Amie Clapp
Carrie is a classic horror movie for the simple fact that bullying is all real and true no matter who you are or how old you are. Despite all the numerous studies and evidence found against it, teachers still let it slide, especially in public schools. I mean, who cares about the kids, right? That’s just kids being kids. If you don’t have psychological damage from your childhood then you probably are the odd one out. Yeah, okay, and still nothing is changing. Being from the generation where porn is everywhere and where mass shootings are a “again? Why?” type of situation, I’d safely say that I am part of the desensitized generation. Reading a book that focuses so much on religion and the glorification of the pristine is an interesting subject since not many people are like that these days.
Carrie has been around for decades, but it revolves around a teenage girl who is ostracized from her peers and made fun of on a daily basis. The book is much different from the movie just because in the movie it follows a few teens and nothing more. The book however follows Carrie and a few other characters as well as fantasy excerpts written about the teenaged girl and her strange telekinetic powers. Coming from an uber religious upbringing this is a bad combination for the simple fact that most people who are super religious, and even to those who aren’t, believe that this is a power from the devil or at least a bad omen. I mean, who wouldn’t think that? Unfortunately it is in human nature to destroy what we fear or what we cannot wrap our minds around and that in itself is a dangerous mentality.
Everyone has their docile side and we can all be pushed to our limits. Both the book and the movie starts when poor Carrie gets her period and she had never been educated about the bodily functions of a woman. The girls in the locker room start to throw sanitary products at her and chant. Even to a girl who hasn’t been bullied her whole life would be ashamed by this. Such a vital and fragile time in someone’s life and a bunch of bitches completely ruined it for her just because she was different. As mentioned beforehand, humans are flawed creatures and worth no more than a dime and a grilled cheese, if that. There was however one girl who was kind enough and tapped into her humanity to treat Carrie to a nice night before they all graduated and parted ways. Another girl however decided to be “that bitch” and she wanted to ruin the prom, not only for Carrie, but for everyone. As fate would have it, and her unfortunately being the main character, Carrie was the one who got the prank.
Carrie was still not liked even in death for what she had done but those people are probably the ones who bullied her. How can people not realize that everyone has their limits? For her she laid down and took it all of her life and the one time she fought back and treated them like how she felt she was being treated, she was seen as the bad guy by her peers. People are narrow-minded and most are only out for themselves, which is understandable in most cases, however this whole girl’s life and her existence was just a lose-lose case.
For a moment, let us discuss the massacres that are happening at schools everywhere. This was an issue I tried not to touch on, but with it happening more and more, it’s an idea to add in a review about something of the same nature happening. It’s difficult seeing everything that goes on in the world and hard not to compare it to something like Carrie. Just about a whole school was killed because the student body mercilessly ridiculed and and bullied this girl who was trying to mind her own business. Published in 1974 and basically predicting the future for a lot of kids who have been ostracized by their own peers in some way or form. The obvious correlation here is school shootings. As sad as it is to imagine writing about it, even about a fictional character, this is something that is almost all too common. From a moral standpoint it is wrong. Plain and simple what Carrie did was awful, but what her peers did to her everyday was just as wrong. When a caged animal is poked for too long, eventually it lashes out. Unfortunately school shootings are caused by kids who have been bullied or who are just not right in the head. Teachers and adults need to take mental health and other important matters more seriously. People that have been dealing with mental issues almost half or most of their life feel like they can’t handle anymore, the only thing they know what to do is take an extreme measure.
As for my very not-so-personal opinion on the matter, I believe she may have taken it too far, but some of her actions were more or less justified. They had been rude to her her whole life and just expected her to take it like she didn’t have feelings. People need to focus more on bullies, especially teachers and school professionals. Even Carrie’s principal didn’t have the common decency to get her name right in the beginning when she got called into the office. She had been pushed to the edge her whole life by society and her home life, thus ensuring that she have no positive social life. Wouldn’t you do the same at your wits end? Kids who are ostracized tend to lash out at their peers and usually it doesn’t end too well, as King has shown in his novel.
(Photo credit to original author Stine ’77 *Gun not part of original work)
