Emotional intelligence appears in "Silver Linings Playbook" in surprising places: above all, in compulsive sports superstitions, but also in the symbolism of Ben Franklin, Halloween, "crabby snacks," and other things.
Reading the Signs: The key phrase is "reading the signs," which gets used in conflicting ways over the course of this movie.
This phrase first comes up in Nikki’s letter to Pat (Bradley Cooper), where she writes, “I have to say, if it’s me reading the signs, I need to see something to prove you're ready to resume our marriage.” Here, “reading the signs” amounts to emotional intelligence, i.e., accurately understanding Pat’s true emotional and mental condition.
Yet, interestingly, Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) also used this exact same "signs" phrase to refer to the sports “superstitions” of Pat's father (Robert De Niro). She tells him, “Not that I give a fuck about football or your superstitions, but if it’s me reading the signs, I don’t send the Eagles guy whose personal motto is ‘Excelsior’ to a fucking Giants game….” We find out that Tiffany actually wrote Nikki's letter, but nobody notes that Tiffany has used "reading the signs" in contradictory ways—to mean both emotional intelligence and irrational superstition.
The dividing line between emotional intelligence and irrationality gets even blurrier at the end of the movie. In the scene after the dance competition, when Pat Sr. tells his son to go find Tiffany, he says, “You gotta’ pay attention to the signs. When life reaches out with a moment like this, it’s a sin if you don’t reach back…and it’ll haunt you for the rest of your days like a curse.” His son is so happy that his father has finally understood his relationship with Tiffany that he responds, “I love you, Dad.” In this final usage, reading the signs means both emotional intelligence (Pat Sr. understanding his son’s emotional needs) and superstition (“pay attention to the signs…haunt you…like a curse”).
To its credit, then, the movie suggests that emotional intelligence and supposedly irrational superstitions actually have a lot in common. Both require paying close attention to subtle aspects of the world, noticing patterns, making inferences, empathizing with others, and listening to your heart. Despite the movie's jokes and dismissals, Pat Sr.'s "superstitions" ultimately get validated as emotional insight.
But then there are also audience members who like to "read the signs" in movies by interpreting hidden symbolism like this. How should we differentiate between solid movie interpretations and downright wacky ones, the equivalent of irrational superstitions? Where do we each locate our personal "chaos threshold"?
Test Your Chaos Threshold on These Symbolic Interpretations
To gauge where we each draw these lines, here's a question: Do any of the following interpretations of symbolism in "Silver Linings Playbook" strike you as being too far out there?
Halloween=Death, Favors, and Chaos. Instead of Halloween night, why not set Tiffany and Pat’s tumultuous diner scene on Thanksgiving, Labor Day, or simply an ordinary, non-holiday night? I'd say it's because Halloween is about Chaos (acting scary, breaking social norms)—a theme that resonates well with Tiffany smashing the dishes and storming out of the diner. More specifically, Trick or Treating centers on Asking Others for Favors—which is the symbolic equivalent of Pat in the diner asking Tiffany to pass on his letter to Nikki. And of course Halloween involves symbols of Death (ghosts, skeletons, witches)—which fits well with Tiffany talking about her husband’s death.
Names. Names in this movie are significant. For example, "Tiffany Maxwell" implies she's trying to get herself and Pat maximally well. And it can't be a coincidence that the history teacher who's having an affair with Pat's wife is named Doug Culpepper, as in he's got a cold pepper (not virile) or he's culling pepper (stealing sex) from Pat. But what about "crabby snacks," the term used twice to refer to food prepared by Pat's mother (Jackie Weaver)? Apparently it's because these snacks distract and calm Pat Sr., who gets nervous and crabby when he's watching an Eagles game with a lot of money riding on it.
Ben Franklin=Father and Country. Pat Sr. says that nothing could be more American than the Philadelphia Eagles and Ben Franklin (one of the “founding fathers”), and the dance competition happens at the Ben Franklin Hotel, on the same night that the Eagles win. Therefore, the movie symbolically equates Pat Sr. with Ben Franklin as father figures. And when we see the whole family and Danny (Chris Tucker) happily together in Pat Sr.'s house watching football at the end of the movie, we're seeing an image of unity at multiple levels—a healing union with the father, the city of Philadelphia, and the entire United States of America.
This healing is needed to overcome the 2008 Financial Crisis, which robbed Pat Sr. and others of their retirement savings and could have led to resentment against Wall Street and Washington. Instead, after winning the big parlay bet, Pat Sr. says in the final seconds of the movie that he will be getting his restaurant, meaning he will continue as the primary breadwinner for his family. Like Ben Franklin but at the family level, Pat Sr. resumes his traditional place as a provider for the family.(1)
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What do you think? Too far out? Personally, I don't think so. There’s a high degree of match between the interpretations, movie details, and other cultural patterns. Like acceptable "superstitions," these interpretations are at least trying to pay close attention, detect patterns, make inferences, and listen to the heart.
Dream Symbolism
If you didn’t flee at the first mention of symbolism, there’s a good chance that you also are open to interpreting gray areas. Going beyond movies, you may also sometimes “read the signs” in other ways, such as looking at your night dreams for possible clues to future events. Don’t worry. You’re not alone. In national surveys, roughly 75% of Americans say they believe that dreams sometimes predict the future. I myself am so fascinated with these beliefs that I wrote a whole book about them, titled Corner-Store Dreams.
In this book, I tell the true story of my unlikely friendship with Ranulfo Juárez, who in 2006 asked his dreams to tell him whether he should buy a small bakery so that he and his wife could make the bread and pastries they knew as kids in Mexico. Or would the bakery bankrupt his family and send him back to working the fields of Oregon? Sifting through his dreams every morning in search of answers forced Ranulfo to look deeply at mysteries like the love and randomness of the universe and his life as a U.S. citizen. Ranulfo also enlisted me, an Anglo professor, as his confidante and sidekick in this quest, and, together, we confronted scam artists and naysayers, cultural differences and personal fears, and ultimately the Financial Crisis of 2008.
Corner-Store Dreams is nonfiction, but like “Silver Linings Playbook,” it’s a story that focuses on people “reading the signs” during a personal and national crisis around 2008. It turns out that Hollywood movies and personal dreams aren’t as far apart as they might seem. Both are often based on creative symbolism and narratives that deal with contradictions and tensions that we’re pondering with our unconscious minds. So whether in movies or dreams, I’d say that reading the signs is a good bet.
Footnotes:
1) There are complicated dynamics here. In real life, Ben Franklin advocated for the emancipation of slaves and led the first abolitionist society in the colonies, yet he also previously owned slaves. In the movie, there's racial/ethnic diversity and friendship, but the lead characters are all white. The family provider is also, not coincidentally, a male.
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