2 Opinion Page
2 Opinion Page January 1 2023 | World and Press We all have a role to play in stopping bullying SOCIETY When it comes to bullying, we often focus on what happens at schools. Yet so much of it takes place outside of school. By Jerald McNair 1 IT HAS BEEN more than 20 years since the first state passed anti-bullying legislation. The Columbine High School massacre in 1999, in which 12 students and one teacher were fatally shot and 21 others wounded by two students who reportedly were bullied and acted as bullies, catapulted the topic of bullying to a new awareness. 2 Our society began learning about the broad impact bullying has on the mental, social, and psychological well-being of our youth. How we define bullying has gradually expanded. The enormous growth of social media platforms has played a major role in how we interpret and describe it. 3 Lawmakers have responded. States across the country have laws that require schools to form comment Training | mündl. Prüfung and enforce policies to prevent and penalize bullying. According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, 49 states have mandates that schools must follow to effectively deal with bullying. However, the ever-evolving tech world and social media platforms make it difficult for educators and lawmakers to curtail it. 4 Bullying takes on different forms, such as cyberbullying and social, physical, and verbal harassment. Cyberbullying occurs more frequently because it can take place in multiple venues and at any time. It is often difficult to ascertain all of the participants involved because platforms may allow individuals to hide their identities. 5 Students who are bullied are more likely to experience lower grades, depression, and anxiety, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Nearly 14% of public schools report that bullying takes place at least once a week. It’s more frequent in middle school, followed by high school. 6 Middle school students may be more likely to take part in bullying because those are the years when youth begin to exhibit their independence. They become more aware of their bodies and how they are perceived by their peers, which makes them more likely to fall prey to peer pressure. 7 Because of their role in shaping how youth communicate with others, it’s important for parents and guardians to be cognizant of how they comport themselves in front of their preteens and teens, such as how they engage someone at the store, how they behave while driving in traffic, and the tone they use when talking to friends and neighbors. If youth routinely see adults engage in practices that are aggressive or mean-spirited, it’s likely these youth will mimic those behaviors, regardless of the consequences. 8 Adults can also influence how youth engage with social media platforms. If adults take part in unhealthy habits, such as spending an inordinate amount of time on social media posting negative comments or numerous pictures and selfies, youth may duplicate those practices. Psychologists often lament the negative impact that “likes” and the opposite have on the self-esteem of youth. The saying “Hurt people hurt people” tells the story. 9 Adults’ awareness of their own practices is necessary. After all, the development of our youth is our responsibility. Each of us plays a role in guiding our youth and teaching them the appropriate ways of communicating. Unfortunately, when it comes to bullying, we often focus on what happens at schools. Yet so much of it takes place outside of school. 10 Certainly, institutions of learning must meet the challenges and put safeguards in place to ensure that youth are able to feel safe at school. The laws recognize schools’ obligation. However, the responsibility does not end at school. How adults behave matters. 11 Studies show adults do, indeed, bully. Data from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reveals the existence and effects of bullying in the workplace. Unfortunately, not enough research has been done on adult bullying. At the same [time], it plays out regularly at the supermarket or at a fastfood restaurant when a customer verbally assaults an employee for a mistake. Most children have witnessed angry reactions in drivers when someone makes a mistake while driving or simply because they are not going fast enough. 12 October, as National Bullying Prevention Month, brings the issue of public behavior and bullying to the forefront. While schools should review their policies and practices to ensure that students are safe, it’s imperative that adults don’t model the practices of bullies. 13 Simply put, how we speak to and treat each other matters. Behaving appropriately is something we all should do and not just in October. The celebrated diarist Anne Frank once said, “How wonderful it is that nobody has to wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” Bullying is wrong, and we can all stop it. © 2022 Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 0 – 2 BULLYING Mobbing; s.w.u. to bully — to pass legislation Gesetze verabschieden — to fatally shoot s.o. jdn. erschießen — to wound verletzen — reportedly angeblich — awareness Bewusstsein — mental psychisch 3 – 4 lawmaker Abgeordnete(r) — to enforce durchsetzen — policies Richtlinien — to penalize bestrafen — mandate offizielle Anordnung — ever-evolving s. ständig weiterentwickelnd — educator Bildungseinrichtung — to curtail eindämmen — harassment Belästigung; Übergriffe — venue Ort — to ascertain feststellen 5 – 6 anxiety Angstzustände — to exhibit zum Ausdruck bringen — to perceive wahrnehmen — peer Gleichaltrige(r) — to fall prey to s.th. etw. zum Opfer fallen — peer pressure Gruppenzwang 7 guardian Vormund; Betreuer(in) — to be cognizant of s.th. s. e-r S. bewusst sein — to comport o.s. s. verhalten — to engage s.o. mit jdm. umgehen; s.w.u. to e. in an den Tag legen — routinely regelmäßig — practice h.: Verhalten(sweise) — mean-spirited gemein — to mimic; s.w.u. to duplicate nachahmen — regardless of ohne Rücksicht auf 8 – 11 inordinate übermäßig — to lament s.th. s. über etw. beklagen — self-esteem Selbstwertgefühl — to put safeguards in place Schutzmaßnahmen treffen — occupational safety and health Arbeitssicherheit und Gesundheitsschutz — to verbally assault beschimpfen 12 – 13 to bring to the forefront in den Fokus rücken — to review überprüfen — imperative zwingend — diarist Tagebuchschreiber(in) impressum ISSN 0509-1632 Emoji Voting. | Cartoon: R.J. 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World and Press | January 1 2023 In Focus 3 An empress ahead of her time is having a pop culture moment ENTERTAINMENT A Netflix series and a new movie explore the life of Elisabeth, the 19th-century Empress of Austria. By Valeriya Safronova Devrim Lingnau as Empress Elisabeth in the Netflix series ‘The Empress.’ | Photo: Picture Alliance/Abaca 1 THE 19th-century Empress Elisabeth of Austria is everywhere in Vienna: on chocolate boxes, on bottles of rosé, on posters around the city. The Greek antiques she collected are at Hermesvilla, on the city outskirts; her hearse is at Schönbrunn Palace, the former summer residence of the Habsburg royal family; and her cocaine syringe and gym equipment are on display at the Hofburg, which was the monarchy’s central Vienna home. 2 These traces paint an enticing, but incomplete, picture of an empress who receded from public life not long after entering it and spent most of her time traveling the world to avoid her own court. She had a tattoo on her shoulder, drank wine with breakfast, and exercised two to three times a day on wall bars and rings in her rooms. These eccentricities, combined with her refusal to have her picture taken after her early 30s, fueled an air of mystery around her. 3 Now, nearly 125 years after Elisabeth’s assassination at age 60, two new productions – a new Netflix series called ‘The Empress’ and a film called ‘Corsage,’ which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in May and will hit American theaters Dec. 23 – offer their own ideas. 4 “Growing up in Austria, she was the main tourist magnet, aside from Mozart,” said Marie Kreutzer, who wrote and directed ‘Corsage.’ Nevertheless, she added, Elisabeth, who was married to Emperor Franz Josef I, is largely a mystery. “Her image is one you can reimagine and reinterpret and fill with your own imagination, because we have a lot of stories about her, but you don’t know if they’re true,” Kreutzer said. The moody, intellectual, and beautyobsessed empress has had many reincarnations. 5 While alive, Elisabeth, who also went by Sisi, traveled constantly, often to Hungary, Greece, and England, and was rarely seen by the Viennese public. In private, she wrote poetry, rode horses and hunted, hiked high into the Alps, read Shakespeare, studied classical and modern Greek, took warm baths in olive oil, and wore leather masks filled with raw veal as part of her skin-care routine. 6 “She was such a recluse,” said Michaela Lindinger, a curator at the Wien Museum who has studied Elisabeth for more than two decades and wrote ‘My Heart Is Made of Stone: The Dark Side of the Empress Elisabeth,’ a book about the empress that inspired ‘Corsage.’ “People didn’t see her, and she didn’t want to be seen,” Lindinger said. 7 Nevertheless, she was the empress of Austria and later the queen of Hungary, so she was widely discussed. “No matter how much she fled the attention and scrutiny and the court, she was always pursued,” said Allison Pataki, who wrote two historical novels about Elisabeth, ‘The Accidental Empress’ and ‘Sisi: Empress on Her Own.’ “She was thrust into the spotlight as this young girl who was chosen by the emperor, in large part because of her physical beauty.” 8 After Elisabeth was killed by an anarchist in Switzerland in 1898, she became an object of fascination throughout the Habsburg Empire, and her image appeared on commemorative coins and in memorial pictures. In the 1920s, a series of novels about her were published, focusing on her love life. 9 During the 1950s, the ‘Sissi’ film trilogy, starring Romy Schnei der, revived Elisabeth as a happy-go-lucky Disney princess come to life, clad in bouncy pastel dresses and beloved by animals and people alike. The syrupy films, which appear on German and Austrian TV screens every Christmas, are part of the “Heimatfilm” genre, which emerged in the German-speaking world after World War II and features beautiful scenes of the countryside, clear-cut morals, and a world untouched by conflict. 10 “I grew up watching the Romy Schneider movies in a campy way,” said Katharina Eyssen, the show runner and head author for ‘The Empress,’ who is from Bavaria, in southern Germany. As played by Schneider, Elisabeth is “just a good-hearted girl that has no inner conflicts,” she said. 11 Eyssen’s take on Elizabeth, played by Devrim Lingnau, is feistier, wilder, and edgier than Schneider’s. The series opens shortly before Elisabeth meets her future husband (and cousin), An 1865 painting of Elisabeth by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. | Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ Schloss Hofburg during his birthday celebrations in Bad Ischl, Austria. As the story goes, Franz Josef was expected to propose to Elisabeth’s older sister, Duchess Helene in Bavaria, but he changed his mind once he saw Elisabeth. 12 ‘Corsage’ goes further than ‘The Empress’ down the dark pathways of Elisabeth’s character, offering a punk-gothic portrait of the empress at 40 as a deeply troubled soul who grasps for levity and freedom in the stifling atmosphere of the Habsburg court. She smokes, she is obsessed with exercise and the sea, and she weighs herself daily (all true, according to historians). … 13 Pataki said that throughout her life, Elisabeth fought against the constricting role of being an empress. From her poems, intellectual pursuits, and travels, it appears as if Elisabeth was always looking outward, imagining herself anywhere but where she was. 14 In some ways, Pataki said, Elisabeth might have felt more comfortable in today’s society than in 19th-century Vienna. “Her primary role and the expectation put on her was: have sons, produce heirs,” Pataki said. “But Sisi was very ahead of her time in wanting more for herself as a woman, an individual, a wife, and a leader.” © 2022 The New York Times Company This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 0 – 1 EMPRESSKaiserin; s.w.u. emperor Kaiser — to be ahead of her time ihrer Zeit voraus sein — antique Antiquität — hearse Leichenwagen — syringe Spritze 2 – 3 trace h.: Zeugnis — enticing faszinierend — to recede from s. zurückziehen aus — wall bars Sprossenwand — eccentricities exzentrisches Verhalten — refusal Weigerung — to fuel nähren — air of mystery Aura des Geheimnisvollen — assassination Ermordung (durch ein Attentat) — to debut uraufführen — to hit theaters (AE, coll) in die Kinos kommen 4 – 6 to reimagine neu definieren — to reinterpret neu interpretieren — moody launisch — to have many reincarnations oft neu erfunden werden (r. Wiedergeburt) — veal Kalbfleisch — skin-care routine Hautpflege — recluse Einsiedler(in) 7 – 8 scrutiny genaue Prüfung; h.: Beobachtung — to pursue s.o. jdn. verfolgen — accidental zufällig — to thrust s.o. into the spotlight jdn. ins Rampenlicht stoßen — Habsburg Empire Habsburgerreich — commemorative coin Gedenkmünze — memorial Gedenk- 9 starring … mit … in der Hauptrolle — to revive wieder aufleben lassen — happy-go-lucky unbekümmert — to be clad in gekleidet in — bouncy h.: wippend — syrupy film Schmalzfilm — to emerge aufkommen — to feature zeigen — clear-cut klar 10 – 14 … in a campy way … als ironisch überzeichneten Kitsch — head Chef- — feisty temperamentvoll; streitlustig — edgy provokant — deeply troubled tief betrübt — to grasp for s.th. nach etw. greifen — levity Leichtigkeit — stifling erdrückend — constricting einengend — pursuit Streben — heir Erbe
