I'm going to play the devil's advocate here. But imagine if someone in your class wrote things about you..personal attacks. Like Harriet did in her journal. And all those personal things were made public for your entire class because someone read them out loud... embarrassing you to know end. I can't say for you what exactly your most personal secret would be that you felt it was an attack..only you can. For me it would have probably been my weight. At that age I was extremely insecure about it and if someone in my class was reading the personal thoughts of someone out loud to the entire class..I would be mortified! Embarrassed.. probably following would be rage and anger. I want revenge! So there you have how they all begin the bullying or harassing or whatever you want to call it.
I don't think anyone is denying that Harriet wrote some pretty nasty and hurtful things in that book, and having been bullied and humiliated all throughout school myself, I don't need to imagine how it would feel to have such things read-aloud about me. Those feelings of rage and being mortified all ring true. Yet even as a kid going through that stuff in real-time, even
I found myself shaking my head at the extreme lengths her classmates were going to, in order to exact revenge.
I think what OP was getting at was that regardless of how hurtful her words were, there was some serious disproportionate retribution going on. Let's be serious, Harriet was a NOBODY whose biggest crime was letting her journal fall into the wrong hands. She herself didn't go out of her way to humiliate anyone; her private thoughts and opinions just happened to get read aloud (and dramatically paraphrased) by the class alpha-bitch. Being angry at Harriet to the point of maybe
ostracizing her would've been completely understandable, but it made zero sense for everyone to lash out at her the way they did. By the time the paint incident happened, I was starting to question whether she was so wrong about everything she wrote...
See, I just think it would've helped more if we'd gotten a better idea of what Harriet's relationship was like with the rest of her class prior to the big fallout. Is she that student that maybe isn't "popular", but everyone likes and gets along with anyway? Or is she that student who is kind of outcasted and has her own tiny circle of comrades she runs with? I don't know if this is ever addressed in the books, but in the film, it seems like she falls more into the second description. Harriet seems only a step or two above "The boy with the purple socks"; we're never given much reason to believe that the other students care much about her. In my opinion, the plot may have worked better if Harriet fell more into the
first description. Imagine if Harriet had instead been
that student and had it revealed to the class how she really felt.
Then I could see everyone wanting to retaliate over the things she wrote, as opposed to "That girl who we barely pay attention to said bad things about us in her diary! Let's all kick her ass!".
And look, I get it. It's a fictional kid's movie blah blah blah yackity schmackity. But I
do recall a lot of people back then, gushing over it and saying how relatable to kids it was. And while I can see that with some aspects of the film, I feel like any "Harriet" that would've attended our school and got caught in the same situation would've gotten ostracized at best.
TL : DR OP is right. Even with kids being irrational, the whole concept doesn't hold up very well.
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AmeriGirl26 (14392)
4 years ago
Strange as it might sound, that is exactly how the kids would have responded in real life, though they probably wouldn't have gotten away with some of the stuff you see in the film. The truth is, most of the kids didn't really know Harriet, and when her private thoughts were aired for all to see, it seems every one of them hit a nerve. It went beyond writing mean thoughts about the other kids in her journal; much of what she said about them was true, and they knew it, but didn't like the idea of anyone calling them out for it.
It's kinda like, growing up in a town where most of the kids at school ignore you, even when you're kind to them and having polite conversation with them; and they only hear you when you insult them.
I read the first novel as a kid, so I became very protective of my own journals and never let anyone near them, let alone read them. I also never stupidly participated in any activities like what got Harriet into trouble in the first place. I mean, who the hell keeps books in their arms when playing that game? Nobody!
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