A Julia Roberts movie and the Cult of "Belonging"
A brief essay on 2017's "Wonder", co-written with my son
[note: this essay was required to be written in discursive style, with IMHOs verboten… please bear with me. I put this up here to use the base that my son came up with and continue to fiddle with it as I am wont to do, so that I can leave him to complete his own work independently. He won’t see my version until he submits his.]
Belonging is an important but hard to define concept. The movie "Wonder" could enhance our ideas of what it means to belong, but it does so from a view very specific to a time and culture. So through close study of this film people can appreciate three important parts of the Western sense of belonging: firstly, how acceptance and recognition are essential, even if only shallow. Secondly, that living in a story where we can be the hero is the same as belonging, even if that story is imaginary. And lastly, that belonging can "happen" to you, even if all of the difficult choices are actually made by others.
American society's understanding of belonging is that it is related to a person's acceptance and degree of recognition by a social group based on that group's ideas of goodness. The film’s treatment of two key characters, August and Julian, highlights the unreliable nature of such "belonging". These two have opposite journeys in the story. When August Pullman starts school, he has no friends, no recognition and no acceptance because of his face. At the end of the movie all these problems are solved, and he receives a medal and public standing ovation. Julian Albans began the movie as someone popular and respected by both peers and teachers. When through his bullying treatment of August more of his real character is revealed he loses all "belonging" that he had. This could lead the audience to consider whether this fall might also not happen to August. We do see hints of August's resentment and self-absorption in a scene with his sister where he whines "just don't compare your bad days at school to mine!" If this part of August's inner ugliness becomes clearer too, will he also no longer "belong", despite the standing ovation? Audiences may then ask themselves, "Is this real belonging? Is this real safety?" It can be just based on people seeing what they want to see, when we are successfully editing our true face for public consumption.
Living in a story where you can be the hero is seen as the same as belonging too. Julian and his mother's bullying behaviour are unrealistic and presented very cartoonishly. Julian's mother appears in only one scene and she is shown as a one sided villain with domineering demeanour, pointlessly lying and being unrealistically cruel. The only other speaking asian female in the story is presented similarly when she says in the lunchroom: "Maybe Jack touched Auggie, and couldn't wash his hands in time, and Jack finally got the plague", leading to and contrasting with Summer’s “hero” decision to sit with August. The constant bullying we are told Julian has been doing to August is also without any explanation. August on the other hand is always depicted as the innocent, and as only a victim to all the bullying. This sets up a traditional but simplistic "good guy/bad guy" story, that makes August look like a winning hero at the end of the movie. Through this film, audiences can see being the hero is so important to Western modern society. At school it's always about getting the best grades or putting in one's best effort. If you aren't being useful, helpful and striving then you don't belong. It isn't acceptable to have no job and no drive to achieve. Cruel or lazy intentions are to be all banned without looking at the roots of why they are there and what it can teach us (they don’t belong!). Even if unreal, this film could teach us about how people think and the holes in society's belonging concepts.
The last point is that “Wonder” implies that belonging can "happen" to you, even if all of the difficult choices are actually made by others. At the end of the movie, these words are quoted by the school principal as a way to explain August being awarded a medal: "He or she is the greatest whose [right use of] strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own". There is something that doesn’t make sense though: the director already tells you through flashback as the words are said that the "right use of strength" was performed by Jack, Amos and Summer. They are the ones whose actions lead us to be “attracted to their hearts”. Yet we are pulled into believing August is the one deserving honours for benefiting from their brave choices, yet not really doing much himself. Mr Tushman also says these words that the director wants us to see as profound: "Mrs Albans, Auggie can't change the way he looks. So maybe we can change the way we see." It is true that August cannot change how he looks, but he can grow as a person so that the goodness inside shines through however he appears - like Jack, Amos, Summer and Via do. But this growth is blocked if everyone around August does all the changing while thinking kindness is expecting no such tough choices from him. Being different is a chance to develop bravery, but it is not bravery itself. Mr Tushman getting this mixed up is not doing August any favours in the long run, for his sense of belonging this way will be up to other people’s resolve and not his own.
The last words of “Wonder” are: "Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle. And if you really want to see what people are, all you have to do is look." This is quite different from this more traditional precept from a Chinese martial artist in the Matrix movies: “You do not truly know someone until you fight them.” These cannot both be equally true, and have a very different vision of what wholeness is and how far kindness can go. Thus, the movie “Wonder” and its popular reception is an excellent illustration of just how far modern concepts of “belonging” have degenerated from sacred and far more secure roots in the deepening of loyalty, service and personal courage, and appreciating how these nobilities can liberate us from (shifting consumer market) substitutes of approval, moral stories and passivity, that at any rate can never actually satisfy.