Donnie Darko Social Psychology

Donnie Darko is a film that follows a troubled teenager through twenty-eight days. Throughout this time he is followed by visions of a large bunny rabbit that manipulates him to commit a series of crimes. During this journey he finds out the true reasons of life and the power of altering time and destiny. Throughout the film many social psychology topics are demonstrated, for example, aggression, self esteem, and internal attribution.

Aggression is an immense factor in the film. Various scenes and various characters demonstrate aggression throughout. Aggression is a behavior that is intended to harm another individual either physically or mentally. The biggest scene that displayed this is in the boys bathroom between Donnie, the main character, and one of his bullies, Seth Devlin. Donnie is seen curating to his own self until Seth comes from the shadows to confront Donnie. While the confrontation

occurs, Seth pulls a knife on Donnie and threatens him. Soon after Seth leaves and Donnie is then left in the restroom to become more angered at Seth. The aggression is then transferred to Donnie but does not end up becoming a problem to the point of taking action against Seth as Seth’s aggression did.
In the film, self esteem is also demonstrated and it is portrayed mainly by a character named, Cherita.

Self esteem is a persons self evaluation of their own self worth, the extent to which they view themselves as good, competent, and decent. For example, a group of guys at the bus stop will say to her, “Cherita you want a cigarette” in which she retaliates by replying with “chat up” due to her accent she can’t pronounce shut up but she doesn't smoke cigarettes. They would try to humiliate her by telling her “to go back to China bitch” and exclaim to her “hey porky pig, hope you get molested,” both statements are disrespectful and appalling. Words and statements like these scar a person and are able to destroy a persons self esteem. As the movie progresses, Donnie Darko was the only person that was truly being nice to her. You are able to see this in a scene were Donnie had hugged her leading her to drop her books because of her crush on him. Opposite to belittling her self esteem, Donnie’s actions did the opposite and boosted it, making herself feel good about

herself.
Internal attribution is inferencing a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the person. In the beginning scenes of the film, Donnie starts fighting with his sister at the kitchen table and Donnie begins to take it too far. The sister soon exclaims that this attitude was because of him not taking his prescribed meds. The parents soon exclaim their worry and later on together have a conversation with each other about how his actions are taking a toll on him and how it is affecting others around him. Later on one sees that he is taking his meds but because his parents know his attitude without the meds they use this internal attribution to state that the reason of his outbursts are because of him not following his prescription. Concluding that the statement they deducted from internal attributions to be false.
In conclusion, aggression, self-esteem, and internal attribution are all demonstrated in the film, Donnie Darko. The film drives Donnie through a journey of time travel philosophically. Not only does Donnie par take in this journey but so does every character in the film with their own social psychological components. The social psychological elements are shown through the actions and thoughts of each character.