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Joan Allen on her character Terry Anne Wolfmeyer in “The Upside of Anger” Well, she’s tough. And I like that too about the character.... I thought about [how] society has a very hard time dealing with women’s anger, period. And I think it gets pushed to the side. I think they don’t want to look at it. I think if a woman is angry she’s labeled immediately. And there’s a different standard for men and anger and women and anger. So not that this is such a huge thematic message film, because I think a lot of it is really cool entertainment, I think there is something out there like [that]. She’s been incredibly hurt and that’s where a lot of anger, I think, comes from in general is somebody gets their feelings really, really hurt and enzymes or whatever start charging in and then you protect yourself. And one way of protecting yourself is to get really pissed off. [about.com interview]     ~ ~ ~ ~ Lavender "Popeye" Wolfmeyer (Evan Rachel Wood) - one of Terry’s daughters in “The Upside of Anger” People don't know how to love. They bite rather than kiss. They slap rather than stroke. Maybe it's because they recognize how easy it is for love to go bad, to become suddenly impossible... unworkable, an exercise of futility. So they avoid it and seek solace in angst, and fear, and aggression, which are always there and readily available. Or maybe sometimes... they just don't have all the facts. Anger and resentment can stop you in your tracks. That's what I know now. It needs nothing to burn but the air and the life that it swallows and smothers. It's real, though - the fury, even when it isn't. It can change you... turn you... mold you and shape you into something you're not. The only upside to anger, then... is the person you become. Hopefully someone that wakes up one day and realizes they're not afraid to take the journey, someone that knows that the truth is, at best, a partially told story. That anger, like growth, comes in spurts and fits, and in its wake, leaves a new chance at acceptance, and the promise of calm. Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.   [from dialogue quotes on imdb.com] The Upside of Anger (2005) [dvd] - written and directed by Mike Binder ~ ~ ~ ~ The anger that finally moves us, motivates us to change inwardly; the anger that is pure, like a first thought, comes through us, cleanses us, and passes. But what I also understand now is that you can know about anger clearly with half of yourself while the other half is cut off and never gets the benefit of any of your clear knowledge. We've seen examples in great artists who are enlightened in their work and function cruelly and ignorantly in their personal lives. > from book The Great Failure : A Bartender, A Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth - by Natalie Goldberg > photo : Geoffrey Rush as Peter Sellers / The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, HBO 2004 - based on bio  - by Roger Lewis ~ ~ ~ ~ I'm usually a mellow, go-with-the-flow person, except when someone tells me I should do something. Then I get stubborn. If they don't back off, I get this horrible rage and want to kill them. When I was four and my mom would send me to my room, I'd get so mad I'd go outside and bang my head on the sidewalk. Josie Maran   ... [imdb.com bio] photos : left from josie-maran.com  / right as 'Marishka' in "Van Helsing" (2004)

.. .. On the other hand, if you grew up with indifferent or cruel caretakers, you may have a lifetime supply of stored anger. Worse, you may also have a core belief that expressing or acting on this anger is worse than useless, that it will never lead to positive changes and may well get you punished. You project your childhood helplessness onto situations where anger might be just the ticket. The effect of such passive responses is to drive anger inward, where it boils your innards into a lump of despairing plasma. "How do I get rid of this anger?" my more passive clients often ask me. "How do I let it go?" But letting go of their anger is the last thing I want them to do. Anger isn't the real problem in their lives; on the contrary, it's the solution. No, the real problem is fear -- fear that expressing anger will lead to the same kinds of disaster they've encountered in the past.

If you're constantly trying to let go of pent-up rage, you've probably spent decades letting your fear convince you to act as if you feel no anger. It's time to let your anger persuade you to act as if you have no fear. The first step to being free from impotent anger is to let it tell its whole story, complete with expletives and the occasional chest-thumping roar. A therapist or laid-back friend can be a good sounding board. Because this is asking a lot, I often prefer writing about my anger. Speaking or writing, I start by describing the situation that upset me in whatever vague terms come to mind. As the words emerge, my feelings become more focused, the reason for my anger more clear. The idea is to keep talking or writing until the whole extent and cause of the anger becomes apparent. This isn't as simple as you might think, because for people who tend to repress anger, the proximate cause often taps the hidden rage pool that's been accumulating since childhood. > Martha Beck - from her article Impotent Rage, O, The Oprah Magazine, Oct 2004 > photo : Hilary Swank as boxer Maggie Fitzgerald in Million Dollar Baby (2004) Breaking Point: : Why Women Fall Apart and How They Can Re-create Their Lives - by Martha Beck

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Anyway, there I was lying facedown on my bed feeling sorry for myself. What was there to look forward to?...  Not having to go to school? THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH! I had a longing to do something great, something important, something with meaning, but what?  I couldn't even manage to make my bed in the morning, or comb my hair, or sit through a meal without wanting to jump up and strangle my mother. Is this someone destined for greatness? Thelma, age 14, from the novel Crazy Eights by Barbara Dana (1978) detail of book cover illustration by Robert J. Blake

...related pages:....self-esteem / self concept......relationships: teen/young adult........

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It's a comic book but I asked him (Stan Lee) why he wanted to make "The Hulk." He said, "It's really a Greek Tragedy."  It's actually a psychodrama. It talks about the rage inside all of us. ... He's talking along these lines of tragedy and psychodrama. I find it really interesting. The green monster of rage and greed and jealousy and fear in all of us.  Jennifer Connelly - about her role as geneticist Betty Ross in "Hulk" [2003]  directed by Ang Lee  .. [from romanticmovies.about.com interview] [from the movie:] Bruce Banner: Even now I can feel it. Buried somewhere deep inside. Watching me, waiting. But you know what scares me the most? When I can't fight it anymore, when it takes over, when I totally lose control. [pause] I like it! related book: The Incredible Hulk - by Bruce W. Jones, et al

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image from Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (1993) (TV)  While Nancy [Daryl Hannah] is driving home after finding her husband at a motel with another woman, she encounters aliens that "zap" her with a weapon, and she finds herself growing everytime she gets angry - reaching as high as power line towers.

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Porn allowed me to release all the fury I'd felt my entire life. I was vengeful, even savage, in sex scenes, fully unleashing my wrath. ...Traci Lords: Underneath It All

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Painter and sculptor Niki de St. Phalle was able to find "a fertile outlet for her ferocious rage toward men -- and the dominant masculine art establishment -- via the creative expression of violence in her highly controversial work. ...  Her famous 'shooting paintings' resulted from firing live ammunition at paint-filled, white-washed balloons mounted on a blank, virginal canvas. "Thus, rather than becoming a crazed killer or vengeful victimizer of men, de St. Phalle's fury -- some of which stemmed from having been sexually abused by her father -- fostered a fecund creativity, that served her well throughout her prolific career" [Diamond writes] .... Anger, he asserts, is one of the most troubling emotions for psychotherapy patients in general. Yet, there is, Diamond says, a "very strong correlation between anger, rage and creativity, one which most people are not aware of.

.. .. "Most of us tend to view anger or rage negatively, associating it almost exclusively with destructiveness and violence. Certainly this correlation exists. But anger can also motivate constructive and creative behavior." from interview with Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D.:  The Psychology of Creativity: redeeming our inner demons

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[At age 13, Drew Barrymore was "graduating" from a drug rehab program -- her stay  had been secret, but now the National Enquirer was threatening to publish a story.] "The prospect of stepping beyond the safety of the hospital was frightening enough by itself. I didn't need to be worrying about gossip columns magnifying and distorting the difficulties I'd been trying to overcome.  "Needless to say, I was furious. While everyone else, including my mother and my therapists, grew dizzy from concern, I erupted into a rage, a huge, horrible angry outrage that evidenced the dark and temperamental side I inherited from my Barrymore ancestors."  ......Drew Barrymore - from her autobiography Little Girl Lost photos: as young teen; on green screen set for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003); from Vanity Fair cover, 2003

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Even besides the kids that this movie hooked me up with to talk to that had been in hospitals, I knew - and know - plenty of people who are really angry. I'm really angry sometimes. My research wasn't just talking to people who had been in hospitals. I spoke to all my close friends because everyone has something that makes them angry. Joseph Gordon-Levitt -- about research for his character Lyle in the film "Manic" [imdb link] - "filled with a frightening rage. After an intense fight with a classmate, he is committed to a juvenile mental institution in lieu of criminal prosecution." .... [from dramaticmovies.about.com interview unknown date 2003]

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Glenn Close in  Fatal Attraction

.. Susan Braudy (Amy Aquino) tells Larry to leave her house -  from episode 27: The Corpse-Sniffing Dog -  HBO: Curb Your Enthusiasm, starring Larry David

 

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Both men and women are often ashamed of their anger, although it appears they may experience their anger differently, according to ongoing research.  For example, gender socialization can affect how men and women handle their anger, researchers have found.  "Both men and women have been poorly served by the gender socialization they have received," says psychologist Sandra Thomas, PhD, a leading research-er in women's anger who has recently also begun studying men's experiences with anger. "Men have been encouraged to be more overt with their anger. If [boys] have a conflict on the playground, they act it out with their fists. Girls have been encouraged to keep their anger down."  Indeed, anger in men is often viewed as "masculine" -- it is seen as "manly" when men engage in fistfights or act their anger out physically, notes Thomas, director of the nursing doctoral program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

.. .. "For girls, acting out in that way is not encouraged," she says. "Women usually get the message that anger is unpleasant and unfeminine." Therefore, their anger may be misdirected in passive-aggressive maneuvers such as sulking or destructive gossip, she says. from article Anger across the gender divide [APA Monitor] ...Sandra P. Thomas, PhD.  Women and Anger

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I was such an emotionally combative kid... After "Norma Rae," people started asking me where all my anger came from. I'm sure it came from my relationship with him [stepfather Jock Mahoney, who, Field has said, was capable, in a moment of anger, of throwing her across the yard]. But I bless him and thank him... because he taught me to be a fighter. ... At the studios, I'll go toe-to-toe in meetings. But I still get in my car and pull over and cry. I may not always know how to fight in a man's world, but I'm learning. Sally Field .... [TV Guide, Feb 18, 1995]

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I know for me [one of the motivations to be an actor] was anger. I think I was venting emotion and a lot of it was anger. And sometimes it still is. Not that it's particularly therapeutic.  I hope that's changed now. I used to get more confused by riding the creative wave of anger. Instead of venting it, it brought me closer to it. Now, I hope I can access it more sanely. ......Julia Ormond .... [Telegraph / UK - 9/9/2000]

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I get to have rage at work. I get to kick in doors and tell people not to bleepin' move or I'll blow their heads off... I can leave all this (tension) at the office.  I get home and I am happy and carefree because I get any aggression I have with life or work or the highway taken care of. People pay good money to get this kind of therapy done. Catherine Dent  .. [AugustaChronicle.com May 20, 2002] - about her role as officer 'Danny' Danielle Sofer [near right] on FX series "The Shield"

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"Catharsis" is a term derived from the Greek word katharsis, sometimes used synonymously for "therapy." Katharsis, which came from kathairein, "to clean or purify," was "used by Aristotle in his description of the effect of tragedy," and implies any "purification or purgation of the emotions... that brings about a spiritual renewal or a satisfying release from tension."  In modern psychotherapy, catharsis refers to "the process of bringing repressed ideas and feelings into consciousness..." ...from Anger, Madness, and the Daimonic: The Psychological Genesis of Violence, Evil, and Creativity [cover illustration: Buddhist temple guardian Kongo-Rikishi, "wearing arms with his face full of anger, fighting ignorance"]

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