Can Cyberbully Pass the Test?
A Chris Pozzi Critique
As IMDB says, Cyberbully is about “Teen girl Taylor
Hillridge [who] gets a laptop for her birthday and signs up on a social
networking site. She starts to feel alone as her friends ostracize her and she
falls victim to cyberbullying”. While
the main theme of this movie is about cyberbullying, this movie does a great
job of pulling in many different types of people. To recognize that there are many different
types of people, I scored the representation test for this movie. This test is a media literacy tool meant to
spark learning and conversation around representation in film, and to encourage
more overall diversity on screen and behind-the-scenes in Hollywood. Cyberbully
is a great representation of what it means to represent different types of people. While it does not necessarily have the best
representation, it still has a good amount of diversity in it. When I scored it, I gave it a 9 on the scale. This is a B, so it could have had a bit more
representation of other types of people.
Specifically, they did a good job of keeping women
involved in this film. To start with,
the protagonist is a woman, Taylor. The
entire storyline focuses around her and the way she impacts her school, whether
it is positive or negative. In addition
to this, there is also one woman or color who has a speaking role and does not
get reduced to her stereotype. This
woman is Cheyenne, one of Taylor’ best friends.
She has a big speaking role, but ditches Taylor when times are tough.
This is shown specifically when Taylor gets to school one day after a big lie
is told about her online, and Cheyenne says to her face that she cannot be her friend. Unfortunately, she is one of the only persons
of color in the entire film, and when she is shown struggling with her protagonist
friend it is not the best light put upon her.
Specifically, this is shown when Taylor gets to school after one of the
bad rumors gets started, and Cheyenne automatically tells her to stay away from
her because she does not want to be associated with Taylor. It is just seen badly that the only person of
color in the spotlight is the one to abandon her friend. Lastly, the film does pass the Bechdel Test,
which means the film features two or more named characters who are women, who
talk to each other about something other than a man. This film has a total group of three girls
that all talk about everything. While a
boy is definitely a big topic of discussion, it is not nearly the only thing
they talk about during the film. Other topics
of discussion are the mean girls at school, their parents, what clothes to wear
that day, and many more.
While women are featured in this film, men are also put
in the light, and not necessarily in the best light. While the film does avoid glorifying violent
men, which is definitely a good thing, it does not include men in
non-stereotypical roles. The guy that
Taylor likes, Scott, acts like a great person to her, but as soon as everything
gets difficult for her, he bails and acts terribly toward her. At the end of the film, he apologizes for the
way he acted, but that does not dismiss the way that he acted towards her when
she needed his assistance. This shows
guys in a bad light, and definitely stereotypes them to do this to girls. In addition, Cyberbully does a good job of avoiding perpetuating an extreme and
unhealthy body ideal for men. They show
many different types of body types in men.
Specifically, however, the film puts a big emphasis on how much Taylor
likes Scott, who has the ideal body type and look. This is shown in the way that the girls fawn
over him in the cafeteria when he decides to talk to Taylor Men are in general seen in a pretty decent
light in this film, however overall it can make some guys question if they are
good enough.
Lastly, the film does a good job of representing
different races and LGBT in a positive way.
The film was able to avoid celebrating offensive racial, ethnic, and
cultural stereotypes. In addition, the film
does include one or more LGBT characters who are not reduced to
stereotypes. Yes, the film does show the
one gay kid in the movie as one of the main kids that gets picked on for being
who he is. However, there is more
emphasis put on the fact that at the end of the movie, people stand up for him,
and cyberbullying in general. Taylor is
able to stand up for this kid, and everybody that is getting picked on by the
bullies in her high school. Sadly, the
protagonist of this film is not gay, but does treat the one gay character
positively. In addition, this film got
an extra point because its writer is a woman.
This representation test is an interesting way to gauge
whether or not the film is a part of a contribution to change. This film obviously has a message of
positivity toward raising awareness towards bullying with its heart wrenching
scenes of Taylor trying to commit suicide.
However, according to this representation test, the film just did an
okay job. It did not earn enough to be a
perfect “A” type of movie. Personally, I
thought that it was a good way of showing the different types of people that
should be featured. It was definitely
accurate to give this film the score it got, and I bet it also does well for
other movies as well. I believe that
the scoring system is pretty fair, but I would not say that it is
balanced. I feel like there was way too
much emphasis put on women, when a good portion that the women were scored on
could be applied to men. I know that the
world has an emphasis on sexism towards women, so that it why it seems fair,
but it is not nearly as balanced as it should be. I would definitely encourage the people that
developed the representation test to take a look at adding some more questions
that represent men more. It did do some
good because it gave some recognition to people that are usually not
heard. Specifically, Cyberbully addressed many types of
concerns and raises a ton of awareness around cyberbullying and the ways it can
really drive a person to the brink of literal death.
I would rank this movie four out of five pickles because it includes a good amount of
representation from the representation test, but it could add a bit more in order to move up its score
from a B to an A.
the kayli nicholson is me and
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