The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
And in this moment I swear we are infinite.
I’ve seen a lot of people reminiscing about the Tumblr days lately. “This would have done numbers on Tumblr” has become a common social media phrase, and all this talk of the nearly defunct social media site put me in the mood to write about a movie that feels like the epitome of Tumblr at its peak: The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Tumblr was different than other social media sites. While Instagram has always felt like a place to show off your life and try to impress your friends, Tumblr was a secret oasis.
If everyone you went to school with followed your blog, that was a bad thing. And everyone knows the popular kids at school had the worst blogs. The Perks of Being a Wallflower and 2010s Tumblr culture are forever entangled, and even though the film (and the book it’s based on) is set in the early 90s, I can’t watch it without feeling like I am back in 2012.
Charlie Spoke To A Generation Of Loners
At the time The Perks of Being a Wallflower was released, mental health was still a pretty taboo topic. The film is in no way a perfect portrayal, but it was one of the only ones in young adult media, and that meant a lot to its demographic of teens and young adults. This is part of why it went triple platinum on so many Tumblr blogs back in the day. A lot of Tumblr users were depressed loners, and the website was a place for them to express their deepest troubles without judgment but instead surrounded by people who supported them. Charlie is a character recently released from a mental health facility who has to start his freshman year of high school where he knows no one except his older sister (who doesn’t even let him sit with her at lunch.) He’s completely alone in his world, and the only person he initially connects with is his comfort English teacher, Mr. Anderson.
“You see things, and you understand. You’re a wallflower,”-Patrick, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
This spoke to a generation, given the other young adult movies coming out in the late 2000s and early 2010s were not this vulnerable. This wasn’t just a coming-of-age film of the 2010s; this was the coming-of-age film of the 2010s. Even though I feel like the film is forever attached to the 2010s Tumblr era, it also feels pretty timeless; it was released about two decades after the time period it’s set in and still deeply resonated with its audience. As time goes on, it feels like things are changing even faster than they used to. There was not a cell phone in sight at Mill Grove High School in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, yet today, if you went into a high school, mostly everyone would have an iPhone in hand. They’d be scrolling TikTok, texting while walking down the halls, and maybe even typing their homework assignment into ChatGPT so they don’t have to do it themselves.
However, despite the rapid advancements in technology, I think teenagers are mostly the same. They still feel misunderstood, and they’re still trying to find themselves and find a way to fit in. I think if you looked beyond the cell phones, you would find quite a lot of Charlies in high schools all around the world today. We get a closer look into Charlie’s character when we learn his aunt sexually abused him as a child. He seems to idolize her throughout the film, feeling guilt for her death because she died in a car crash on her way to get him a birthday gift. However, he eventually comes to terms with what happened to him. We see how this affects him because he struggles to let people in. He doesn’t know what love is because his concept of it was twisted so early in his life. It’s in the moments when he’s alone that he’s forced to face these demons.
When his friends initially shut him out during a fight and later when they leave for college, he reenters a dark period in his life. However, he ultimately makes it out when he accepts what happened to him and chooses to move forward. One of the most relatable scenes in The Perks of Being a Wallflower is when Charlie confesses to his friend and love interest, Sam, that he feels like no one would want to talk to him if they knew how crazy he actually was. Who hasn’t felt this way in their lifetime? We all have aspects of ourselves we haven’t fully accepted that we conceal because we fear if others see them, they’ll abandon us. Hearing Charlie say this is part of why this movie was such a sanctuary for its young audience. No one ever talks about this feeling because they’re so afraid, but something interesting happens when Charlie asks Sam if she ever feels that way.
She responds, “All the time,” proving it really is a universal feeling. It’s confirmation that if you feel that way right now, there really isn’t anything wrong with you at all. Although Charlie has been through a lot, he is not a victim throughout the film and makes his fair share of mistakes. His worst offense is when he starts dating Mary Elizabeth despite being in love with Sam. During a game of truth or dare, his friend Patrick dares him to kiss the prettiest girl in the room, and instead of kissing his girlfriend, he kisses Sam. In his defense, Mary Elizabeth was a terrible girlfriend who was pretty selfish and not even that nice to him, but it was still hurtful. It causes Sam and Patrick to cut Charlie out of their lives for a few weeks before he defends Patrick from bullies in a physical altercation, and they all reunite. The point is that Charlie is a flawed character, and we love flawed characters because they make us feel better about the mistakes we’ve made in our own lives.
“We accept the love we think we deserve,”-Mr. Anderson, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Another thing that makes Charlie so endearing and relatable is that there’s a wholesomeness that the others around him don’t seem to have. It’s unusual because someone who has been through so much is still able to withhold a level of innocence. If you’ve been this way in your own life, you’ll know it is not easy to go through life this way. People who have the wholesomeness or optimism of a child tend to trigger those around them who took their rose-colored glasses off a long time ago. I think Charlie is this way not because he never experienced struggle, we know he has, but because he’s been alone so much in life and has a pretty big childhood scar that he never really grew up. Though I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him being this way, and even though he grows throughout the film and through the connections he makes, he even heals, he still never loses sight of who he really is. He doesn’t become hard or tainted; in fact, he only gets more optimistic as the film reaches its end.
Finding Community
Finding a community is what The Perks of Being a Wallflower is really about. Charlie is alone, but as the film goes on, he learns to let people in and build a community of friends who accept him despite all the things he thinks are wrong with him. As I mentioned, this is what Tumblr was all about. People who felt alone in their own lives could log on and find a community, whether it was people who loved the same movies or books or music, there was a community for everything and everyone. And somehow, while it may sound odd, building a community with strangers from all over the world was easier than building one with the people at school. However, for Charlie, back in the pre-social media 90s, he had no choice but to find his tribe at school. While he initially finds solace in his English teacher, his real chosen family is Sam, Patrick, and the friends he met through them.
Charlie is initially drawn to Patrick because he's unapologetic. He's the only openly gay kid at school, and he gets a lot of crap about it from his peers, but it doesn't change his attitude. He doesn't shrink himself down to appease others, and he doesn't even let them get the last word when they do pick on him. As someone who feels very alone and is terrified of what others think of him or might say to him, Charlie admires Patrick's fearless nature. It's through his friendship with Sam and Patrick that Charlie learns to open up. He tells Sam about his friend's suicide (even if he was high when he told her), and it's her and her own dark past that helps him come to terms with his own. As their friendship unfolds, they really come to know each other deeply. During the Secret Santa scene, Patrick gives Charlie a suit as a gift because he knows Charlie loves to write, and he says it's what all the great writers wore.
They come even closer together as they open up about the things they never tell anyone. While Sam and Charlie share their stories of past abuse, Patrick opens up about secretly dating Brad, the closeted quarterback, and how Brad's father beat him up when he caught him and Patrick together. I found the scene especially powerful because Patrick seemed pretty unbothered by everything throughout the film. When he opens up to Charlie, it's the first time we see him be vulnerable. It's further proof that Charlie is not alone in his struggles, but it is a universal thing that everyone is dealing with something at any given point in time, even if they don't show it.
“Welcome to the island of misfit toys,”-Sam, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Another crucial aspect of the film and the bond between the friend group is the inclusion of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The characters regularly perform the musical, with the movie playing on a screen behind them, at a local theater for an enthusiastic audience. The musical plays into the themes of The Perks of Being a Wallflower because the characters in Rocky Horror were outcasts, too. The main character, played by Tim Curry in the 1978 film, literally calls himself a "sweet transvestite” and the lifestyle of he and his friends is far from socially acceptable. However, the movie also pushes the leading characters, Janet and Brad to come out of their comfort zone.
The same is true of the characters in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. At first, Charlie sits in the audience in amazement, watching his friends put on the show. Later on, he has to fill in for Rocky when Craig doesn't show up to the performance. We see Charlie breaking out of his box and doing something that would have scared him to death before he met Patrick and Sam. That's what building a community is really about: not just finding people who accept you but finding people who push you to step out of bounds and evolve. If you're only surrounding yourself with people who are fine with living within the confinements they've always known, you're never really going to experience life.
Perks Of Being A Wallflower–The Soundtrack
“Oh my god, they’re playing good music,” Sam exclaims at a school dance right as the intro to “Come On Eileen” by Dexys Midnight Runners begins. She and Patrick take the dancefloor to perform their “living room routine” while Charlie is being a literal wallflower, leaning against the gym wall by himself, watching everyone else enjoy themselves. However, while he’s watching Sam and Patrick dance, he feels called to join them. This is the moment that really solidifies their friendship. The Perks of Being a Wallflower uses music as a storytelling device a lot throughout the film. The “Come On Eileen” scene is one of my favorites because it’s so fun and because it’s an early moment where Charlie comes out of his shell. He finally found people who make him feel comfortable enough to be himself. Watching Sam and Patrick do their intense dance routine, unconcerned by what anyone around them thinks, is inspiring for Charlie.
There are other great moments like the songs of Rocky Horror and the mixtape Charlie makes for Sam to tell her how he feels about her. However, David Bowie’s “Heroes” is the defining song of the movie. The song plays the first time Charlie, Sam, and Patrick go driving together in Patrick’s pickup truck. When the song comes on, they all insist they’ve never heard it before, and Sam convinces Patrick to drive through the tunnel. She climbs out the back window and stands up in the bed of the truck as Patrick does as she says. Charlie watches her in amazement, telling Patrick, “I feel infinite.”
The scene repeats itself at the end of the film. This time, Charlie is narrating and reflecting on everything he learned during his freshman year of high school. When they drive through the tunnel again, Charlie is the one standing in the truck bed. Right as the film is coming to an end, he says the most iconic line, “And in this moment, I swear, we are infinite.” Bowie’s song blasts as Sam and Patrick scream out the windows, and the credits start to roll. However, this quote lived on throughout Tumblr, reblogged probably hundreds of thousands of times if not millions. It truly was the defining phrase of a generation, and I will always associate it with Tumblr and what it was like to find community in the most unexpected places when you needed it most.