Media Representation: Bullying

1. The issue I have chosen to represent within my project is bullying. By dictionary definition, Bullying is use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants. Recently, bullying has been a very relevant topic throughout all forms of medias. Several T.V. shows and movies have been developed revolving this topic. It even has made its mark on the news since it is such a serious and prevalent problem. Bullying is most likely to occur throughout the grade school age, that ranges from kindergarten to 12th grade. Believe it or not, everyone has participated in bullying. Bullying has 3 types of people, there is the bully, the bystander and the victim.The bully is the one inflicting the taunting and/or the violence. The Bystander is the person who is observing the bullying and does nothing to stop it from happening. The victim, is the person receiving the hateful behavior from the bully. Nowadays because of the technological advances, there's is more than one for of bullying.

The first type is the standard face to face bullying. This type of bullying is the most common to occur. This can take form in verbal intimidation or even physical blows. The verbal intimidation consist of name calling, insulting, and teasing. Since these acts occur In front of people, it is often humiliating and mentally scarring to the victim. Physical blows consist of pushing, punching or kicking the victim. This is physically and mentally harmful to them. Another form of bullying is being ignored. This occurs when the bully acts as if the victim is invisible. This act is done to make the victim feel as if he doesn’t belong amongst their peers.

The next form of bullying Is called cyberbullying. Cyberbullying occurs online via email, text, or social media. This often goes hand in hand with face to face bullying. It is often thought that cyberbullying can be more intensely harmful to the victim because the bullies can be anonymous, more people watching the bullying occur, and can be consistent as an attack can be posted with in seconds. Cyberbullying can be more intense due to the fact that it often feels inescapable. The bully can get in contact with the victim at anytime of day, so in essence the attack’s follow them every they go. Cyberbullying is most common amongst teenagers because they use the sites where the bullying occurs the most heavily. These post can include rumors, threats, sexual remarks and hate speech. Both of these types of bullying can be detrimental to the victim, which can lead to suicide and depression.



2. There are several ways in which bullying is represented in the media. One that particularly stands ou to me is the Netflix original show 13 Reasons Why. This 13 episode show is about a teenage girl named Hannah Baker, who committed suicide due to bullying. Before her death, Hannah recorded tapes which gave the reasons why she was going to kill herself. Each episode went in depth into a new tape. Each tape expressed the different times that Hannah was bullied or “ done wrong” by a new person. These tapes showed several instances of bullying such as an inappropriate picture of Hannah being sent around school, and being blackmailed with picture of her kissing a girl. Hannah dealt with several other challenges in the show such rumors being spread about her, being excluded by her friend group and being raped.In the show 13 Reasons Why, bullying is represented as continuous acts against one person. In the show Hannah seems to never catch a break, Hannah is forced to endure issue after issue caused by her tormentors.This show mostly focuses on face to face bullying, as all her bullies did the cruel acts in person. Except for the photographs of Hannah in her undergarments that was shared through the phones. 13 Reason Why also represents bullying as something that is hard to get help for. When Hannah is raped and seeks help from her guidance counselor, the counselor insinuates that the event could have possibly been her fault.

The second example of bullying in the media is the movie Cyberbully which is directed by Charles Binamé. This movie is about a teenage girl named Taylor Hillridge that has to endure several cruel forms of bullying and cyberbullying. Taylor to begin with is teased by the mean girl LIndsay, about what she wears and what she looks like. Though, once Taylor decides to open a social media account things get to be a lot worse. Now the bullying had moved on to the social media sight as lindsay, would harass taylor calling her “ dog face “ and “lardo.” but these comments are just the beginning as her little brother hacked her account and posted a very sexual remark on her page. This comment received a lot of hate messages, such as people calling Taylor a “slut.” The Taylor began to talk to an online profiler which she didn't know online. This person ended up spreading false rumors over the internet which claimed that Taylor had given him a sexually transmitted disease. The profile turned out to be fake and created with the purpose of messing with Taylor. These rumors started by the fake profile carried on to school, where Taylor became the victim of face to face bullying by lindsay and her possy. Taylor ended up losing all her friends and was left to weather the storm all alone. This lead to her attempted suicide.

Both the show 13 Reasons Why and the movie Cyberbully show there own version of bullying. Cyberbullying focuses more on the online aspects of bullying. It depicts cyberbullying as inescapable, as Taylor could reach the hateful comments from any computer. As she did when she got her computer taken away. Taylor ran to her friends house to use her friends computer to see what people were saying. In the show 13 Reasons Why, they focused more on the face to face bullying. As Hannah was called names right to her face and rumors were spread all around the halls wile Hannah was standing in the same vicinity as them. In Both films it shows that both types of bullying can lead to the same outcome, which is suicide. Both the show and the movie depict the victim getting bullied is a high school girl. Lastly, both these pieces of media show that bullying is difficult to stop and doesn't have several outlets to get help. As both Hannah and Taylor were turned away when reaching for help to end bullying.


3. Overall in the show 13 Reasons Why, I believe that some bullying was represented properly. Within my years of high school, I have witnessed students going through similar challenges. The scene where a picture is taken of Hannah which showed her underwear was passed around school. This form of bullying is degrading and hurtful, but unfortunately it is a common occurrence in high school. I believe however that some of the bullying that Hannah expressed in her tapes did not properly represent typical bullying. I believed that having the character Tyler as Hannah’s stalker is not really a form of bullying that typically occurs in a high school setting. However, insistendents as where Justin makes up a rumor that he and Hannah had done sexual things is a more common representation of bullying in high school. These types of situations happen alot and often lead to negative comments and reactions from the person's peers just as it was shown in the series.

The movie Cyberbully is a spot on representation of what cyberbullying actually consist of. It is common in today's society to post hateful video about people. This was accurately represented in the movie when Lindsay made a video taunting taylor. This video showed taylor being pregnant and calling her a slut that sleeps around. The typical mean girl is depicted precisely by the character Lindsay. These type of girls unfortunately do exist in the real world, meaning the representation is correct. The movie also shows fake friends, when time were getting tough for Taylor her two “ best friends “ seemed to disappear. I believe that this is not accurate.While it is true that fake friends do exist, ones best friends stick around through the good and especially through the bad. Lastly, i believe that the creation of the fake user represented in the film is very accurate ton today's society. Many people are victimized by “catfish” which are people pretending to be someone online who they really are not.

In both films, the lack of care and regard for the students suffering from bullying seems to not be representative of real life. In schools, bullying is taken very seriously. With the slightest name call or physical attack, the student that is seen as the attacker is immediately taken to the office and given a suspension or a referral. Also I noticed that in both films the main people being victimized by the bullying were teenage girls. I believe this is not representative to to real life bullying. Bullying can occur to anyone, whether it be a girl or a boy. Bullying can occur in elementary school age students all the way to high school age students, The stigma of the helpless teenage girl represented in these pieces of media are not accurate.


4, From the show 13 Reasons Why I would retain several things. To begin with i would retain the scene of when Hannah's underwear picture is being sent around by text. I believe this is a real form of bullying that is actually realistically relevant in today's society as the use of cellphones and electronics are increasing. I would also retain the sexual assault attempt during Hannah's date that is shown in the Netflix series.I believe that this is a common issue that several people go through and it is important to talk about it. I would personally challenge the fact that Hannah received absolutely no help after reaching out since schools have designated hotline for bullying and counselors have an open door policy and are always willing to help.

In the movie Cyberbully, I believe that i would retain most of the representations shown in the movie. I would definitely retain the part of the mean girl Lindsay posting nasty comments on Taylo’rs page and also creating insulting videos about her. I would also keep the fact that anonymous users can often be fake. It is very common in today's society to be exposed to fake users pretending to be someone they are not.Lastly, I would challenge that all victims are teenage girls, as it was represented in both the show and the film. The victim can be any person whether it be a girl or a guy, anyone is able to be bullied.