Teenage: The Freest Age [Ben X Review]

November 15^th, 2012

Reflective Essay on the Film [Ben X]

Mr. Garrioch / English Composition

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Belgium film [Ben X] deals with a highly universal issue: bullying. The outcast being bullied in this film is Ben, a teenage boy suffering from Asperger syndrome. He undergoes every spiteful mischief and even physical abuse done by his classmates, without a single successful defiance. The only way out he has is online game ArchLord, where neither appearance nor sociability is required. He is an outcast in his school, who finds comfort in his fake world of online game.

Bullying is a social problem. Outcasts created by the bullying majority exist in any sort of society, not to mention schools full of immature and impetuous teenagers. It of course seems logical that companionship cannot exist without ostracism, and therefore outcasts are inevitable for certain society to exist. Anyone distinguishes between crimson and red, scarlet and orange. On a generally red piece of paper, people can tell which part is red and which isn’t. But let there be one blue dot on that reddish paper. It becomes meaningless to distinguish reddish from red any longer because blue is the apparently least red color on that paper. Crimson, scarlet, and orange all go within a boundary of red, with the existence of blue. Without that blue dot, however, the ‘generally’ red paper isn’t just red anymore. This applies similarly to the real world. Excluding the most different minority brings strong solidarity to the society, letting otherwise substantial differences among insiders become negligible.

Clearly, bullying isn’t so conspicuous any more. America’s Jim Crow laws and Nazi’s Holocaust has become a disgrace in human history. No more color bar is admittable. Women, children, blacks, Asians, Mormons, and any former minorities all have equal opportunities, equal rights today. ‘Equality’ is an important keyword, and excluding certain group from the majority, depriving rights and suppressing them is against this mainstream value. People with innate disadvantages are not those who are to be left subordinate but those who are to be aided and assisted. Though people still crave to pursue the stability and comfort they get from ostracism in the very deep, at least on surface they all endeavor to help the weak and do virtue.

What we see in this Belgium film [Ben X] is, ironically, undisguised ostracism and naked violence. The classmates have Ben stand on the table and take off his pants so that anyone in the classroom can see him mortified. They videotape this vicious prank, upload on internet so that anyone can access this video. Ben’s self-styled ‘friends’ beat Ben nastily by one tying his both hands and the other punching his stomach. They further extort Ben’s newest Nokia and force him to swallow their spit. The classmates’ open bullying acts severely on Ben’s state of mind, driving him almost schizophrenic. But why is this school violence so explicit?

There is a common perspective viewing teenagers: immature, impulsive, irrational, and rebellious. Adolescence is a period between childhood and adulthood. Teens witness irregularities and learn the reality, but are yet vulnerable and somewhat naïve. They fight against conventions and undergo identity crisis. In many ways, teens are insecure and unstable. .And this conception, true or not, allows teens to behave in the way they want. Our society is especially generous to teens. While adults chide and coax young children to behave, they indulge teens and condone all their misdemeanors. They often reproach teens for rebellious and defiant attitudes, but that’s all. They do not endeavor too hard to scold teens, to shape them up, because teens are insecure and rebellious. They do not punish teens’ misdeeds too harshly because teens are immature. Beating someone on the head is something to be severely reproached for a child and something to be legally punished for an adult. But for teenager, it is something we have to overlook, or otherwise something a parent has to beg for forgiveness. Teenager is expected to behave in such way and isn’t to be punished. And teenagers, aware of the impunity they have, let themselves behave more irresponsibly, impulsively, and irrationally. 

Think of why our society is in general progressing (at least outwardly) to a more sophisticated, civilized one, yet the teens’ society, school, is stagnated on uncivilized, rudimentary level where the members behave primitively.Teens regard themselves, and are regarded immature and rebellious being. Their misbehaviors are rationalized in society. They easily go unpunished for their conducts.

Bullying is indeed a social problem. It corresponds to the desire to form a stable, strong community, to the instinctive want to be belonged. But there is a reason why bullying is most notable in school. It is that teenage is an age when bullying, no matter how violent and cruel it gets, is natural, and thus, okay. No, it is that people all believe so. No violence is okay. When someone acts violence (physically, verbally, or in any way), regardless of the age, he (or she) is to be chastised and punished. Excusing all his guilt does not keep him guiltless nor penitent. Poor victims like Ben never disappear unless teenagers are rightfully reproached and punished just like others.