Thirteen- Matt

Just wanted to say, great insight, you guys, so far! In my first post, I want to focus on Thirteen, while the film is still very fresh in my mind.

The film is very powerful in part, due to the focus on how Tracy's thought process was impacted by her environment. It made me see "cause and effect." During adolescence, we all experience feelings of insecurity and frustration. Tracy is no exception and at the beginning of the film she is already crying out for help. The poem she writes, which she later reads for her mother, clearly indicates she is dealing with deep inner turmoil. The poem also highlights Tracy's ability to see that when people are in pain, there are some people who choose to look the other way. The film does a great job at making the audience look to the mother and hope that she will recognize the anguish her daughter is in. She does, however, she is distracted by too many other issues and puts Tracy's problem on hold. The mother comes across as weak because she is unable to face the deep meanings from Tracy's writings and puts other people in front of her daughter. This serves as negative reinforcement for Tracy's thinking that she is unloved and insignificant. In addition, we find Tracy's career-obsessed father to be exasperating due to his unwillingness to look behind Tracy's anger and does not properly reach out in a thoughtful, loving way.

Tracy, furious from feeling pushed aside at home, becomes determined to be somebody at school. She soon recognizes Evie's status as the girl at the top of the social ladder and how she has great sexual appeal on the young men. There is a creepy fascination in how Evie manipulates Tracy. Evie notices Tracy wanting to fit in with her clique after sizing her up. Evie gives Tracy a fake number to call so they can meet up at a store and go shopping. The reason for this is for Evie to see how much Tracy is willing to go to be her friend. Sure enough, Tracy shows up at the store despite not talking to Evie on the phone. Tracy abandons her morals by stealing hundreds of dollars from a customer to impress Evie and her friend. From then on, Tracy's low self-esteem as well her intense desire to be admired and noticed, causes her to disregard the fact that certain things she is doing are wrong (even dangerous- ex. huffing) and causes her to coldly dump her previous friends because they aren't part of the in-crowd.

However, it should be mentioned that Tracy starts cutting herself soon after meeting Evie. And when Evie moves in to Tracy's house, without a protest from the mother, Tracy moves faster into a downward spiral. Despite the fact of now wearing fashionable clothes and getting lots of attention from the boys at school, Tracy is experiencing self-loathing and tremendous guilt about her actions. In addition, Evie is causing Tracy pain by competing for her own mother's affection! Since Tracy is isolated from truly positive influences, the cutting continues. Even though Tracy is now popular at school, she deep-down knows she is pretending to be someone she's not. The moral code instilled in her brings about the massive struggle with the teen pressures and finally Tracy realizes that Evie is a horrible person to have in her life.

As a school counselor, if I noticed Tracy exhibiting signs of unhappiness and frustration just in her overall body language, I would start by saying, "Is there anything you would like to talk about today?" I believe that using that open question, conveying friendliness and a willingness to listen, as well as giving her the freedom to talk about whatever she wanted could be seen as very liberating for a person who has such low levels of self-esteem. To present a calm, receptive demeanor to the student is imperative and it is also vital not to be intimidated by dark feelings and emotions. I would try to gain knowledge about Tracy's family situation. I would make Tracy aware of her intelligence and talk about her strengths. If I became aware of Evie's negative influence I would try to remove Tracy from her grasp, by suggesting joining extra-curricular activities to positively express herself without being negatively influenced by that unhealthy friendship. And if I found out that Tracy was cutting herself, I would possibly bring in other people who deal with that situation more frequently to help me out.