Scaredycat

Jacob Bostick

Dr. Kyburz

ENGL 308

3 September 2018

Scaredycat reflection

                Scaredycat was a very interesting short film to me. It had a dark and gritty feeling to it that really caught my attention. It had a very emotional undertone to how the story was told and how the film was produced. I think the film was about the psychology of human beings. Specifically how people react to fear and how they react after something they fear actually happens. I think this makes the film very relatable and interesting to people because at some point in most people’s life a fear probably has become a reality whether it’s major or minor.

                Andy Blubaugh is an interesting and inspiring person. He comes off as awkward and gives a kind of nerdy vibe within the first couple of minutes of the film. Explaining that he likes to align things in parallel to each other such as the newspaper on the bus or aligning his footsteps with the bricks as he walks to his bus stop. He hits on an interesting concept of security in society. He thinks that if someone doesn’t feel safe they will try to do something to eliminate the stressor or at least the feeling of the stressor even if it logically doesn’t make sense. For Andy, this action is him aligning things with each other. It makes no sense but it’s at least something he can do and something is better than doing nothing to him. I actually agree and can relate to this.

                When the film reveals what happened to him I felt very sad for him and how he reacted afterwards to his trauma. He seemed skittish and even more paranoid than before in general in his daily routine. The film did a great job depicting how beat up he was not only physically but mentally as well. Which is expected after a traumatic event. Something he feared of happening became a reality and he had zero control over the event. Psychologically he started coping with the event irrationally. Constantly being paranoid and looking over his shoulder. Also after he got jumped he mentioned that he became afraid of young black men. The film depicted this when he got on the bus and the next stop a black man sat across from him and you could see how uncomfortable he was and how fast he got off the bus. Even though that specific person raised no alarms and was simply taking the bus. I mentioned he was inspiring to me because he didn’t like this and more importantly tried to change it.  He realized it was racist and on top of that it was completely irrational because the group of people who jumped him were primarily white and latino I believe. He could have done what most people would do and take the easy way of just accepting it and leaving it be. He didn’t accept it and went out to contact the people who harmed him to grow as a person and move on from an otherwise terrible moment of his life.

                Scaredycat was a great short film to experience. It not only is a decent production but I think a couple life lessons can be drawn from it. Everyone experiences terrible things in their lifetime. Some are self-inflicted but some are completely out of control and no matter how careful someone is anything can happen. Letting something traumatic affect you, like Andy’s situation, for a long period of time isn’t helpful and seeking out ways to move on and grow is really the best method to not cause more damage to oneself in a variety of ways. This film was very enjoyable, fun to analyze, and it very easily can get a person thinking about human behavior in modern society.