The Never Ending Saga of Bullying: The Glory (2023)
“I haven’t forgotten even a day. Some hatred resembles longing. It’s impossible to get rid of” — Moon Dong Eun
The Glory is the most awaited K-drama at the beginning of 2023 since it lifted the most intricate issue in our society which is bullying. Bullying is a problem that is extremely unsettling for us, especially the parents and students. According to the National Bullying Prevention Center, “One out of every five (20.2%) students report being bullied” (2019). There are a lot of forms of bullying such as verbal bullying and physical bullying.
According to Westchester Park Pediatrics, “Something small as nasty jokes to something as serious as physical violence all encompass bullying”. Bullying can also occur in person or online. The phenomena of bullying are likely to happen in “preschool and tend to peak during middle school. It can happen inside the school, outdoors around the school”.
Moreover, the total amount of 41% of students who reported being bullied at school admitted that the bullying would be repeated (National Bullying Prevention Center, 2019). So, many students prefer not to tell others when they are being bullied. Research from Hunter et al., (2004); Smith & Shu (2000), found that it is very rare for the victims to tell the teacher that they are being bullied with only 3%-18% of victims. This may be because the victimized students’ expect that the situation might be worse if the teacher is involved (Newman & Murray, 2005; Smith & Shu, 2000). In The Glory, there was a scene where Dong-Eun told the teacher that she was being bullied, but unexpectedly, her teacher accused her of being dramatic. Then after the perpetrators knew that Dong-Eun reported them to the teacher but failed to be trusted, the perpetrators’ bullied her even more.
Moon Dong Eun, played by Song Hye Kyo is the main character in the drama. She experienced bullying in middle school. She was bullied because her economic status is lower than most of the perpetrators. Another strong reason why the preparators targeted Dong-Eun to be bullied is that they knew that she has no power nor powerful parents to defend her if she was hurt. It is shown in the drama that Moon Dong Eun was attacked in all forms of bullying such as verbal bullying, and physical bullying that relates to sexual violence. At the end of the day, it affects her mind too, she would have trauma, anxiety, and trust issue with other people. Bullying can damage one’s life, it is a serious problem.
As we’ve known, South Korea is one of the countries that have pretty high cases of bullying than any other country around the world. “The number of school bullying cases in Korea has continued to rise since 2013. In 2013, 11.749 cases were reported, and now data from 2019 shows it has more than doubled with 31.130 cases reported. In the last four years, 50% of reported were physical violence but as time continues, cases of verbal violence, detention coercion, and sexual violence are also on the rise (Yim, 2022).
Ever since this drama is featured on Netflix, many victims of bullying around the world brave to speak up in revealing their stories when they are bullied. In a real-life situation, mostly the victims of bullying face some scenarios; (1) The victims don’t want to report to people around them that they are being bullied, (2) The victims tell the teacher, but the teacher will likely not trust the statements before seeing the evidence, (3) The victims tell that they are being bullied to their closest friends and/or parents, but they cannot really help the victims to solve the problems with the perpetrators, (4) The victims might transfer to a different school to avoid the perpetrators, (5) If the victim feels like there’s no way out, he or she might commit suicide, etc. Most of the time, the victims cannot defend themselves from the perpetrators. Since statistically, the victims are usually poor and have no power, they can do nothing, except for accepting the worst scenario. Not to mention that the victims can hire official lawyers, and the family even can barely fulfill daily needs such as food, electricity, and a living place.
On the other hand, this drama gives a good perspective and encouragement to the victims to be survived. Even if they want to, they can revenge on those who have ever bullied them. Just as Dong Eun did to her perpetrators. In my opinion, Dong Eun is really impressive that she can be survived the perpetrators, also not to mention her wicked mom. The kind of revenge that Dong Eun did in the drama is very elegant and well-planned. She worked really hard whilst studying hard to be accepted into a reputable University. In addition, she showed the art of resilience, patience, persistence, hard work, perseverance, and never giving up.
All of the decisions in Moon Dong-Eun’s life after she was forced to drop out of school are aimed to do the “revenge”. For example, Dong Eun decided to study at a University majoring in Education to become a teacher. So that, she can teach Park Yeon-Jin’s daughter. Another decision during Dong Eun’s freshman year in the University, she also learned how to play “Baduk” or “Go”, it’s like a chess game, but the rules are pretty different. This game is originally from China. The reason why Dong Eun learned how to play the game is that she wanted to approach Park Yeon-Jin’s husband, who is a fan as well as a good Baduk player. Conclusively, Dong Eun tried to get to know the latest information about the perpetrators’ lives and tried to find a slit where she can destroy their lives in the name of revenge.
There are 5 bulliers in total; Park Yeon-Jin, Choi Hye-Jeong, Lee Sa-Ra, and Son Myeong-Oh. Each of them got their own fair revenge from Dong-Eun, but as I said before, her revenge is very well-planned. Indirectly, she influenced people around the bulliers to reveal bad things that they did in the past. Just like a famous phrase said that “As hard as you conceal bad things that you did, at the end of the day, those bad news would be found out by the world “.
I’ve always questioned what bullies think inside their minds. Why do they like to bully others so cruelly? Do they enjoy bullying others and seeing other people suffer? Do they ever think what if they are the ones who are being bullied? I just don’t get it. I think they need therapy sessions from psychologists and they need people around them to monitor their progress. So that we can create a healthy social environment in our society.
The lesson that I learned from this drama is that bullying is extremely dangerous. It can endanger the victims’ lives as whole human beings both physically and mentally. Therefore, my message for all of us is simple:
“Treat everyone as you wish to be treated”
Then, if you see anyone around you being bullied, please help them as best as you can.
References:
Blomqvist K, et al. (2019). Telling adults about one’s plight as a victim of bullying: Student‐ and context‐related factors predicting disclosure. National Library of Medicine. doi: 10.1111/sjop.12521
National Bullying Prevention Center. (2020). Bullying Statistics by the numbers.
https://www.pacer.org/bullying/info/stats.asp
Westchester Park Pediatrics. (2021). The Bullying Problem: A Global Issue.
https://www.westchesterparkpediatrics.com/2021/12/03/the-bullying-problem-a-global-issue/
Yim, Haemin. (2022). South Korea’s Bullying Problem.
