Cyber-bullying has been on the rise since the early 2000s that could cause victims to cause self-harm, or even suicide. With many social networking apps and websites easily accessible for anyone with an Internet connection, any bully can easily create a fake account to lure their victims into something false and can lead to tragic consequences. Director Paul James Houghton takes aim with this critically-acclaimed short film ‘From Under the Bridge: When Bullies Become Trolls’ to increase bullying, cyber-bullying, and suicide awareness, which is loosely based on the late Megan Meier, a teenage girl who committed suicide as a result of cyber-bullying and bullying at school.
The background of the story is on a fictional character named Claire, who shares the similar characteristics of Megan Meier. Claire is a young teenager, already in distress and in deep depression, is suffering from her daily life in school. She is without her mother, who presumably passed away and is under the care of her father. Her father struggles to communicate with Claire, indicating that there is a lack of connection for her to open up to her dad, without much explanation. It does appear that her dad is doing everything he can to provide emotional support.
While Claire suffers from her reality without her mother and being bullied in school, she finds a bit of hope of happiness when she befriended a 22-year-old frat boy named Evan on a social networking account. Even seems to be an overall nice guy who has great conversations with Claire, even though they never met. Eventually Claire suggested to finally meet in person and Evan obliged and set a date.
Here’s my analysis. It looks like this was happening in a period where cyber-bullying may not have been coined as a phrase to even raise awareness of the risks of meeting someone online without proving that the person is not a fake account. There are no red flags that spring out, but rather an innocent girl who believes she found a glimmer of happiness she could focus her energy on. But as a teenager at that time and social media being fairly new, it could be presumed that there was no formal education for anyone to learn how to protect oneself from being a victim of fraud or cyber-bullying.
No matter how many nice conversations between two people who only met online, it takes one simple message that could turn the other person’s world upside down, specifically those that believed every word said before was at face value. A simple sentence like “the world would be better without you” is more than enough to incite the cyber-bullying antics as much as a physical shove to someone in bullying. The difference between the two is that bullying is physical, while cyber-bullying is mental. And with the topics of Mental Health Awareness being in the mainstream today, it was just as needed when cyber-bullying became a trend.
Not to say physical harm is just physical, as it does affect one’s mental state as well. Bullying is also a big part of hurting someone’s life and their mind going forward. It is a trauma that could grow exponentially if there is no proper care to support the victim. Traumas could lead to anxiety, and even worse, depression. Add cyber-bullying to the mix, it could be more than enough to lead to suicide.
From Under the Bridge: When Bullies Become Trolls does not hold back on all of these intertwined themes of suicide, bullying, cyber-bullying, trauma, and depression. They often correlate with each other when these five facets come at head, as was in Claire’s case. Depression could be seen as someone who struggle to cope with feelings from past traumatic events, with so many unanswered questions as to why they deserved to feel the way they felt from their past negative experiences.
Also, the film also touches on the expression of “negativity breeds negativity”. All parties that were involved in the interactions with Claire have also at least once interacted with each other. They had a history, and someone felt burned at one point. In this case, it was the cyber-bully. I believe in the adage of the exchange of energy, where if you align yourself with someone who has hope, happiness, or any positive outlooks in life, you become inspired to do the same in return to others. In this case, Claire thought she found that positive energy with Evan, who became her closest confident, and can easily turn his back and magnify the negative energy Claire was avoiding.
It is no doubt From Under the Bridge: When Bullies Become Trolls has won numerous awards for the direction of the plot. It is straight to the point with poignant topics aimed at viewers to wake up and realize how deadly cyber-bullying could become. And it is a testament to use this art form as another means to let people know to seek help who is becoming a victim, or to help those who is unaware that they are the victim. For this film, viewer discretion is advised. And to the parents who watch this short film, remember to hug your daughters and sons. Do what you can to protect them from any form of bullying, especially cyber-bullying.
by: Trevor Brooks
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.