Bullying and Abusive Relationships has been a hot topic because of the recent suicides that resulted from prolonged bullying. In the last two episodes, Yunno, a soft-spoken girl developed a fear for men as a result of an abusive relationship she had in the past. In the third episode, she ran into her former boyfriend, Yoshioka and things got a bit nasty.
The last two episodes gave me some thoughts about the recent bullying cases that resulted in the victim to commit suicide. Also, I felt that the experiences Yunno gone through with her abusive boyfriend could actually happen in real life.
Abusive Relationships are a form of bullying where a person (male or female) abuses their boyfriend or girlfriend that cause the victim to feel helpless. These types of relationships are most often caused by jealousy, infidelity and lack of intimacy. This causes the person to verbally abuse, use violence, and/or rape the victim. Often times, these repeated actions could cause the victim to become isolated and depressed. In extreme causes, it could result in suicide.
As shown in the second episode, Yunno was forced into a relationship with the most popular guy, Yoshioka. As she did not know, he dated her so he could rape her. As a result, she had to fight back in order to protect herself. In retaliation, Yoshioka started to spread rumors saying that Yunno was a “slut.” People started to accept his message about Yunno and started to treat her differently.
The aftermath that Yunno faced felt like bullying and it was vaguely familiar to a real life bullying case. Hope Witsell, for whom she sent an inappropriate picture to her boyfriend, had opened a Pandora’s box of bullying since the picture got leaked to other schools. Because of the picture, her classmates started to bully her by calling her insulting names like “slut” and “whore”. Since Hope was bullied, she became afraid of everyone and eventually led to her tragic lost by taking her own life since she felt unwanted.
Bullying in any form is very unforgivable and its not helped by the accessibility of technology. With the Internet and stuff like cellphones, it makes the victim feel even worse since they perceive that everyone is out to get him/her. Anonymously on the Internet makes that feeling even worse since anyone can bully someone and make it seem like another person is saying those insults. The powerfulness of cyberbullying with the use of web cams resulted in the tragic lost of a Rutgers student, Tyler Clementi for instance. You simply cannot deny the impact of technology being used in such a cruel way. In this instance, Yunno receives harassing phone calls from Yoshioka about the incident where she scratched his face. This makes her feel even worse since she could be verbally attacked from her cell phone at any time.
In the end, people have to stand up to the bullies and fight back. Most of the time, people are just bystanders and they don’t fight against the bullies. It’s difficult because of the fear that the bullies will retaliate against those who speaks out and fears retaliation from the bully. In most cases, if enough speak out against the bully, the bully will simply back off and never touch the victim again. In the dogfight, Taro fought against Yoshioka to have him leave Yunno alone. This way, she does not have to feel burdened by her past relationship. Even though most people will not stand up against the bully, Taro was brave in doing so. It worked pretty well in his favor since he got a memento of Yoshioka being defeated with some hilarious remarks. I think more people need to be more like Taro (besides from his masochism) and stand up to the bullies (without violence) so victims don’t have to suffer.
In the end, I see the importance in anti-bullying laws and education. If these laws are enforced and students learn about the negative effects of bullying and learn to get along with people of any race, religion and orientation, perhaps cases that involve bullying will go down drastically. The recent suicides should be a wakeup call for governments and schools to take action against bullying since it can affect anyone.
Lastly, I think Yunno is a far better character compared to Inami. Her past relationship with Yoshioka was realistic. At least she didn’t develop her androphobia from something lame like overprotective parents. Otherwise, I would have scream. ¶
Anti-bullying laws work on adults, not children. Teens are learning how to become adults within their own ecosystem, but that doesn’t mean the abstract legal system is foremost in their mind. That fear must be trained into someone. In the meantime, the motivations for bullying are more salient: one bullies because it’s easier to step on someone to climb up, then it is to excel on your own. See: Acting white. When someone threatens to break away from the group, to maintain cohesion and keep from being outshined, the group will exert pressure.
You may wonder why teens persist in popularity contests, the most empty of competitions. Well, without a job, enough connections, or wealth…status is the only chip to play. It is, in short, a sandbox environment for adult games.
Interesting point…
I think the popularity contest in schools is really stupid and I never cared about it when I was in middle and high school. Typically, popular students aren’t usually the smartest people and usually pick on the smarter kids… or the unpopular ones.
I think the media in the US has influenced teenagers in a rather bad way since it shows the perception of what a popular person look like. So if you don’t have x like the other kids, you are going to get picked on. I think there are several bullying cases out there that is just like that. Plus, if you add the race/sexual orientation into the picture, it gets nasty rather quickly. I think they need to design new bullying laws that will be effective against child/teenager bullying and education programs to teach people not to bully others.