I just watched the film Eighth Grade by Bo Burnham and it's definitely a movie that gives you a lot to think about. I'd heard great things about this when it came out last year, but never got around to getting out to the theater to see it...which is never easy for indie movies as they rarely play for longer than a week up here in the Valley. But I spotted the DVD at the library the other day and checked it out.
My first thoughts while watching this story about an eighth grade girl in her last week of Middle School were thank god I'm not 13 again! I could immediately identify with Kayla and her struggle to fit in. The thing is, she's an intelligent character and her struggle to fit in is wrapped up in her struggle to understand social interactions. Kids that seem to just easily "fit in" are ones who typically are not trying to understand why other people do what they do. They don't over analyze everything...but a lot of people do, and they suffer for it during the adolescent years. Watching the film from a place in life removed from that world, it was all so painfully clear and filled me with thoughts of if I only knew then what I know now...and then projecting those thoughts onto the character.
Which brings me to my next series of thoughts while watching the movie, and that was an adult, more specifically, as a parent, and a parent of a daughter. As a parent, how do we share this knowledge with our kids? How do we protect them from the pain that comes with coming of age? And of course, the answer is that we can't...but there must be a way to let our children know that they are truly special, and I think that is something that starts at a young age, something you must continue to do even as your children separate from you. The movie filled me with parental anxiety, which is probably a good thing. Something to keep me on my toes.
Having thought about this age group a ton in my writing career, a lot of the themes were things that I've thought about a lot. Perhaps the most eye-opening aspect for me was how the film showed the way social media has penetrated this coming of age process and adds an entirely new level of stress on these kids. As with everything that teens are into, social media becomes all-important and terribly serious. Teens are intense. Their passions are intense. As a result they tend to take everything very seriously. I think one of the lessons that you learn in college and beyond, is that all of these things you believed were serious, are things that adults don't really take too seriously. This movie however, is one that we should.
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