Happy Face and the Representation of Facially Different People on Film

Film maker Alexandre Franchi’s latest film Happy Face is one of the first films to represent facially different people in film. The film tells a story of a group of people who find safety in a support group, and encourage each other to break through society’s barriers.

 

Courtesty of Patryk Hardziej

As Vice reporter Matthew Hays explains, Franchi did not originally know that he would cast so many facially different people. "I was surprised at how many people who had gone through something—cancer, a car accident, a disease—who were intrigued to be part of a film project," he said (Vice). This flock of people to the casting call shows the yearning for representation in film. Generally, facially different people are not represented properly in film. When their part is cast, makeup artists pack on makeup to change the actor’s face beyond recognition. More dangerously, they are fringe characters or, most of the time, they are villains. Darth Vader, Freddy Kruger, Phantom of the Opera, and other villains all contribute to the dangerous stigma that facially different people do not belong in society.

Film makers should take note of Happy Face and start casting facially different people for a variety of roles, and welcome them into Hollywood not as outcasts or villains, but as people.

Find the trailer for Happy Face here.