Flipped

What if you missed out on the love of your life because you judged, avoided, and ignored the person before you ever really got to know them? This seems like a strange question, but I could not help but play the "What-If Game" after watching Rob Reiner's 2010 film Flipped. This movie examines individual characters deeply and has something to say about the possibilities and consequences of seriously taking an interest in someone else's life... or being too self-absorbed, judgmental, proud, and caught up in your own social status to care about the potentially wonderful person who lives just across the street, or sits next to you in class, or takes the same bus as you every day, etc.

Now, most people would watch the film and agree that people like the well-off Loski family are wrong to treat the poorer Baker family as lesser than themselves. I do not foresee any arguments arising over this, but I think the important point from the film to focus on is how it can be applied to our, the audience members', daily lives and why issues of class are focused on in the film at all. 

The film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives Reiner's movie a rather low rating, mainly crediting the film with having "nostalgic charms" and not much else. However, a post by reviewer Matthew Huntley on Box Office Prophets explores deeper than the charming surface of Flipped.

It [Flipped] defies being cheesy because the filmmakers and cast take the material seriously. Underneath its quaint façade are deeper issues that aren’t readily apparent, which goes along with its main theme: until we really talk to someone and commit ourselves to knowing them, thus looking beyond their superficial qualities and the hearsay of others, we won’t really know the truth outside our own perspective. 

In the film, a class difference between the Loskis and the Bakers is shown to be the main reason for a gap between the neighboring families. The Bakers are "dirtier". They raise chickens in their backyard. They make their own clothes. They do their own gardening. The Loskis, on the other hand, always have neatly pressed clothes and perfect hair and express horror over the idea of eating chicken eggs that did not come from a sanitary grocery store. Even though the Loskis seem extreme in this way and can easily be seen as being unfair and overly judgmental, I believe links between audience members and the Loskis can be drawn. 

Perhaps it is not our neighbor who we are treating poorly and ignoring but there is most likely someone in our lives who we immediately perceived a certain way and decided to brush off from then on out. This person could be a security guard who you pass every day as you walk to your college campus. It could be the kid who sits next to you in class whose hair is always a mess. It could be the janitor who cleans the hall floors and elevator of your apartment building each morning. Do we ever think to speak to these people? 

I see students pass maintenance workers in the hallways of campus buildings at my university every single day, and I have never once seen a student say "good morning" or stop to chat with them for a minute. This is rather disturbing to me. Perhaps students simply do not think of these conversations and are too self-absorbed to speak to the people living life around them, but I think the more likely reality is that students do not feel it would be appropriate or "normal" to talk to someone whose job is to clean the floor. One friend I spoke with claimed that the only way she could see herself in that situation would be "awkward at best". WHY?! A sort of social segregation in our society is rampant, perhaps due to a lack of social skills and knowledge of social niceties on the part of the average (and young) population of the United States, and I believe this to be problematic. 

Flipped portrays a young boy who is involved in the reinforcement of social segregation mainly because he is following the lead of his family members and the people that surround him, but the beauty of the film is that it points out that this seemingly easy, innocent, and "natural" act of brushing the lesser people in your life aside without ever paying them any real mind can be damaging and can cause you to miss out on some of the flavor and interest that life and its variety of people and the differences that they have can offer. When this young boy, Bryce Loski,  is influenced and urged by his grandfather to take an interest in his neighbor and classmate, Juli Baker, he sees that he has been foolishly avoiding a person who adds interest and flare to his life. As audience members, we could all be doing this same thing. For the sake of not having an awkward conversation on our way to class, we may be passing up a fascinating person whose day could be made by a quick "hello" or a "thanks for the wonderful job you're doing". That person with the crumpled hair sitting next to you in class or in your office may be someone who looks disheveled every day because they go deep sea diving before coming in to work. The point is that you never know where someone comes from and you should never be quick to judge them or carelessly set them aside and ignore them based on their appearances. Often times, there is more to a person than what is on the surface, and as a society, we should avoid letting ignorant pride or social standing get in the way of an opportunity to connect with and spread kindness to the diverse individuals around us who make our world what it is.