6B — Thursday, March 23, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Daily 
Arts 
Writers 
Will 

Stewart and Becky Portman 
discuss mental health in the 
coming-of-age comedy “Perks 
of Being a Wallflower.” The 
movie 
focuses 
on 
Charlie, 

a 
high 
school 
freshman 

suffering 
from 
depression 

and anxiety after his best 
friend’s suicide and aunt’s 
death. 
After 
befriending 
a 

group of free-spirited seniors, 
Charlie begins to find his true 
self. “Perks,” based on the 
bestselling YA novel, is one 
of the most defining teenage 
movies documenting mental 
health. Stewart and Portman, 
however, differ in how they 
view this portrayal.

Hipster teens doing weird 

stuff: What’s new?

High 
school 
stereotypes 

exist in movies because there 
is some truth behind them. 
Every school will have its 
fair share of cocky jocks, 
band-geeks 
and 
alternative 

theater types. If anything, 
this pseudo-hierarchal order 
of popularity is built into our 
culture. 
But 
these 
groups, 

in reality, are never quite as 
predictable as movies depict 
them to be. Sometimes, there’ll 
be that straggler impossible 
to pinpoint in one group, who 
seamlessly blends in and out 
of each social circle like a 
charisma-chameleon. Or, the 
band geek wins Homecoming 
King 
instead 
of 
the 
star 

quarterback, 
and 
everyone 

freaks out and questions the 
meaning of life. “In Perks of 
Being a Wallflower,” these 
cliches 
are 
challenged, 

especially the role of the 
handsome and athletic football 
star who also happens to be 
gay. 

Still, in most high school 

movies, the alternative theatre 
kids fulfill the role of just 
about every possible cliché. 
They listen to sad music, do 
drugs and, most importantly, 
are either severely anxious or 
depressed. Here, the problem 
isn’t the depiction of adolescent 
mental 
health 
issues, 
but 

rather always characterizing 
the same type of student as 
having “problems.” But, the 
truth is: not only alternative, 
edgy, “hipster” kids suffer 
from depression in high school. 
And, not every cliché hipster is 
depressed in the first place.

Mental health cannot be 

assumed within each social 
group based on preconceived 
notions. 
Certainly 
the 

aforementioned 
“hipster” 

enjoys their fair share of ’80s 
post-punk and has probably 
listened to “The Queen is 
Dead” by The Smiths 100 
times, 
but 
depression 
and 

anxiety are not unique only to 
them. Every year, thousands 

of 
teens 
with 
depression 

are undiagnosed and left to 
suffer alone. It’s essential that 
filmmakers and authors of YA 
fiction realize that other kinds 
of students are depressed, 
too. Maybe it’s more fun for 
viewers to watch the tortured 
artistic type, but depicting 
only one kind of student as 
predictably depressed paints 
an 
unrealistic, 
dangerous 

picture of mental health.

— Will Stewart 
We 
all 
want 
to 
find 

distractions 
from 
the 

humdrum 
of 
our 
boring, 

mediocre lives. For some, it 
is music, or maybe sports or 
perhaps 
even 
experimental 

performance 
art. 
Whatever 

the distraction, we all want 
something to keep us busy. For 
the rag tag team of friends in 
“Perks of Being a Wallflower,” 
their distraction is reckless, 
sometimes 
destructive, 

behavior. 
First 
we 
have 

Patrick, the unapologetically 
flamboyant 
stepbrother 
of 

the 
ever-complicated, 
ever-

experienced Sam. Then we 
have the overbearing bossiness 
of Mary Elizabeth and the 
quiet, mousey Alice. Thrown 
into the mix is our dopey, 
adorable loner, Charlie, who 
has been through some intense, 
ambiguous shit. When they 
come together, this odd group 
of friends find distractions 
in their existence with the 
panache of the authors and 
artists of “Midnight in Paris.” 
Their nights are filled with 
adventure, they are down for 
anything and they probably 
smoke more weed than Snoop 
Dogg. There is something so 
relatable and authentic about 
their interactions. They use 
substances, experiences and 
friendship to numb the outside 
pressures of High School life.

No one’s life is perfect. Sam 

does not know how to accept 
love, Patrick performs through 
his life to make the bad stuff go 
away, Charlie pushes away his 
past trauma till it almost kills 
him and even the stereotypical 
quarterback, Brad, is in the 
closet about his feelings for 
Patrick. What “Perks” does is 
give voice to those who cannot 
voice themselves. We see the 
problems on screen that we 
can identify with, happening 
to characters we care about. 

This group of friends is hodge 
podge of their own issues, but 
they deal with them together, 
doing whatever they can to get 
through. Seeing characters’ 
struggles that we can relate to 
gives depth and authenticity to 
an otherwise silenced topic.

— Rebecca Portman
How 
they 
talk 
about 

mental health

“Perks 
of 
Being 
a 

Wallflower” 
’s 
protagonist, 

Charlie, describes his own 
depression 
and 
anxiety 
as 

“being bad.” When he talks 
about avoiding these feelings, 
he says things like “if I get 
bad again.” Of course, anxiety 
is not good, but just because 
someone suffers from it does 
not mean they’re “bad.”

Charlie’s lack of empathy 

may make people feel like it’s 
entirely their fault for their 
mental health. But, “Perks of 
Being a Wallflower” is not to 
blame for this issue. Rather, 
the American culture that 
perpetuates vicious ideas — 
like seeing a therapist is a 
sign of weakness — is the true 
culprit. The whole concept 
of 
stomping 
down 
those 

less fortunate than oneself 
is inherently American (I’ll 
leave this to be discussed by 
those much smarter and more 
qualified than myself). The 
movie shows a bleak reality for 
too many people trapped in a 
vicious cycle of negative self 
talk and deep insecurity.

“Perks” does a fantastic job 

of creating a well-rounded 
character who also happens 
to suffer from severe anxiety. 
Movie characters like Charlie 
are capable of improving the 
social climate, especially when 
exposed to younger audiences. 
However, when he actually 
begins having panic attacks, 
the screen goes black and skips 
ahead a few moments. Viewers 
don’t actually see him during 
his most intense moments of 
anxiety, which I think is a 
huge loss. The purpose of the 
screen blacking out attempts 
to visually recreate Charlie’s 
perspective 
during 
these 

moments, but it feels like the 
director is tip-toeing around 
potential controversy.

— Will Stewart
Mental illness does not exist 

in a vacuum; it exists in lives, 
in people, in individuals. We, 
as viewers, might see mental 
illness as a disease that can be 
cured with a stint in the psych 
ward or some medication, but 
mental illness is an ongoing 
struggle. Many films do not 
attempt 
to 
capture 
coping 

with mental illness as a daily 
endeavor, but “Perks” manages 
to tell the story of Charlie’s 
struggle through a lens of 
moving forward.

While 
films 
like 
“Girl, 

Interrupted” and “It’s Kind 
of 
a 
Funny 
Story” 
depict 

the 
actual 
institution 
and 

experience of dealing with the 
worst of mental illness, “Perks” 
delves into Charlie’s life after 

WILL STEWART

Daily Arts Writer

SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Emma Watson and Ezra Miller in ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’
‘Perks,’ YA film reworks & 
adolescent mental health

Arts writers Will Stewart and Rebecca Portman discuss “Perks,” 
and the strengths and pitfalls of cinematic portrayal mental health

A life in Cudi and Smith: 
Me, music, mental health

Search “music and mental 

health” on Google – I know, 
I’m 
an 
incredibly 
skilled 

researcher – and a lot of 
positive physical correlations 
between the body and music 
come up. It turns out tunes 
can decrease the intensity 
of pain, increase endurance 
while exercising, improve poor 
sleeping 
patterns, 
prevent 

insomnia, enhance blood flow 
and so on. Basically, if you’re 
ever wondering why you can 
run that extra .25 miles on the 
treadmill when Nikki Minaj’s 
“Anaconda” comes on, it’s got 
something to do with music, 
the triggering of dopamine and 
some neurons firing.

There are some positive 

mental 
benefits, 
too. 
Ever 

heard someone say, “Listening 
to Mozart makes you smarter” 
and been like, “Well, that’s total 
bullshit”? Well, it’s actually not 
total bullshit. According to our 
good ‘ol friend science, there’s 
this thing called the Mozart 
Effect, 
which 
posits 
that 

listening to Mozart’s music, 
or any classical piece, induces 
a 
short-term 
improvement 

in certain mental tasks. That 
means “Piano Sonata No.12 In 
F, K.332:2. Adagio” will get you 
hype as fuck for that Ethics of 
Marketing paper you forgot to 
write until three hours before 
it was due. Talking long term, 
music is also known to reduce 
stress and anxiety, improve 
cognitive performance, elevate 
mood, 
help 
performance 

in 
high-pressure 
situations 

and 
relieve 
symptoms 
of 

depression.

But me, music and mental 

health have always had sort of 
a volatile relationship.

—

I’m 13, and Kid Cudi has 

just released Man on the Moon: 
The End of Day. XXL’s already 
included the rapper in its 2009 
Freshman Class, and no one 
can stop singing his infectious 
single “Day ‘N’ Nite” — but 
Man on the Moon elevated his 
status as sad, stoner rapper to 
an unprecedented level.

Everyone remembers where 

they were the first time they 
heard “Soundtrack 2 My Life;” 
that shit just stays with you. I 
was sitting in Austin Ortwein’s 
living room pretending to like 
the taste of Hpnotiq, because 
for some reason the bright 

blue, 
almost 
radioactive-

looking alcohol was all my 
friends’ older siblings could 
get their hands on for us. So, 
there I sat, sippin’, as Cudder 
belted out, “I got some issues 
that nobody can see / And all of 
these emotions are pouring out 
of me” – I know you can hear it 
now – and at that moment I felt 
like everything made sense. A 
cliché, no doubt; but as a white, 
upper-middle class female who 
felt she had nothing to really 
be sad about, and yet, still felt 
pretty sad, it was significant. 
Go read the Pitchfork review 
of the album, and they’ll say 
that Cudi’s a walking cliché, a 
wannabe sad, deep stoner. But 
maybe that’s the point; maybe 
that’s what a lot of us needed 
then. At least that’s what I 
needed then.

That album, as well as his 

sophomore release Man on the 
Moon II: Legend of Mr Rager, 
went on to soundtrack much of 
my high school experience; Kid 
Cudi got sadder, and so did I.

—

I’m 16, and I’ve only just 

heard Elliott Smith crooning 
the muted ballad “Between 
the Bars” over a scene in Good 
Will Hunting for the first time. 
The 
Portland-based 
indie 

rocker would go on to lose an 
Oscar to Celine Dion for one 
of his songs in the movie – of 
course Titanic’s “My Heart 
Will Go On” fucking won – but 
that wasn’t really what he was 
about, anyways. Melodic and 
melancholic, Smith’s music is 
some of the most powerful to 
come out of the post-grunge 
era of the late ’90s. But where 
there is grunge, there is also 
drug-use and alcohol-abuse, 
and Smith was notorious for 
his — a theme that would 
characterize his life and death 
and music.

Smith 
was 
shooting 
up 

heroine; I was drinking. A 
lot. My best friend in high 
school almost died of alcohol 
poisoning on a hot Las Vegas 
night in the middle of July after 

drinking 
straight 
Everclear 

inside some abandoned home 
in some gated community of a 
name I don’t remember. At the 
hospital near my house, I had 
to talk to the police and the 
doctors and her parents and my 
parents, all while borderline 
incoherent myself. Behavior 
along these lines continued 
throughout my adolescence, 
as did confrontations about it 
with my parents.

So you can understand why 

“Between the Bars” – which 
begins with “Drink up baby 
/ Stay up all night / With the 
things you could do / You won’t 
but you might / The potential 
you’ll be that you’ll never see” – 
struck a chord. It was incredibly 
painful to disappoint your 
parents and yourself and not 
understanding why you kept 
doing things that disappointed 
your parents and yourself. It 
was incredibly confusing to 
feel like you were ruining your 
coming-of-age-narrative as it 
was being written.

I have a memory of being 

sprawled out across my bed, 
teary-eyes fixed on my dark 
blue 
ceiling, 
feeling 
like 

everything was collapsing, like 
I’d ruined my chances of doing 
anything important, of being 
anyone important. 

—

Now I’m 21 and comfortably 

seeing a therapist, while Kid 
Cudi is in rehab for drug and 
alcohol-related 
depression, 

and Elliott Smith is dead of 
apparent suicide. I’ve realized 
I used music as a companion to 
my sadness, a friend to sit with 
while I sulked; they used it as 
an outlet of expression for their 
depression. I figured my shit 
out; I’m not sure they ever did.

But 
their 
influence 
left 

lasting impressions. Kid Cudi 
ended up helping me curate 
my budding musical interests, 
what 
would 
become 
broad 

affinities for everything from 
Young Thug to Yo La Tengo. 
Elliott 
Smith’s 
“Between 

the Bars” ended up being 
the subject of my Common 
Application essay — which is 
what ended up getting me into 
Michigan.

And that, to me, is incredibly 

indicative of the dynamism of 
music, it’s power to play both 
the catalyst and the cure. Isn’t 
it strange, that dichotomy? It 
has the ability to both induce 
depression and pull you out of 
it. Thankfully, for me, it did the 
latter. 

RACHEL KERR
Daily Arts Writer

G.O.O.D. MUSIC

Kid Cudi, on stage

REBECCA PORTMAN

Daily Arts Writer

tragedy (losing his friend to 
suicide, coming to terms with 
his childhood trauma, etc.) and 
moving on. “Perks” illustrates 
Charlie’s 
reintroduction 
into 

daily life after an incident 
merely dubbed as “bad” whose 
ambiguity furthers and fuels 
Charlie’s rocky road to recovery. 
That is the realness of it though, 
that mental illness is not just felt 
in mental wards of white-walled 
hospitals, it is felt in suburban 
Pittsburgh, it is felt on college 
campuses like ours.

Charlie is a case of PTSD, 

reliving 
traumatic 
memories 

in his mind, in constant fear of 
being guilty and responsible for 
a tragic event. As his mind does 

loops around the recollections of 
his past, he himself spirals into 
blackouts. As the camera spins at 
odd angles and the screen fades 
to black, the viewer is just as 
surprised as Charlie when they 
find out what happened. The 
void Charlie experiences during 
his blackouts is to be filled with 
the imagination of the viewer. 
This allows for the audience 
to empathize with Charlie and 
his emotional trauma on a more 
intimate level.

— Rebecca Portman
Conclusions
“Perks of Being a Wallflower” 

is a heartfelt and inspiring high 
school movie. I don’t really think 
it says as much as it could about 

teenage depression and anxiety, 
but the movie’s real intentions 
are to show self discovery, love 
and friendship.

— Will Stewart
“Perks of Being a Wallflower” 

is an endearing and honest 
portrait of a fresh-faced teen 
struggling with major emotional 
trauma amidst trying to make 
friends, get through high school 
and tell the girl he loves how he 
truly feels. I think that “Perks” 
does a great job of highlighting 
the often overlooked aspects of 
mental illness and reinforces 
the fact that mental illness does 
not define you. 

— Rebecca Portman

We all want to 
find distractions 

from the 

humdrum of our 
boring, mediocre 

lives

But where there 
is grunge, there is 
also drug-use and 

alcohol-abuse

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