Thanks to Mike Leigh and his Jewish evolutionary messaging, Happy-Go-Lucky ends up being one cheap trick after another — but once you culture-of-critique it, everything makes sense. The tricks don’t come off as merely cheap, but also dirty.
* * *
Counter-Currents has extended special privileges to those who donate $120 or more per year.
- First, donor comments will appear immediately instead of waiting in a moderation queue. (People who abuse this privilege will lose it.)
- Second, donors will have immediate access to all Counter-Currents posts. Non-donors will find that one post a day, five posts a week will be behind a “Paywall” and will be available to the general public after 30 days.
- Third, Paywall members have the ability to edit their comments.
- Fourth, Paywall members can “commission” a yearly article from Counter-Currents. Just send a question that you’d like to have discussed to [email protected]. (Obviously, the topics must be suitable to Counter-Currents and its broader project, as well as the interests and expertise of our writers.)
To get full access to all content behind the paywall, sign up here:
Paywall Gift Subscriptions
If you are already behind the paywall and want to share the benefits, Counter-Currents also offers paywall gift subscriptions. We need just five things from you:
- your payment
- the recipient’s name
- the recipient’s email address
- your name
- your email address
To register, just fill out this form and we will walk you through the payment and registration process. There are a number of different payment options.
10 comments
Thanks for the five star review Spencer. You made me want to see the thing just for laughs. Left wing propaganda is funny in a sense that once you see it, it’s impossible to unsee it. It’s ubiquitous. I can even detect it in Jeopardy questions (or answers).
This sounds like a particularly artful piece of anti-whitism. For those uneducated about the intents of such work it simply gently reinforces the extant worldview which all right-thinking folks know to be correct.
I haven’t seem the film but I trawled his filmography as I thought I’d seen others of his. Interestingly, in the preceding film Vera Drake 2004, about a working class woman abortionist-with-a-heart-of-gold in 1950s London (I kid you not), Sally Hawkins plays a minor role as a posh gel who is raped and impregnated by a suitor (blackguard). She has to feign suicidality with the help of a sympathetic psychiatrist in order to procure an exorbitantly expensive foeticide (Vera’s are incomparably cheaper). So we see posh M(is/r)s Hawkins dragged low by conventional society and cisheteromale devilry in the 1950s only to be reborn as a perpetual proletarian Pollyana, free of cares and living her-best-life (TM) devoid of responsibilities fifty years later, both characters, admittedly, in posh Sally’s case with reasons, doing whatever it takes not to fulfil their biological roles. Hmmm….
First-rate stuff, Spencer. It now makes sense to me that the only time I zoned out during my undergraduate film class was during a screening of Leigh’s Naked.
Reading about your revulsion reminded me of my own response to a clip I recently saw of (((Bulworth))). Here a leftist politician (Warren Beatty) with nothing to lose speaks his unfiltered “truth” through rap verse and meter. e.g. “All we need is a voluntary, free spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction/ Everybody just gotta keep f–kin’ everybody til they’re all the same color.”
And I see all the Jewish critics on Metacritic just loved the film. Norman Mailer too. Jonathan Rosenbaum, who is normally hyper-critical of mainstream cinema, rated it a “must see.” You can even sense the giddiness when he writes about Bulworth’s epiphany that life might be worth living if only he could become a black man. The hilarious irony is that Beatty went on Charlie Rose shortly after to discuss the film and criticize the elite’s control of the media that disempowers the majority population.
LMAO. Wut?
We should not view all art through the prism of a ‘culture of critique’, nor is there any such thing as a monolithic Jewish voice in Britain — let alone a dominant influence! Mike Leigh has always made films from a quirky leftist perspective, but unlike similar creators his output transcends didacticism. As the reviewer of Happy-Go-Lucky concedes, Leigh is capable of nuance, though it is foolish to expect that he would write in a sympathetic character with the views of, say, Nigel Farage. Interestingly Leigh strongly supported Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who has descended into pariah status following accusations that he turned a blind eye to (mostly crypto-Islamist) antisemitic elements in his party. My own opinion is that Leigh is not superior to Ken Loach as a chronicler of British working- and lower middle class mores over the wrenching half-century from Callaghan to Sunak. I would commend Loach’s 1977 BBC production The Price of Coal to all who seek to understand what the nation was once like, and what has been lost.
‘Quirky Leftism’ administered expertly by a name-changing jew. What was the reason that we shouldn’t apply a critical lens?
I’ve never seen this movie, but the reason that Sally Hawkins shows a “redeemable quality” should be obvious.
Such a film is meant for gentile female consumption, first and foremost. There are tidbits of social manipulation for gentile men as well, but the primary target is the female ego.
Let’s look at the “carefree spirit” stereotype. This is something that, to be honest, is sort of attractive in younger women. Very few young men are chasing after prudes who announce they want to be a housewife and raise a brood of 8 children on the first date. (Just being honest). But that’s exactly the kind of human weakness that makes it so easy to exploit.
The rest of it, outside of her advocacy for the “abused” boy, are Trojan horse tropes about everything good, healthy, and normal, but again are meant to target the female disposition. (Inner voice: I don’t want to be a bad mom, always stressed out. I’m going to wait until I find the perfect rich man, so my kids never see us fighting about money. I’m not sure I’m ready to have kids. Look at those wrinkles around her eyes. I don’t want wrinkles. That guy sure is a jerk, I don’t want a boyfriend like that. I want a man who is open minded, kind, loving and sensitive but also assertive, confident, dominant, powerful and rich!! I hope I meet that man someday!!”)
So then comes the part that affirms that she’s the most moral, well adjusted person in the entire fairy tale. She comes to the rescue of an innocent child and saves the day. So because she’s so good and kind and fun and free spirited, and also a hero for doing something so great, here comes the inner voice again: “I want to be just like her! Someday my knight in shining armor will come and see how wonderful I am!”
Yup, that’s about how it works.
Goebbels Award?
Not having seen this movie, I hesitate to make a strong case. Numinous negroes might kick it out of the running.
Great review. Thanks.
I think I rented this movie a dozen years ago, and my then girlfriend and I found it unwatchable. Wasn’t the Hawkins character always giggling or something? After the first half hour or so, my friend turned to me and asked if I really wanted to keep watching it. I rarely stop something midway, but this one was too awful. Plus, we were at her house, so it was her TV. Life is too short, filled with too much paid and unpaid work, to spend precious non-work time frivolously.
I went on and watched the movie just because I don’t really trust Mr. Quinn’s judgement. First off, the character isn’t supposed to be a model to follow, she’s very cringe and very pathetic to most people in the audience, especially women. The introductory scene makes it clear enough, and her outfits look ridiculous even to men. The overall message in regards to Poppy seems to be “don’t judge her too harshly, luvs”.
There’s really no plot to speak of in the film, it’s just one of those slice of life/character studies that Mike Leigh does entertainingly enough. I wouldn’t call it “British kitchen sink realism” because it’s not realistic at all, it’s more a surrealism with over-the-top characters who are basically caricatures of a common type. That type for Poppy is the 30 year old unserious spinster, and again, she is supposed to elicit compassion, not admiration. The happy end in the movie is when a “fit bloke” finally decides to go steady with her.
Yes, there is quite a deal of poz in the film, but it’s really not exceeding the background radiation in this regard. The nagger she goes to for her back is a chiropractor, not a doctor. Big difference which most of the audience would be aware off, pretty stupid of Quinn not to. One of the other things he failed to mention is that the girls were fawning over the black chiropractor in the same conversation where they were dishing the wignat auto-instructor — that went beyond the call of duty with anti-white messaging.
I think the hobbo scene was there more as a nudge to Naked (coloring and lighting is basically the same as in Naked, which cuts it out from the rest of this movie) and if there is any message the director wanted to convey, it’s the direct opposite of what Quinn accuses him off. Poppy’s unconditionally friendly attitude clearly placed her in danger here, and we as an audience were supposed to be concerned for the hapless protagonist. It’s one thing to roam the nocturnal and beige-saturated streets as a mid 20s David Thewlis, another as a frail, mildly attractive woman.
Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for enduring this anti-white woke stew so others don’t have to.
Comments are closed.
If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.
Note on comments privacy & moderation
Your email is never published nor shared.
Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.
Paywall Access
Edit your comment