Happiness
is an animated four-minute short by Steve Cutts that was released on November 24th, 2017, on YouTube.
It's about a rat's endless and unsuccessful pursuit of happiness in a consumerist society. The rat goes from the packed sewers to mindless buying, to getting stuck in the traffic, to drinking, getting stoned, and then back to work.
See MAN for another of Cutts' earliest web animations.
Tropes:
- Absolute Comparative: There are fake Nike trainers ads saying that you'll get to work quicker if you wear them. Quicker how? Than the other rat people also boarding the sub?
- Alone in a Crowd: While he starts as part of the frenzied urban life as everyone else, the protagonist becomes more and more isolated — visually and metaphorically — after each failed attempt at achieving happiness. After drinking himself silly and passing out on the streets, the crowd gives him a wide berth. A Symbolic Distance remains even after he wakes up from a drug trip and limps around. The final scene is about him being trapped by an office job, surrounded by countless other rats in the same situation; yet, he can't connect with any of them because everyone is just too busy.
- Art Shift: When the rat gets stoned on happiness-inducing meds, he experiences a hallucination in which he floats above the city — a metaphor for getting away from his problems. During this sequence, the art shits to a more Inkblot Cartoon Style and the color palette becomes more saturated.
- Asbestos-Free Cereal: In the introductory scroll up, an advert promotes a hamburger made of "100% misc. meat" as if all processed meat wasn't made of just that (plus flour, salt, and who knows what). Of course, this is a parody of this kind of commercial.
- Bottled Cool: A "Blah" perfume banner contrasts a muscled rat against a malnourished one; both holding a bottle of the perfume. The implication being that any rat that uses the product will become attractive and gain muscles out of nowhere.
- Deceptively Silly Title: The film is an analogy for society's relentless quest for happiness through consumerism, and how unattainable true happiness is in modern life.
- Furry Lens: The short depicts all human beings as Rat Men due to the common association of them being numerous and leading miserable lives. The protagonist begins his journey running in the sewers, only to end in a subway packed with other rats. In fact, all scenes make a point to show how crowded the city is. The only Furry Reminder is the protagonist getting ensnared by a mouse trap—but that's a clear metaphor for grueling, underpaid work and he had been chasing after a dollar.
- Get the Sensation: A partially obscured advert in the subway scene promises potential buyers that "[they] won't be quite the same ever again" if they get the product. It's accompanied by a cheerful, cartoonish mouse.
- Hope Mongering: All of the fictional adverts featured during the short (and there are many of them, stuck on nearly every surface of the city) promise the viewers that they'll achieve true happiness if they buy their products, which vary from Black Friday sales, perfumes, cars, alcoholic beverages, to prescription drugs.
- Made of Shiny: One of the ads shown in the initial scroll-up is for a soft drink brand called Happi. There's no slogan or text other than the product's name. Instead, the banner relies on a yellow and orange-striped background and a soda can pouring its contents upward to promote the product.
- Pull the Plug on the Title: The short's title appears during the credits and it's stylized as a bright red neon sign of which a rat chews the wire, therefore turning it off.
- Retail Riot: It's Black Friday, so dozens of rats eagerly await the opening of a tech store at The Mall. Once the beleaguered clerk opens the door, all the rats rush on all fours to grab anything and everything, destroying furniture and products alike, as well as knocking over the clerk, in the process. The customers are then shown fighting each other for a product, with some of them even tearing another rat's arm off with its teeth. The shop is left in ruins and the protagonist limps to the exit while carrying his HD television.
- Silent Credits: The short ends with the protagonist trapped in a mindless office job (represented as a mousetrap snatching him). This is soon followed by an aerial shot of several rats in the same situation and a fade to black. Then, the short's title, styled as fluorescent lights. The only sounds during the credits are those of a rat chewing the cable and the bulbs puttering out.
- Sliding Scale of Like Reality Unless Noted: Taking into account that the characters are only rats metaphorically, the setting is entirely mundane, typical of America's late-stage capitalism and consumerism of the early 2010s.
- Straightforward: There are tons of ads on nearly every surface available. Some of them are rather to-the-point and concise such as the one for a condom brand. It simply reads "Introducing the Spandex Contraceptive".
- This Loser Is You: The protagonist rat represents a middle-class salaryman who futilely pursues happiness in a consumerist world. He buys meaninglessly, drinks himself silly, and even tries anti-depressant drugs but nothing works for him. Furthermore, he has a white-collar job that is not fulfilling but just a way to earn money. He, along with the other rats in his society (who see no problem in literally tearing each other off during Black Friday), is meant to depict mediocrity and the lack of meaning in a post-industrialist world.
- Title Drop: The word "happiness" is featured on nearly every single In-Universe advert featured. They all promise you happiness if you buy the product but none of them tell the truth.
- Trumplica: There's a street poster for a "Trump: The Musical" play on a nondescript building. Trump is shown standing over a crowd, holding a microphone in each hand, and having his usual orange tan.