BRUNSWICK, Maine — Molly Palese, 12, blinked her teary eyes quickly as she recalled a “friend” telling her in third grade that “I wasn’t part of their group.”
The so-called friend had spread rumors that Palese had “cooties.”
“That was really big then. It was like Ebola,” the Brunswick seventh-grader said Tuesday. “She would always say I couldn’t sit by them.”
“Yeah, one fifth-grader used to be a really mean kid,” Rayna Schinhofen, 12, recalled. “She lied a lot and spread rumors.”
“About who liked who,” added Lilly Tiffany, also a student at Brunswick Junior High School.
Asked if they were ever the “mean girls” themselves, the girls paused, before a few acknowledged that they sometimes judge people based on appearances.
“One girl came to school crying one day because she’d been bullied,” 12-year-old Adeline Dolley said. “I told her to say, ‘Thank you.’ It annoys them so much. And the bullying stopped.”
The girls, all seventh-graders at Brunswick Junior High School, were among 140 young people, parents and other community members who gathered Tuesday night at Curtis Memorial Library to watch and discuss the award-winning documentary “ Finding Kind.”
The film, based on a coast-to-coast road trip by two young California women, focuses on the harm done by girls bullying girls. Its core message is that virtually every girl has at one time in her life been both the victim and perpetrator of bullying. It encourages viewers to find ways to show greater kindness to others, especially those who have been bullied.
With the Brunswick School Department named in a federal suit related to alleged bullying incidents at the junior high school, library, school and community leaders sought to host an honest, open discussion of the topic. The event also drew students and families from Topsham, Harpswell, Freeport and other neighboring towns.
Pender Makin, Brunswick’s new assistant superintendent, introduced the film and spoke of her own experiences with “social isolation” as a teenager who was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and then wore a chin-to-thigh brace to help correct scoliosis.
“The overarching message is beautiful,” Makin said of the film, but she added that she was “troubled” by some of its portrayal of gender roles.
“I take great offense and I think you should too,” she said, encouraging students to view the film with a “critical eye.”
Lauren Parsekian and Molly Stroud, both recent graduates of Pepperdine University, filmed the documentary as they traveled to 60 cities across the United States in a van in 2010, meeting with groups of girls to discuss bullying and kindness as part of their Kind Campaign.
“It’s ‘Girl World,’” Parsekian states as the film opens. “It can be cruel and it can be lonely.”
Throughout the film’s 90 minutes, girls of varying ages — including women in their 50s — recount their experiences with meanness. Some recall being the bully, while others speak of the devastating isolation they felt when they were targeted.
“I sit by them and they move,” says one young girl, staring at the ground. “So I sit alone.”
“One day she came home when she was 9 and she said, ‘I wish I was dead,’” a mother said, crying, of her daughter.
Interviews with men focus on their amazement that women are “like cats.” One group of motorcycle “brothers” wonders why women don’t have “sisters.”
Psychologists, authors and advocates offer insight, with one therapist describing the drama and brutality of “girl world” as “like an ancient Roman war,” explaining various reasons for the meanness — insecurity, “reality” television that normalizes cruel behavior, a need to define themselves in relationship to others, texting, Facebook and other digital forums that let girls be mean without looking into each other’s eyes.
But one group of Mississippi women in their 50s offered another perspective on female friendships.
Standing in her abundant shoe closet, one of the women explained of another, “I’m 55 years old and we’ve been friends since we were 5 years old.” Motioning to another woman she said was a “new friend” — of 28 years — she continued, “It’s really important for my old friends and my new friends to be friends … I never want to exclude anyone.”
Speaking again after the film, Makin asked those gathered to raise their hands if they’d ever seen bullying, ever been bullied, ever stood up for someone being bullied. Finally, she asked the adults present to “raise your hand if you’re a woman who has strong, vibrant women friends.”
Makin also encouraged the girls not to accept the “stereotype” of a mean girl offered in the film, and encouraged them to stand up for themselves and others.
“When you see somebody being picked on, even if you don’t have the courage to say something, saying something later — even one kind word — can actually save a life,” she said.