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Posters Defending The Victims Actions, Read This

posted 15 years ago by White_Dahlia
30 replies | jump to latest

I'll start by saying this first - I love revenge flicks. There's nothing better than seeing wrong-doers get their just desserts, especially if they inflicted a tremendous amount of trauma and harm to said victims. But this movie, whose premise was a good one and could have gone in a more meaningful direction, was just completely lost in the sake of beating the message across your face with a two-by-four.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't support bullying in the least bit. In fact, I was bullied a time or two in elementary school and in high school I was one of the kids that was pretty much friends with every group of "cliques." As a psychology major, I do realize the incredible pain someone can suffer from through bullying. However, this movie did a horrible job of giving us any reason to feel for the group of misfits. Why? They portrayed no emotion! The closest I got to feeling sorry for one of them was when Heather, Bridget and Kelly confronted Emily at her locker. The montage scenes of them at home contemplating their feelings was nothing more than each of the characters slightly put-off at the most. I can understand that they may be at a "breaking-point" and feel nothing but anger, but I would have liked to have seen some tears shed at least. You think that if their lives were not at all worth living they would appear more down-trodden.

And on a side-note, I think the bullies may have been the least of the kids' problems. Their family situations were to me a much more noticeable sign of neglect that probably made them feel worse than some bullies would have.

Anyways, back on topic. The whole torture thing ending up being a total mishap were the victims were nothing more than bullies themselves. Yes, at first I was rooting for them took out Andy and Parker (whom you think might have been a little more cooperative with their captors being chained up and what-not). But once it got around to Ravi helping out Kurtis, a genuine good person, and being murdered for it by someone who was supposedly a "friend" is where my patience started to wear thin. And then when Bridget actually stood up and was willing to suffer to save others was more heroic and courageous than any of the people we were actually supposed to feel sorry for did. They should have let her go as she obviously learned her lesson. Was that not the point of their whole scheme? Instead, they took their power and ran with it. Sound similar? And we're supposed to feel sorry for them. This is where the movie took about a 90 degree angle downhill. Dane, first and foremost, was an awful lead character. I don't think they focused on him enough and his misery to get us to root for him in his maniacal scheming. Besides Marc Donato's over-acting to a point where it was slightly nauseating, his list of hypocritical speeches was the most aggravating thing in this movie. This guy went on and on about bullying, but yet the entire movie he treated his own friends like dirt ordering them to do this and that, threatening them and even killing one of them? And you nay-sayers on this board root for this sadistic freak? This makes me wonder about the state of the human conscience.

To root on someone with mental disturbance of this sort is just neglectful in it's own right. I really wonder how many of you people would stop and help someone on the side of the street if they were getting harassed, yet you all preach about bullying must be stopped. Give me a break! Torturing someone and disfiguring them for life is definitely not compensation for saying something mean about a person or throwing a carton of milk. Really, I don't say I couldn't feel for these kids, but there were definitely more things they could have done than maim everyone. Go to the gym, get buff, beat the crap out of them. Take a martial art and retaliate when they try to mess with you. Say something back to them for Christ's sake. In fact, most of the bullying incidents I've witnessed usually end when you man up and say something back to the person instead of just taking it. I can't feel sorry for someone when they don't do anything to help their position out.

I'm sorry, but this was just an over the top act. Seriously. People I didn't like in high school - I HAVEN'T SEEN THEM SINCE I GRADUATED NOR DO I CARE WHATEVER THE HECK THEY'RE DOING WITH THEIR LIFES. Solves everything, right?

In fact, Emily's life didn't even seem that terrible. It's obvious from the scene in her bedroom that her mother cared about her, asking why she hadn't been acting normal. So being picked on justifies killing yourself without thinking about your loved ones? Sheesh, give me a break here.

Interesting premise that could have definitely gained more credibility with a dramatically better written revenge plot and characters we can sympathize with. What does it say about this movie when I actually felt more sorry for the bullies (eventually the victims), then those being harassed themselves?

[–] phantum 12 years ago

Nobody in my high school disliked me, for the most part, they just paid me no mind. I was a geek/nerd/whatever by choice, When I dated or befriended the popular jocks, I made sure that they knew that it was OUR relationship and I had no interest in making nice with their friends. But I was friends with other geeks/nerds/whatevers, and I was happy because I knew that they were really my friends, not all the lying and backstabbing that I saw in the more popular cliques. But there was this one boy that, for whatever reason, would periodically attempt to embarrass me. He did it a few times and I was not meek, so I told him exactly what I thought of him. One day, I walked into home room and he loudly, jokingly, asked me to prom to make his peers laugh. They didn't. I told him that his joke would only work if he was -actually- attractive because he couldn't pay me enough money to go anywhere with him. Then his peers laughed. And he never said anything to me again. I still don't consider myself to have been bullied, mostly because I would reverse his oh so witty jokes on him at the drop of a hat, but also because that story makes me laugh to this day, the shame on his face when his peers were laughing hysterically at him. So I'll never say that I was bullied.

I think that being bullied takes place over a long period of time, by enough people that make an individual feel ostracized from their peers. I also think that, if an individual does get bullied, or does have to suffer an isolated incident of cruelty from a peer, if they have a loyal, close group of friends, then they are far more likely to be able to rebound from the incident or incidents in tact.

I think it's funny that there are so many "Psychology majors" floating around these boards spouting their textbook thoughts about why these things happen and why they are the way they are. These textbook definitions of a victim are ridiculous and so broad. Read the case studies, meet the kids that are bullied, then you can have some insight into them.

I work at a psychiatric hospital on an acute unit with adolescents. I see the bullies, the victims, the kids who are victims of absent parents and have no friends or support systems. One boy, a 12 year old, came to us because he had a pretty hard core knife in his bag. He was adorable and sweet and easy to engage, we played games and talked every time I worked. He was insightful during groups and never placed blame or felt guilt for "causing" it. But he wound up in a psych hospital the day after his long-term bullies dumped him into a trash can (after lunch) and held the lid down on it while he cried. He brought the knife to school with no intentions of using it, just showing it to them when they approached him so they would leave him alone that day. When the school officials found out, he was obviously sent to a psych hospital. It saddens me that this kind little boy had this on his record just because he wanted to scare them so they would not bully him.

We also get the bullies, and their behavior does not change, even once they are on the unit, they continue to find the smaller children and bully them (we the staff see this and stop it immediately), but generally there is an insta-bond formed among the patients and the bullied are protected.

It's all a sad cycle.

[–] futurewriter78 12 years ago

I'm glad you told that story, phantum, and that's horrible that these days, it seems like bullies are more likely to be defended by the school than bullied victims. Parents will try to talk to the school about their poor kids being tormented, but the school rarely does anything about it. Not only do kids get in trouble for trying to defend themselves, but parents do too.

Our grandparents (and maybe parents too) would tell us that in the old days, kids who were victims could easily take care of bullies by giving them a nice punch to the face without the school getting involved and expelling the victim or even suspending them. And voila! The bully would then immediately lay off. Now, these days, you're lucky if your kids only get suspended for defending themselves.

But that's ridiculous that they put your patient in a mental ward just for bringing a knife to school. It'd be bad enough if they expelled him, but putting them in a mental ward? Kind of takes the pleasure out of having kids these days, doesn't it?

[–] eric_m_bi 12 years ago

I'm not saying that what the Outcasts did was right or that the bullies deserved what they got, but what goes around comes around. The bullies tormented the Outcasts so much that it broke their minds (what sane person would do what the Outcasts did?); in essence the movie is about the bullies' actions and its corresponding reactions, simple physics.

[–] mexican_0806 12 years ago

its a horror movie what did u expect,just watch the damn movie and stop bitching.

[–] TheFatDruidofNacyl 12 years ago

The bullies were not just pushing them in the mud and wanting their lunch money, they were being mentally and physically abused. Two of them got attacked in the bathroom one lost property one looked like he was going to get raped. The victims even tried to plead with them before to stop doing what they are doing, and that they can be friends.

Add to the fact it seemed the kids didn't have a healthy home environment to turn to. In the end they were not happy healthy kids that were bullied they became mentally unstable. So these Mentally unstable teenagers got their revenge in a very gory and horrific way.

I also see that the victims were not out to kill their bullies but teach them ultimate life lessons. They also took away their powers. For the hot chicks they took away their beauty and vanity. For the bully that attacked them in the bathroom, he took away his power to cause physical harm to anyone. He made him as helpless as the bullies victims were. I suspect the one they were going to cut the tongue out of was verbally abusive. I've posted this before but it reminds me of the threat Wesley gives the prince in the Princess Bride, with the Pain. He knew how vain the Prince was so it would be worse for him to live as a hideous monster than be killed.

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[–] ave_roma2004 10 years ago

The bullies got exactly what was coming to them.

Admittedly, the bullies were over the top in their cruelty, but still. They got exactly what was coming to them. You can whine about the kids becoming bullies themselves all you want. Here's the difference:

Revenge is not BULLYING. Bullying is abusing someone to empower yourself. Revenge is about inflicting a sense (your sense) of justice on someone for what they have done.

If you treated me the way these kids were treated, I would LITERALLY slit your throat and leave your body in some weeds. There is no logic that could talk me out of it, there is no reasoning with me. I would take your life and leave you pale for someone to find along the side of the road.

When you deal with someone like me, it isn't required that you sympathize with me. That's real life. That's how the world actually is. We don't need to sympathize with someone.

You're basically ignoring the fact that these kids (at least Dane) are literally traumatized. They are GONE. There is no *beep* reasoning. There is no *beep* sympathy. They are NOT "normal". They were abused, at least one snapped, and they feel NOTHING.

In the real world, those types of people kill others. That's not far from what happened in this movie. Pretty realistic if you ask me. I just wish it would happen more often.