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The 2012 film adaptation of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, based on the director Stephen Chbosky’s original book, is a beautifully brutal coming-of-age story centered around fifteen-year-old, Charlie Kelmeckis (Logan Lerman). At the time of the film’s release, it garnered great attention due to its relatability and simultaneous depth which earned fifty award nominations and nineteen wins. Certainly, it still holds up today, because “No matter what your proximity to your high school experience is — you will relate to this [film] — and will relate to one of the ‘misfits’ portrayed in it”(( Santa Barbra International Film Festival. “The Perks Of Being A Wallflower.” 2020. )). In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the characters are exposed to much more during the teen and early adult years of their life, unlike average teens whose biggest worry might be their date to prom.
One of the driving factors for our character’s unresolved trauma is misogyny and toxic masculinity. While misogyny aims to put women down and in turn lift men, it poses to be an extremely damaging issue for men as well. The Perks of Being a Wallflower does an excellent job of illustrating this issue and how damaging it can be to young men. As Charlie is the main character, there is more insight into his personality, trauma, and emotions. Despite the fact that none of Charlie’s trauma can be attributed to misogyny or toxic masculinity, the reason for it going unresolved is another story. Unfortunately, the misogyny present in Charlie’s family stifles him when it comes to getting the help he needs.
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower (2012)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower opens with Charlie writing a letter to “a friend” whose identity remains unknown throughout the film. Though this detail remains important because regardless of who he is writing to, Charlie is narrating the story for the viewer with these letters. He sets up the film by disclosing that he recently spent time in the hospital, and he fears being looked at as the weird kid as he is about to enter his freshman year of high school. Unluckily, Charlie starts the film with no friends and most of his classmates aren’t very welcoming. Though he is able to befriend a senior, Patrick (Ezra Miller), from his shop class and his stepsister, Sam (Emma Watson) as well.
Charlie discloses that his favorite aunt passed away on his seventh birthday. Then at a party, Charlie tells Sam, showing almost no emotion at all, that his best friend committed suicide last May. It seems as though he was very accustomed to hiding his emotions. As Sam learns the news, she and Patrick decide to toast him as their new friend and his friend group expands to now include the remainder of the main cast. It becomes very apparent to the audience that Charlie has serious trauma that he doesn’t nor does anyone else in his life choose to acknowledge (after this toast).
The viewer continues to watch Charlie try to fit in his with new friend group and take a liking to Sam though she has a boyfriend. Overall, he seems to be flourishing socially, doing well in school, and he even gets his first kiss with Sam. He seemed to be doing well until Charlie and Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman) make out after the Sadie Hawkins dance and she announces their official relationship. Charlie, with feelings for Sam, doesn’t want to be in this relationship but doesn’t know how to break it off. In admittedly the worst way, Charlie is dared to kiss the ‘prettiest girl’ in the room at a party, and kisses Sam and not his girlfriend.
After this, Patrick tells Charlie it’d be best if he stayed away for a while, and he does at the expense of his mental health. Narrating Charlie tells the audience that he’s getting bad again, referencing his mental health and possibly his previous hospitalization. It’s not looking good for the main character until Patrick gets into some trouble at school and Charlie steps in to defend him. This scene feels like a total win for Charlie as he beat up some bullies and in turn, is invited back into Sam and Patrick’s group of friends with open arms. Though the viewer also sees Charlie blackout during his fight, maybe hinting at how bad he has gotten and the severity of his mental state.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t take too long for the school year to end meaning all of Charlie’s friends would be graduating. The night before Sam leaves for Penn State, she and Charlie have a long-overdue talk and finally seem to get together. Though in a scene where Sam rubs her hand along Charlie’s thigh he gets a flashback to his favorite aunt doing the same. After Sam leaves the next morning Charlie breaks down and remembers the repressed memory of his aunt sexually abusing him. On top of realizing this, he also has just lost all of his friends and it sends him into a spiral. The Perks of Being a Wallflower then suggests that Charlie attempts suicide but the scene jumps to him in the hospital. With being admitted into the hospital, Charlie is finally able to work on addressing his trauma as he happily spends time with Sam and Patrick at the end of the movie. Though the amount of suffering Charlie felt as a product of his unresolved trauma along with his attempt to harm himself could have been avoided had he felt comfortable expressing this at a prior time in his life.
Charlie Kelmeckis
In The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Charlie is trying his best to maneuver significant trauma for anyone to deal with let alone a fifteen-year-old boy. In this regard, it is important to break down this trauma before getting into how it went unnoticed. That being so, Charlie has three main events that have caused him trauma; his sexual assault, the death of his aunt, and the death of his best friend. Starting with the sexual assault invoked by his aunt, Charlie, from what the viewer can tell, has repressed this memory. There isn’t much acknowledgment of the event happening until the end of the film other than some vague flashbacks, which makes sense as Charlie is the narrator. Though considering the term repression, most people think of Freud’s theory “that people repressed memories that were too difficult to confront, particularly traumatic memories, and expelled them from conscious thought”(( Psychology Today. “Repression”. 27 April 2021. )). In reality, this theory has caused controversy amongst psychologists as there is sufficient evidence to prove that people do, in fact, retain the memory of these traumatic events that occur. So what does repression really look like?
Outside of the repressed memory debate, people may refer to repression colloquially, describing the tendency to push difficult feelings down or avoid confronting certain emotions or beliefs.
Psychology Today. “Repression”. 27 April 2021.
This means that Charlie, despite his lack of acknowledgment, did have a memory of his aunt assaulting him this entire time, explaining the vague flashbacks throughout the film. Each time there was an oddly timed flashback followed by a cut back to Charlie trying to live a normal life it represented him having to push that memory back down again and again. Making traumatic incident number two all the more complicated; the death of Charlie’s aunt. Charlie’s aunt died on his seventh birthday in a car accident while she was going to get his gift. Due to the timing, Charlie blamed himself for her death, as we hear him do in the terrifyingly urgent phone call to his sister Candace (Nina Dobrev). In the same call we hear him admit that “maybe [he] wanted [his aunt] to die” (( Chbosky, Stephen, Dir. The Perks of Being A Wallflower. Summit Entertainment, 2012. )), as his feelings toward his aunt seem to be incredibly confusing for Charlie.
Lastly, Charile’s third significant trauma in The Perks of Being a Wallflower was his best friend committing suicide that May, before the current school year. Obviously, losing his best and only friend as he goes into freshman year is incredibly traumatic on its own. Though, consider that on top of that tragedy in itself, the death of someone close to him triggered old emotions about his aunt’s death when he was a child. Moreover, now that old wounds have been reopened, when Charlie’s repressed assault is brought to light it is all the more painful and confusing. Consequently, the breakdown of Charlie’s trauma through the biggest factor in each instance is his aunt. His family dynamic as a whole plays a huge part in why his trauma takes so long to surface and subsequently has a chance at resolution.
Charlie’s Family Dynamic In The Perks Of Being A Wallflower (2012)
Charlie’s family consists of his mom, dad, brother, and sister; though his brother is away at college for most of the film, so the audience doesn’t see much of him. Nevertheless, Charlie’s family in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, while we aren’t shown much of them, tells us a lot about Charlie’s upbringing and relationships. The men in Charlie’s household, namely his dad, display a very hard alpha male archetype; not specifically threatening but certainly not run to me with your problems type of dad. Likewise, Charlie’s brother was the star of the high school football team and now plays football at Penn State. He was popular and seemed to be the perfect all-American son. On the other hand, Charlie was shy, he dealt with serious trauma and wasn’t the athletic type. His friends were the wallflowers, he performed in Rocky Horror performances and he didn’t fit in with the norm.
The women in Charlie’s house were the perfect counterparts to the men, acting just as they were expected in respect to their almost costume-ish interpretations of what men and women should be. Very closed off and reminiscent of toxic masculinity, which “is a set of behaviors and values that are connected to a traditional and potentially antiquated understanding of gender roles” (( PsychCentral. “Toxic Masculinity: What It Is and 3 Tips to Deal with It.” 22, October 2022. )). One of the largest contributing factors to the Kelmeckis family’s impression of toxic masculinity is how they handle emotion. It seems as though the men shouldn’t feel emotion (or should at least hide it), while the women are able to feel and show emotions openly. If anything, the one common emotion the males do feel in The Perks of Being a Wallflower is anger; usually anger that is resolved with a physical altercation. All of these instances tie back into toxic masculinity as…
With toxic masculinity, weakness is always a negative and often perceived as relating to femininity. This is where misogyny and toxic masculinity overlap. In misogyny (often defined as the hatred of women), femininity is labeled as a negative, rather than just something that exists.
PsychCentral. “Toxic Masculinity: What It Is and 3 Tips to Deal with It.” 22, October 2021.
Doltishly, somewhere along the lines having and showing emotion was labeled as feminine, which shouldn’t be a problem in the first place. Regardless, emotions were labeled as feminine, and in Charlie’s household showing those emotions would be looked down upon. This would explain his lines to himself during his breakdown at the end of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, “Stop crying, stop crying”(( Chbosky, Stephen, Dir. The Perks of Being A Wallflower. Summit Entertainment, 2012. )) and his continual repression of the assault committed on him as a child; that the viewer can confer has been plaguing him all these years. Feeling as though you have a good support system and a safe space to be open about your trauma is extremely important when expressing it for the first, third, or fiftieth time. Unfortunately, Charlie didn’t have that regarding his home life but through his friends, he finally had that support system that came crashing down when they left for college.
Charlie Deserved Better In The Perks Of Being A Wallflower (2012)
Charlie Kelmeckis luckily was able to get the help he needed and deserved at the end of the film. Though it is heartbreaking to watch Charlie struggle in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the audience can’t help but root for the shy, relatable Charlie Kelmeckis. While his story progresses, the audience finds themselves going from rooting for Charlie to genuinely wanting to protect him. He has clearly been through so much and all anyone wants is for someone to come in and truly be there for him. Sam comes close but then she leaves for college and sadly can’t help him much from there.
His family seems to be supportive at the end of the film and that’s all we can hope for in Charlie’s case. Though, as he didn’t feel comfortable sharing any sort of emotion with his family hindering him from getting the help he needed this conversation is one that stands. The Perks of Being a Wallflower illustrates how harmful toxic masculinity can be when it comes to men getting help for mental illness and speaking out about their emotions. While the misogyny present in Charlie’s family stifles him when it comes to getting the help he needs, their support at the end of the film signifies the potential for change. It also reinforces the notion that emotions are normal for every human to experience and if you are struggling with trauma, no matter your gender, you should be able to access the help you need.