Addressing the dynamics of bullying on screen and in schools

This week in North Philly Notes, Laura Martocci, author of Bullying, pens an open letter about the recent film A Girl Like Her about teenage bullying. 

To Whom It May Concern:

Bullying is hardly a new topic—in fact, it is so well-worn that most teens roll their eyes at the word. They know what we want to hear, and what answers they need to give before we’ll let them go back to their iPhones.

Perhaps this is because we try to speak, without ever really having listened.
Amy Weber, writer/director of A Girl Like Her, listened—and it is obvious in the movie she made and the characters she created.

Avery (Hunter King), Brian (Jimmy Bennett), and Jessica (Lexi Ainsworth), cast in the roles of bully, bystander, and victim, respectively, bring complex, often conflicting motivations to their characters. As viewers, we get to watch the drama unfold from each of their perspectives. Ms. Weber garners sympathy for the “over-the-top” behavior of her antagonist (bully) through a plot device that puts a video-diary in her hands. We not only get a glimpse of how Avery sees things (mostly, her narcissism doesn’t allow her to see them at all) but also come to understand her choices through the context of her family. While this may not be enough to exonerate her, it does make her much more than a mouthpiece, and situates her choices as important “talking points” in the movie. 

Do her choices ring true?

What would the bully at your school do?

Similar questions surface around Brian, Jessica’s supportive friend. Brian not only listens, he enables Jessica to take actions that document the bullying. Hidden-camera videos at first help sustain Jessica by preventing her from slipping into denial about the abuse. However, Jessica ultimately cannot negotiate the onslaught, and takes drastic action. Attempting to come to terms with what Jessica has done, Brian is torn between his loyalty to her and a community desperately seeking answers.

Bystanders do not need to witness a drastic action in order to wonder what they should do, whom they might tell, and what/how much they should say. How they think about and sort these questions is another important talking point that is facilitated by the film. Is telling someone “tattling” or “supporting the victim”?

Finally, there is Jessica, the victim. We see her torment, and in itself, this is a talking point. Would anyone at your school ever be victimized like this? (Hint, the ready answer is, of course, “No.” “No” is the start of the conversation.)

A Girl Like Her understands that bullying is not only—or even primarily—about specific bad behaviors, but about the dynamics that support these behaviors, the conflicts that paralyze action, and the nuances through which teen dramas are played out.  Our children cannot engage bullying as a topic unless the conversation around it is authentic. Weber’s film captures the complexities that signal authenticity, making it a very good place to start that conversation.

This is an important movie, one I would not only want my daughters to see, but to see in an environment that would facilitate discussion around it.

Sincerely,

Laura Martocci

Phillies Baseball Books

As the Philadelphia Phillies start their season, we survey the Temple University Press titles that honor our home team.

Phillies ’93 by Rich Westcott

The 1993 Phillies had more winning games than all but two Phillies teams in the club’s 111-year history, and highly talented and entertaining top-ranking players like Lenny Dykstra, John Kruk, Darren Daulton, Curt Schilling, and Mitch Williams. The Phillies enjoyed sweet victories over their toughest competitors, the St. Louis Cardinals, the Montreal Expos, and the Atlanta Braves. Phillies ’93 covers the spectacular plays, outstanding performances, and thrilling victories of the 1993 Phillies season. Author Rich Westcott, a veteran sports writer, traces the evolution of one of the most colorful teams in Phillies history, from the off-season roster decisions, through spring training, the ups and downs of the championship season, and culminating in an in-depth look at what happened on and off the field during the National League Championship Series and World Series.

Bill Giles and Baseball by John B. Lord

Bill Giles oversaw one of the greatest eras of winning that the Philadelphia Phillies ever enjoyed and helped guide major league baseball through the most turbulent era in its history. In Bill Giles and Baseball, John Lord deftly chronicles Giles’ remarkable career—which includes 44 years with the Phillies—to provide an insider’s view of the business of the sport. He addresses the often controversial, sometimes ill-advised, moves by baseball’s hierarchy that have nonetheless propelled the game to unimagined economic growth. Bill Giles and Baseball offers a penetrating behind-the-scenes look at the business of baseball as seen through the eyes of one of the architects of the game. Lord showcases the unique perspective of Giles, who tried to advance both the game he loves and the baseball industry itself despite the controversies and conflict that baseball faced during his era.

The Phillies Reader edited by Richard Orodenker
An anthology of some of the best writing about the up-and-down history of the Philadelphia Phillies, this updated paperback edition features several new essays—including one about Citizens Bank Park—and the team’s recent history. The stories herein provide fans with some of the best sportswriting about the woes and triumphs of Phillies baseball. The Phillies Reader features essays on the athletic achievements of such legendary players as Chuck Klein, Richie Ashburn, Dick Allen, and Mike Schmidt; the political turmoil surrounding the “ok” from manager Ben Chapman to “ride” Jackie Robinson about the color of his skin; the bizarre shooting of Eddie Waitkus; the heroics of the Whiz Kids; the heartbreak of ’64; and the occasional triumphs and frequent travails of controversial managers Gene Mauch, Frank Lucchesi, and Danny Ozark. It asks why fans boo great players such as Del Ennis, but forgave Pat Burrell for his horrendous 2003 slump.

The Whiz Kids and the 1950s Pennant by Robin Roberts and C. Paul Rogers, III

The 1950 Phillies unexpectedly captured the hearts and imaginations of Philadelphians. A young upstart team—in fact, the youngest major league baseball team ever fielded—they capped a Cinderella season by winning the pennant from the heavily favored Brooklyn Dodgers in Ebbets Field on the last day of the season. It was the first National League pennant for the team since 1915. With that dramatic victory the 1950 Phillies went into the history books, known forever as the Whiz Kids.

The Phillies Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition by Rich Westcott and Frank Bilovsky

The benchmark volume for any fan wanting to know all the facts about baseball’s oldest continuous one-city, one-name team is back in a new edition. To help commemorate the Phillies move to a new ballpark in 2004, authors Rich Westcott and Frank Bilovsky have updated and expanded this indispensable work for the first time since 1993. The authors have revised existing player biographies and stats, and added profiles of new Phillies. Seventy-five new photos and a 16-page color insert bring the total number of illustrations to an amazing 600-plus. And longtime Phils’ broadcaster Harry Kalas has contributed a new Foreword for the occasion.

Reflecting on Vietnam

This week in North Philly Notes, as the world reflects on the 40th anniversary of the Vietnam War ending, we reflect on some of our books on Vietnam.

This Is All I Choose to Tell: History and Hybridity in Vietnamese American Literature by Isabelle Thuy Pelaud

In the first book-length study of Vietnamese American literature, Isabelle Thuy Pelaud probes the complexities of Vietnamese American identity and politics. She provides an analytical introduction to the literature, showing how generational differences play out in genre and text. In addition, she asks, can the term Vietnamese American be disassociated from representations of the war without erasing its legacy?

Transnationalizing Viet Nam: Community, Culture, and Politics in the Diaspora by Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde

Vietnamese diasporic relations affect—and are directly affected by—events in Viet Nam. InTransnationalizing Viet Nam, Kieu-Linh Caroline Valverde explores these connections, providing a nuanced understanding of this globalized community. Valverde draws on 250 interviews and almost two decades of research to show the complex relationship between Vietnamese in the diaspora and those back at the homeland.

Inventing Vietnam: The War in Film and Television edited by Michael Anderegg

The Vietnam War has been depicted by every available medium, each presenting a message, an agenda, of what the filmmakers and producers choose to project about America’s involvement in Southeast Asia. This collection of essays, most of which are previously unpublished, analyzes the themes, modes, and stylistic strategies seen in a broad range of films and television programs.

Songs of the Caged, Songs of the Free: Music and the Vietnamese Refugee Experience by Adelaida Reyes

The Vietnamese refugee experience calls attention to issues commonly raised by migration: the redefinition of group relations, the reformulation of identity, and the reconstruction of social and musical life in resettlement. Fifteen years ago, Adelaida Reyes began doing fieldwork on the musical activities of Vietnamese refugees. She entered the emotion-driven world of forced migrants through expressive culture, learned to see the lives of refugee-resettlers through the music they made and enjoyed, and, in turn, gained a deeper understanding of their music through knowledge of their lives.

Ordinary Lives: Platoon 1005 and the Vietnam War by W.D. Ehrhart

In the summer of 1966, in the middle of the Vietnam War, eighty young volunteers arrived at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot on Parris Island, South Carolina, from all over the Eastern United States. For the next eight weeks, as Platoon 1005, they endured one of the most intense basic training programs ever devised. Twenty-seven years after basic training, Ehrhart began what became a five-year search for the men of his platoon. Who were these men alongside whom he trained? What Ehrhart learned offers an extraordinary window into the complexities of the Vietnam Generation and the United States of America then and now.

The Vietnamese American 1.5 Generation: Stories of War, Revolution, Flight and New Beginnings  edited by Sucheng Chan, with contributions by students at the University of California

The conflict that Americans call the “Vietnam War” was only one of many incursions into Vietnam by foreign powers. However, it has had a profound effect on the Vietnamese people who left their homeland in the years following the fall of Saigon in 1975. Collected here are fifteen first-person narratives written by refugees who left Vietnam as children and later enrolled as students at the University of California, where they studied with the well-known scholar and teacher Sucheng Chan. She has provided a comprehensive introduction to their autobiographical accounts, which succinctly encompasses more than a thousand years of Vietnamese history. The volume concludes with a thorough bibliography and videography compiled by the editor.

Treacherous Subjects: Gender, Culture, and Trans-Vietnamese Feminism by Lan P. Duong

Treacherous Subjects is a provocative and thoughtful examination of Vietnamese films and literature viewed through a feminist lens. Lan Duong investigates the postwar cultural productions of writers and filmmakers, including Tony Bui, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Tran Anh Hung. Taking her cue from the double meaning of “collaborator,” Duong shows how history has shaped the loyalties and shifting alliances of the Vietnamese, many of whom are caught between opposing/constricting forces of nationalism, patriarchy, and communism.

America’s Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975, Second Edition  by George C. Herring

First published in 1979, America’s Longest War has been highly regarded both by scholars and general readers. Extensive and yet manageable, this assessment of our national tragedy provides an accurate and objective analysis of the hostilities at home and abroad. This second edition of America’s Longest War becomes more timely as we commemorate a decade since the end of the war and attempt to reflect dispassionately on its effects on our national character and policy.

Aging Out of Retirement Communities?

This week in North Philly Notes, Brittany Bramlett, author of Senior Power or Senior Peril, writes about how senior retirement communities in Florida—and around the country—are in peril in the light of changing economics.

The Villages is an expansive retirement community with age restrictions in place. Grandchildren can visit but not for extended periods of time. I visited The Villages in 2010 as part of the field research for my book, Senior Power or Senior Peril, I found a lively retirement community with golf carts galore. The thousands of homes in The Villages surround impeccably maintained Town Centers. Residents have the freedom and time to devote to the hundreds of social clubs available.

But, things are different for the neighboring community of Tavares, Florida. Here is an excerpt from my field notes from Tuesday, September 28^th, 2010:

“As I leave the Villages, I leave the beautiful, developed neighborhoods of Sumter County.  On my drive to my hotel, the scene is different. Gone are the golf courses and perfectly maintained grassy areas. Instead, I pass by a lot of older homes, some prefab homes and trailers.  I see a number of Dollar Generals on my drive and a lot of car dealerships. There aren’t many, if any, restaurants or stores that look new.  I don’t see coffee shops or upscale shopping. This area appears to be a community of people struggling economically. And, developers have not been recently attracted outside of The Villages.”

There will probably always be retirement communities like The Villages, but these gated communities may be increasingly out of reach for the next generation of older Americans.

According to the Pew Research Center, “by 2022, the [Bureau of Labor Statistics] projects that 31.9% of those ages 65 to 74 will still be working. That compares with 20.4% of the same age bracket in the workforce in 2002 and 26.8% who were in the workforce in 2012.”

The rate of older adults in the workforce is rising. And, projections indicate that this trend will continue. The Pew Research Center notes the trend and suggests a number of reasons for the graying workforce. One explanation centers on economic hardship faced by senior citizens as a result of the Great Recession.

With trends like this, there will probably be less people moving to places like The Villages in Florida. These changes will certainly have implications for aged communities. First, more people will age in place, which means new aged communities (without amenities) developing all over the country. Second, places like Tavares might benefit from the increased presence of older adults living and working in their communities.

Places with concentrations of older adults will probably always vary in important ways, economically, politically, and culturally. In Senior Power or Senior Peril, I examine aged communities at length. Older residents in aged communities have greater political knowledge than older people living elsewhere and tend to support safety net policies to a greater degree. These places are fascinating for understanding group dynamics and homogeneous communities. Surely, they will continue to be places that draw our attention as their citizens and governments respond to demographic as well as economic and political forces.