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Posted By Robert G. about 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Escape to a Better Place,
I feel for you, Danni.
I see myself as a sort of rounded person now, but when I was a kid, I was far from the happy, jovial man behind the keyboard today. As a kid, I was dorky, overweight, had no confidence in myself or my abilities, and felt isolated by many of those around me. It was hard to escape that world, and I had only one true outlet to do so, and that was gaming. I was also luckier than most to have supportive parents who understood that outlet and let me be when I needed to let go for a bit, despite pushing me hard to achieve anything. I am forever grateful for that.
But I bring this up because of a small movie short that has surfaced on the internet, titled Escape. This 2012 short film was a winner at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas, written and directed by Kennedy J. Baruch. Baruch knows what that feeling of escape really is, as his short explores how it can be the only outlet to survive a somewhat harsh existence for young children, as follow a day in the life of Danni, a young girl who seems isolated by her peers and often ignored by her parents, her only escape being The Legend of Zelda.
I will admit it, I was tearful at the end of Escape. It is easy to sympathize with her because I was Danni at a point, I was very isolated and I yearned for that escape in the end. It is both somewhat sad yet hopeful, as Danni struggles are never going to end any time soon, but she at least can find solace in something when times are rough.
But it does show the power that games can have with people. It can be fun, a job, or their escape from real life. And that alone shows how gaming as a medium is a good thing. It shows that it can be a way to cope with life as you struggle through issues, and make yourself a better person if you let it happen.
This short film hits all of the hard notes that involves the death of childhood.
Horrible, Judgmental Children, Abusive Parents, Lazy Unemployed Father, and No Friends, all of it being filtered into negative emotion, resulting in stress, resulting in bad grades, resulting in angry aggression from said abusive parents, and the only thing you have to escape from it all is your Nintendo… until the parents take that away too, and now you have nothing but misery.
Just an FYI, there are kids out there who went through this shit and committed suicide as a result of it…
In the words of Godot: “Don’t have a pity party without inviting me” (had to find somewhere to use that line).
Anyways, I can at least say that gaming can be an escape without becoming an obsession. I was a big gamer as a kid while still being able to get good grades, but those games were quite a nice alternative to the life of no friends. They took me to worlds which I could control, and try a task again without penalty or ridicule until I succeeded. Trying new experiences and taking chances without the threat of rejection. Rewarding myself for some good work. They were worlds which better displayed how I wanted life to work. That is what gaming was, and perhaps still is for me.
Youtube blocked here so yeah…
So from what i could understand i get this feeling to an extent, my big brother is really the only one who calls me a nerd in a demeaning way. I was fortunate to be in a highschool where there were plenty of nerds to be my friends. I think this generation of kids might be getting better and now gaming is cool. Though like Richard says there are those small communities that pick on kids that play games. But i can safely say things are looking better.
Indeed I feel her pain of being made fun of at school, I’ve been through 12 years of it, even through high school. Its harsh both physically (if picked on physically, which I have been) and mostly mentally. I felt I had no place anywhere in the school and no one to turn to 5 times a day, 6 hrs each day. So 30 hrs (more or less) I feel isolated, picked on like a little worm by bullies and those who question me because how I look or what I do because they think its weird or stupid.
Trying to simply overcome it is very difficult, especially when your clearly outnumbered with no support. Back in those days bulling wasn’t recognized as a major problem nor did I get any help for it. My parents were always busy trying to raise money to support me and my 3 brothers, and my brothers can only do so much since 2 of em were in different schools from me, each year, and my 3rd had classes on the other side of school or different floor. My only relief was my Dragon Spirit NES game that I got for my 6th birthday and my mickey mouse doll that I had since I was 3. I still have him and brought him with me when I went to the army for 3 years. I didn’t care what they say about him while in the army, he was my only friend in those harsh times.
So being a single child, no friends, no support and always hearing hateful remarks and being ignored by the people who should be loving me is very painful. So to judge her for her actions and imaginations will never be correct until you walked in her shoes or in the shoes of a sad child. And I can say with certainty that some of those shoes are quite bloody and painful. I should know, I’ve been in those shoes for 12 years….
I really hurts me to see these kinds of things, real or not.
I’m really sorry, but I find it really difficult to sympathize with Danni. I understand the need to escape, the desire to get away from your real life, especially one that sucks as much as hers, but it seems like all she does is escape. She can’t focus on her schoolwork at all because of her obsession with the Zelda games. She is constantly doodling in class, she brings the manual to school with her, she can’t even finish a multiplication sheet without flashing back to her game and leaving it nowhere close to done. While I wouldn’t have, say, thrown the console and break it, considering how expensive those are, I would definitely have unplugged her Gamecube long ago, because she seems to have an unhealthy obsession, not a passion.
So her parents fight. That’s rough on a kid, I understand that. She has terrible grades. Fair enough, I get that too. She is seen as an outcast by all her peers. Also relatable, though the fact that they are right next to her and looking right at her while they whisper their harsh words is a bit implausible. Anyone would want to escape. But you need to draw a line somewhere. There’s always room for escapism, but too much can lead to further sheltering, instead of learning to face your problems and deal with them. I feel like Danni’s never going to learn at this rate, preferring to live in her fantasy instead of trying to make her real life better.
To get away from the emotional and psychological issues, I must nitpick at the sight of blood and gore in Danni’s fantasies. Zelda games have never been gory, so why would she start imagining them to be so? Maybe that also has to do with her damaged psyche, I don’t know.
This whole thing just felt really awkward and troubling, and instead of endearing us to her plight and wishing that she could just have the chance to play her video games, it makes me feel like she is never going to be able to function in the real world, because all she can think about is Zelda.
Well, I didn’t have a problem sympathizing with her. I’ve been there. I come from a very small school, in fact a very small community, and I can tell you without a single ounce of hyperbole, I was the only real gaming nerd in the school. In fact, I was probably the only real nerd at the school in general, and I was terribly ostracized for it. Now I was never a target of bullying (save for one unpleasant year) but I was still an outcast, very much avoided. I was also never a target for abuse at home either, but my parents were ALWAYS fighting. ALWAYS. Gaming was my outlet and my release.
My brother, who does play games, but doesn’t view them the same way I did, began drinking and smoking pot and cigarettes at a very young age as his own coping mechanism. I played games. Surprisingly, my parents were always harsher on me for playing games than when they discovered my brother was doing all these things. They did not understand that it was an outlet for me, and it’s not exactly easy as a kid to try and vocalize how unhappy you feel around all the fighting and ostracizing.
I suppose this is something that you really have to be in the shoes of someone who’s been through something like that to really sympathize with her about. Not saying that anyone who hasn’t been through that won’t get the film, but I find it very believable. Bearing in mind the very short length of the film, I can certainly buy why this would be more of a release and escape for her than an obsession.
But hey, just my opinion, ya know?
“the fact that they are right next to her and looking right at her while they whisper their harsh words is a bit implausible.”
As someone on the receiving end of exactly that for much of my early life, it’s anything but implausible. Don’t underestimate the cruelty of an age group that hasn’t perfected the art of talking about someone behind their back yet.
I completely agree with you, dude.