Grin of Rage

"Tell me something. Why is it that the NKVD have replaced the Red Army all over Moscow? I mean, I'm smiling, but I'm very fucking furious."

— Zhukov (talking to Beria and Khrushchev), The Death of Stalin

Bob and Alice are in an argument. Suddenly, Alice says something that pisses Bob off so much, that instead of showing his anger the typical way (yelling, glaring, or finger pointing), he smiles. He's clearly angry, but he looks happy also. Oh, Crap! quickly ensues.

Smiling when you are angry is obviously paradoxical, so it makes sense why it's off-putting to people. Often, this is used as an intimidation tactic, a way to make someone's opponent think they have Nerves of Steel (and they very well might), sometimes as a way to prevent a fight. Other times, it is done to provoke a fight, out of the logic that the sheer audacity of smiling at your enemy will piss them off enough to make the first move. Or, they're just really looking forward to a fight.

In many ways, this is Truth in Television, particularly for humans and non-human primates. It is well-known that when a great ape (chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, and bonobos) "smiles", it's actually a sign that the ape feels threatened, and may be getting pissed off also. God forbid if a chimpanzee adds laughter to the mix. For more details on that subject, read this quote from psychologist Frank McAndrew. As well, some people have a habit of doing this when they're nervous or upset, either purposefully or involuntarily. Or, it is used as a bullying tactic. There are also some cultures that do not see grinning as a sign of friendliness.

This trope is related to Tranquil Fury, in which a character appears calm in states of extreme anger, but is also essentially a Death Glare mixed with a Slasher Smile. This is most often seen with villains and antiheroes, not as much with heroic characters. If it's a villain who does it, it can be a version of Faux Affably Evil or Affably Evil. What sets this trope apart from Slasher Smile and Stepford Smiler is that the smile has to be motivated by anger or rage. Smiling as a reaction to a minor annoyance or inconvenience does not count, as this is something that most people do as a way to stay positive in stressful situations, and often by themselves. Smiling due to the prospect of committing violence for the sake of violence also doesn't really count, and fits closer with the Sadist trope and Slasher Smile. In order to qualify for this trope, the smile has to be directed towards someone or something, with one or more of the motivations described above.

Sometimes coincides with Twitchy Eye. A Perpetual Smiler will inevitably do this if they get mad. May also fall under False Reassurance, The Unsmile, or Technically a Smile. Compare and contrast "Oh, Crap!" Smile. Also compare Mirthless Laughter, for instances where someone laughs when angry (or otherwise feeling negative emotions) to relieve tension, as well as Laughing Mad and Dissonant Laughter. If a character usually expresses anger in the expected way but then does this, it can be a case of O.O.C. Is Serious Business.

No Real Life Examples, please.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Beast Wars II: Due to Galvatron's design, he constantly looks like he's grinning or gritting his teeth. When angry or enraged, his smile actually widens.
• Berserk: Guts tends to switch between this and Slasher Smile when he's fighting. The best example might be during his slaying of a hundred men, where he grins like a maniac while deliriously threatening to crack everyone's skulls.
• Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: Shinobu is always in a constant state of anger and hates demons, but still smiles through it all because her deceased older sister would have wanted her to do so. Even when she's killing demons through wisteria poison or making passive-aggressive remarks toward Giyu, Shinobu still wears a smile that barely masks her anger. The only time she ever drops her smile is when she confronts her sister's killer, Doma.
• Kill la Kill: The perpertually cheerful and murder-happy Nui Harime maintains a smile on her face even when she's absolutely furious. This is best shown during her lengthy Villainous Breakdown in the Episode 22, with her rage-filled Nightmare Faces that she shows to Mako Mankanshoku while telling her to shut up while the latter was making her usual "Hallelujah" speech, to Ryuko Matoi after she cut off her arms and then destroyed them to ensure they won't regenerate, and to Rei Hououmaru after the latter rescued her against her own wishes. Despite the fact that she's clearly visibly enraged during these moments, the smile never leaves her face.
• Squid Girl: In season 2, episode 11, after Squid Girl implies that Chizuru is an alien, Chizuru is clearly furious, but she smiles and whispers into Squid Girl's ear that she'd like to tell her something before she drags her to another room. Squid Girl remains oblivious to Chizuru's rage, however.
• ST☆R: Strike it Rich: After being called slow by Hina, Toujou's face is deformed by a grin of pure anger.

Comedy

• Bill Burr is famous for his hilarious rants during shows, during which he frequently grins like a maniac, especially when he starts yelling.
• In a sketch featuring Tommy Cooper, he plays a waiter in a restaurant who keeps having to go into the kitchen in order to throw stuff at the walls and vent his anger towards the rude customers, but he always calms down just quick enough to go and face the customers with a smile. But then he makes the mistake of throwing the manager's wine glass, and leaving the kitchen without getting him another one, just in time for the customer to start apologizing for his earlier rudeness. As soon as he enters the kitchen genuinely happy, the still-angry manager orders him to "get me my wine glass, you swine!" At this point, Cooper hits his Rage Breaking Point, but he keeps a smile on his face and speaks politely to the manager until he leaves the kitchen, at which point he flips his lid.
  Cooper: Certainly, sir. The swine will get you your wine glass, sir. Straight away, sir. (stares at his reflection) The swine will get your wine glass, sir. (walks out of the kitchen into the dining room) THE SWINE WILL GET YOUR WINE GLASS!! (starts throwing cups and plates at the walls right next to the customers' heads)

Comic Books

• Immortal Hulk: The Immortal/Devil Hulk is often seen grinning after emerging. Given this happens after Bruce Banner is killed, it's clear that he's not smiling out of joy.

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): In this Godzilla MonsterVerse fanfiction; Vivienne Graham in her human life was known to smile a smile "that shows a little too many teeth and belongs on someone who could scare a serial killer into rethinking their life choices" when someone managed to push her to true fury. Vivienne retains this trait as half of Monster X, putting it on display when she's utterly pissed at MaNi/Elder Brother.
• The Mountain and the Wolf: The Wolf is repeatedly mentioned as showing teeth when he hears bad news, in one case going from happy to angry without losing the grin. As he has wolf-like fangs in his jaw rather than human teeth, it's much more effective.
• Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K: During the Space Battle in Episode 34, Lord Admiral Rollah Sendurran has this reaction when her Communications Officer questions her order to prioritize the safety of the other ships in their fleet above her own flagship. Rollah is pissed that he would dare suggest she value her own life above the lives of her men, and gives him "a predator's bristling grin" as she explains the whole point behind the concept of The Men First.
• The Touhou Project fandom has the infamous "false smile"; a serene and disarmingly terrifying smile that does not show teeth and does reach the eyes of whoever's smiling but has a blatantly false pleasantness about it, usually accentuated by the smiler's face receiving some ominous shading. It's most commonly seen either gracing the face of Byakuren Hijiri, whenever her saint-like, motherly patience is wearing thin, or Yuuka Kazami, whenever her patience has run out. In the former case you may consider yourself very, very lucky as you're likely "only" in for a scolding. In the latter case you may consider yourself very, very lucky if there's enough of you left to send home to your family in a match box.

Films — Live-Action

• Marshall Zhukov in The Death of Stalin is enraged after finding out that the Red Army (as in his army) has been replaced by the NKVD in Moscow, but judging by his Boisterous Bruiser personality, you wouldn't know it. That is, until he walks up to Beria (the head of the NKVD) and Krushchev to ask them about it. He makes it very clear to them that while he's smiling, he's also very fucking furious.
• The Deer Hunter: While kept as prisoners of war, Michael and Nick are forced to play Russian Roulette by the guards. The guard forcing Michael to participate slaps him across the face multiple times, getting Michael more and more angry. At two points, as his rage starts to peak, Michael looks at the guard and smiles at him with what can only be called pure hatred. This then turns into Mirthless Laughter, before Michael uses the bullet that was about to kill him to escape.
• In Honest Thief, Tom Dolan (Liam Neeson) gives a creepy one to a crooked FBI agent while administering a beating.
• Aurelio in John Wick does this when Viggo's son brags about killing John's dog. Right before punching him in the face.
• Joker: One effect of Arthur's condition is that he cannot show the appropriate emotions as expected in most situations. An early example is when his boss reprimands him for doing something he didn't do (and not listening to Arthur's pretty reasonable explanation), and Arthur slowly smiles at his boss, while his eyes clearly show nothing but hatred. He also grins right before he brutally murders Randall in a rage, and starts to smile and laugh on Murray's show when he decides to shoot Murray for reprimanding him, and for previously making fun of him.
• In Taxi Driver, Travis is normally The Stoic, but also frequently smiles whenever he's angry or disgusted by someone, especially when he starts to go off the deep end. This gets mixed with Slasher Smile when he goes on a killing spree.

Literature

• This is a reccuring theme in the Jack London short story, "Bâtard". The titular character, a wolf-dog named Bâtard, is almost always described with words related to humanity, while his sociopathic master, Leclère, is often described with words related to animals. This accentuates the themes of survival of the fittest, nature vs nurture, and the barely hidden savagery of man. So, Leclère is described as "pulling his lips back" or "baring his teeth" whenever he smiles, and whenever Bâtard bares his teeth with hate and rage at his abusive owner, he is described as "grinning".
• Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman: After she is humiliated by George and Harold in a practical joke (namely a Sham Wedding to their principal), Ms. Ribble is seen the next day by the two with angry eyes and a teeth-barring smile, which they could see meant that she was more furious than she usually was. As it turns out, it's more like a Psychotic Smirk, because she has devised a fitting punishment for them: dropping their grades "from Bs and Cs to Fs and Gs" (G being a new grade that is "the only grade lower than an F").
• In Girls Kingdom, Mei shows her lack of appreciation for Misaki cleaning crumbs off Erisu's face, which she wanted to do, with a very angry grin that even gets an illustration. Violence is averted thanks to the intervention of Mei's boss, Asuka telling her to stand down.
• Origami Yoda: In "Rise of the Fortune Wookiee", Principal Rabbski is in a state of Tranquil Fury when Harvey, Tommy, and Kellen go to her office. There are illustrations of Mr. Good Clean Fun and Soapy the Monkey scowling with the caption "mad" under them both, and this is followed by a drawing of Rabbski smiling, but with a Death Glare, and it's topped with the caption "mega mad".
• The Stand: Randall Flagg displays one of these as he comes charging up the road towards his luckless minion Bobby Terry, who has rather spectacularly failed to follow instructions.

Live-Action TV

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Holt is normally The Stoic, but when a very bad week leaves him in a state of constant smiling in "The Wednesday Incident," the entire squad is terrified. Probably because the "smile" is more like a teeth-baring grimace.
• In Game of Thrones, Sandor Clegane does this to Polliver in the fourth season premier when he starts to really get pissed off. After Polliver tries to trade a chicken for Arya with the Hound, Sandor just quietly stares at him for a moment, with a small crooked grin. Before this point, Sandor was content to avoid a fight with Polliver's men, but after Polliver revealed his intent to assault Arya, that smile pretty much confirmed that Sandor was going to rip them all apart.
• Attempted by Peter in the "Peter's" episode of Kitchen Nightmares. When Ramsay starts dressing him down after experiencing the restaurant (which he does in every episode), Peter starts acting like a character from Goodfellas, grinning and laughing at Ramsay while saying "this guy's fuckin' crazy". Gordon sees right through the cliched intimidation tactic, and isn't scared in the slightest. Keep in mind, it was found out years later that Peter was a former member of the Italian Mafia (which actually makes a lot of sense in hindsight), meaning that Gordon was actually in danger despite his casual reaction to Peter's implied threat. Of course, Gordon Ramsay is a black belt in karate, which is probably why he wasn't at all nervous.
  Gordon: You're right, I'm fucking nuts.
• Justified: Because Quarles' sanity hangs by such a thread and he has an enormous amount of suppressed rage from his past childhood, he smiles in rage multiple times as his plans collapse. Notably, he grins when he's meeting Sammy to try and get more funding for his plans.
  Quarles: I'm just gonna put a smile on my face, and eat a nice plate of steaming shit...unsalted.
• In The Mandalorian, Miggs Mayfeld does this right before he shoots his former commanding officer in the face for hand-waving the order that killed Mayfeld's entire unit.
  Hess: To the Empire.
  Mayfeld: (grins like he's thinking "this fuckin' guy" and pulls out his blaster)
• Jax in Sons of Anarchy is a big fan of his, being the fearless Blood Knight he is. He almost always grins when he is angered by someone, especially Clay... unless he becomes even angrier, in which case he becomes Unstoppable Rage incarnate.
• In The Sopranos, Tony Soprano does this very effectively, often smiling or grinning as a way to hide how angry he is, but also as an intimidation tactic. It usually doesn't take long for the mask to slip, making the other person realize a little too late that they're seriously screwed.

Video Games

• In the Animal Crossing games before New Leaf, the villager Static is normally a Perpetual Frowner, though in cases where he would be expected to frown such as when upset or angry, his mouth always did the opposite and smiles instead.
• Dragalia Lost: Xuan Zang tends to have a serious look on her face most of the time. Wu Kong knows though that whenever she does smile, it means that he is in big trouble.
• Fire Emblem: Awakening: Henry the Perpetual Smiler grins in almost all of his portraits (except for his scared pic). This includes his angry pic, which has a slightly smaller smile than all of his other pics.

Web Animation

• Spooky Month:
  • When Ignacio opens his door and finds Skid and Pump obliviously asking for candy, he kneels down and begins speaking to them with a large, clearly strained smile, before dropping all pretense and angrily telling them he isn't going to give them candy because they broke a hole through his door.
  • After Carmen rudely rebuffs him, Kevin clasps his hands together and puts on a fake smile so wide it exposes his gums, barely hiding his agitation as Carmen obliviously continues to order him around.
• In this Touhou Project fan animation, Sakuya finds Meiling slacking off on her job again. She is shown smiling right before she starts chasing her in an Unstoppable Rage.

Webcomics

• In The Meek, during a negotiation session with an ambassador from his hated enemies, Emperor Luca deSadar has a wide, furious smile on his face when the ambassador is explaining that the new Queen will not take responsibility for her father's actions during the war and cannot pay reparations due to the impoverished state of their country. Lampshaded by the author in discussion of the strip, who notes that in Luca's culture, wide, toothy smiles are not associated with good humor.
  Luca: [angrily smiling all the while] So nobody is responsible. Millions dead, and nobody is responsible!
  Lethy: With respect, the Queen wonders... why do you insist on holding her accountable for decisions made solely by her father?
  Luca: [still smiling] With respect. Ambassador. Your king alone did not uphold an entire country's institution of torture and murder against my people.

Western Animation

• Carol's Christmas Carol for Carol, A Woman Named Carol: When Human 27 (formerly Elf 27) decides to stay with Carol instead of going back to the North Pole as per Santa's orders, the snowman he made with Carol turns into Santa, who is "Jolly with anger".
• Ed, Edd n Eddy: Eddy has a perfect one at the end of "'Tween a Rock and an Ed Place". When Jonny announces that the first activity of their "never-ending party" — the one that Eddy almost escaped getting locked into save for Double D's conscientious persuasion before either of them knew what they were about to get into — is forming a daisy-chain around a sprout until it fully grows into a tree, Eddy responds by flashing a demented grin at Double D whilst his eyes are burning with pure murderous rage.
• The Ren & Stimpy Show:
  • Mixed with Slasher Smile and Dissonant Serenity in "Sven Hoek". After completely snapping from Stimpy and Sven's antics, instead of shouting at them as usual, Ren creepily smiles, and calmly starts describing just how angry he is, and what he's going to do to them. Stimpy and Sven are rightfully terrified.
  • In another episode, "Stimpy's Invention", Stimpy creates a Happy Helmet that forces Ren to be happy. After he frees himself of it and has Stimpy in a stranglehold, Ren announces that he's never been so angry in his entire life. And then suddenly he smiles, because "I feel great! I love being angry!" The episode ends on a close-up of his face in a half-mad, half-delighted grimace.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "The Executive Treatment," when Patrick inadvertently infiltrates a company's headquarters after being mistaken for an executive, his stupidity catches the ire of the CEO. During their first interaction, Patrick draws a "chart" that is just a house with smoke coming out of it. Patrick assumes that the CEO likes his chart because he's smiling, only to be informed that he smiles like that when he's really angry.
• Steven Universe: Sometimes, when Mr. Smiley gets angry, he makes a very large smile even when berating Steven for the latest damage he caused at one of his establishments.
• Villainous (Cartoon Network): Black Hat has a rather terrifying one in the episode "The VVV"; where he snaps an air tank in half with a disturbingly pissed smile after seeing Dr. Flug constantly fail to defeat and return Demencia to normal.

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