Todd Haynes's “Far from Heaven”

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Todd Haynes's film “Far from Heaven” again; I think I liked it more this time around than when it first came out. Back then, I think I was trying to take the film seriously, at face value, but this time around, it felt more like a satirical farce – almost  a comedy! To me, the queerest thing about “Far from Heaven” is the artificial, false reality it lives in.

Much has been written about the “fakeness” of the old “Leave It to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” TV shows (shows I grew up watching and loved). Yes, gender roles were more proscribed then and children were better behaved, but we all know real life wasn’t as sanitized as depicted in those shows, even for middle class white people. 

I saw a lot of that sort of ridiculousness in Haynes’s film, especially in the domestic scenes with the children. The son’s “Golly Gee Willikers, Dad!” dialogue had me in stitches, and I can’t help but think Haynes was playing it for laughs. Even when the film dove into themes that the TV sitcoms dared not touch – like domestic violence and spouse abuse – the dialogue borders on caricature: “I know it was an accident, dear. You didn’t mean it.” Now of course I’m not saying this wasn’t/isn’t the way it happens in these circumstances and that there isn’t truth in Haynes’s vision, but by dealing with these issues in the context 1950’s, with its gender roles and social conventions, but also using the filmic conventions of 1950’s melodramas (in a film made in 2002, not in the actual 1950’s, like the TV sitcoms Haynes emulates), Haynes delivers a twice-removed, double-dose layer of artifice that I found super-entertaining and often humorous, even though the situations being depicted were anything but that

And oh, such situations! Such drama! That is also a very queer thing about the film. The stereotype of the “melodramatic queen” is real, and Haynes really flexes that muscle here. 

According to Wikipedia*, melodramas are films in which “the plot, which is typically sensational and designed to appeal strongly to the emotions, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue, which is often bombastic or excessively sentimental, rather than action. Characters are often simply drawn and may appear stereotyped. Melodramas are typically set in the private sphere of the home, and focus on morality and family issues, love, and marriage . . .” Sounds like what you’d find in the conversations at the Twin Peaks bar on a Sunday afternoon – people wringing out every drip of drama from their stories, both flattening and exaggerating the characters to intensify the sensationality, their frequently shrill and emotion-filled voices rising above the din of the crowd. Haynes ticks off all the requisite boxes for a melodrama in this film. Put on a blindfold and throw a dart, and you’ll find an example, so numerous they are. So I’ll just mention one of my favorites here: The scene when all the other mothers at the ballet school were protecting their daughters from the demon spawn of the n****r-lover and homo!

Once again, the racism and homophobia depicted in the film is nothing to laugh at. The problems depicted in the film were (and are) real. Haynes’s intention is not to belittle their significance. But by portraying them in a melodramatic format, he has created an immensely entertaining and humorous soap opera of a movie. Sort of like the “lost episodes” of  “Ozzie and Harriet” that were deemed to controversial to air. Maybe Haynes and Ryan Murphy should collaborate on a “dark version” remake of  “Leave It To Beaver”! That would be terrific.

 

Work Cited

“Melodrama.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Aug. 2020,   
               en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodrama.

 

* Yes, I know I shouldn’t cite Wikipedia in an academic paper, but it had a really good definition I couldn’t find replicated elsewhere, and unfortunately there was no primary source listed for it.