I've already written about my thoughts on bullying, but somehow I can never seem to exhaust what I feel I need to say. As well as re-watching the second season of Glee, and getting teary over the bullying storylines all over again, I've been doing a fair bit of reading about bullying lately. In particular, I found the An Earnest Attempt to Humanize Bullies series at Rookie mag very interesting, and I think that these articles said a lot of things that need to be said more often. I completely agree with the sentiment that popular media should focus more on how bullies are human, just like everyone else, instead of making them into some kind of villainous caricature. But, by the same token I think more conversations need to be had about the victims of bullying, and how they are just like us as well, just as human.
Sometimes I think people like to pretend that there must be some extenuating circumstance for why a person gets bullied. We like to pretend that the victims must have done something, or said something, or provoked the bullies in some way. Either that, or we like to pretend that bullying behaviour isn't serious, or is somehow acceptable because "if someone is going to go & be all different like that, they better get used to it." I don't think that there needs to be a reason for bullying to occur. I think that sometimes, people are just mean. But, I also think that their behaviour can & does have serious consequences, which we shouldn't make light of. I don't think we should be perpetuating the idea that the victims of bullying are somehow other to us, thus the behaviour is acceptable.
At the heart of bullying is the idea that the victims are somehow other. That their otherness makes them somehow less than us, somehow more deserving of the nastiness & cruelty that we have to express. I think that it is this idea of otherness that we need to combat. We need to spread the word that the people who bully, and the people who are bullied are the same people. We're all the same people. Something I've noticed about Glee is that so many people can relate to it. So many people can related to feeling like they're at the bottom of the heap, and everyone is out to torment them. People seem to feel a special affinity for particular bullying stories on the show as well. The Kurt/Karofsky story line makes me cry every time, and Kurt is the character that I wish I was in high school, but the one character I really relate to is Shannon Beiste. I think most of us can say that we have felt an affintity with a bullied character in some form of media, at some time or another.
All of us who have been bullied should stand up & own our victim status, just as those who have bullied should stand up & own that. If you were bullied and the experience slid right off your back, stand up and own that. If you were bullied and the experience still influences your life now, stand up and own that too. If you are being bullied and you feel like the experience will ruin the rest of your life, stand up and own that. People need to be shown that the victims of bullying aren't caricatures anymore than the bullies are. We are not other - we are just like everyone else, and we deserve to be treated with respect.
Until next time, xo.
