In the 2008 film Die Welle (The Wave) directed by Dennis Gansel and produced by Rat Pack Film and Christian Becker, high school teacher Rainer Wenger (portrayed by Jürgen Vogel) challenged his students about the possibility of an authoritarian government in modern Germany. To prove its possibility, he provoked his students to being his blind Nazi followers while he plays as the dictator "Herr Wenger". It was an experiential experiment gone astray but a subtle and touching revelation on the transcendence of fascism in contemporary time.
For Rainer, it started as an innocent class strategy in teaching Autocracy while he competes with another teacher who got his slot for his favorite subject Anarchy. For his students, it was absurd at first but then after some gestures of resistance, the majority of them plunged in the game. There were boosting impressions of amazement and satisfaction to say yes and obey.
Not however for Karo (portrayed by Jennifer Ulrich) as well as Mona (portrayed by Amelie Kiefer) who insisted that there was something wrong with Rainer’s strategy which was eventually manifested in the change of attitude among their classmates. On the surface level, this change was seen as positive by Rainer and the students themselves. On a personal level, this became a major factor in the break-up of Karo and Marco (portrayed by Max Riemelt), the conflict between Rainer and his wife Anke (portrayed by Christiane Paul) and the conflict between Tim (portrayed by Frederick Lau) and everyone.
Quite spontaneously, Rainer imposed rules to supposedly find order, uniformity and transformation among the class. Some of the rules include addressing him "Herr Wenger" instead of his first name; standing up to answer questions instead of merely sitting down; wearing of White polo shirt instead of any casual dress; and marching in rhythm with the intention of not only being together but primarily “crushing an enemy” such as the rival class in Anarchy. Later, the class invented “The Wave” as their own name capped with a group greetings as well as an exclusive party. Thus, an exclusive group was formed by which its exclusive character and appearance made it no different to gangs and other organizations or institutions that affix a demarcation of privileges and benefits from non-members like Karo and Mona who strongly believe that there is a human error somewhere.
In the Evolutionary Game Theory, social inclusion is considered as some kind of punishment to promote some kind of co-existence (Uchida et al). This exclusion is however based on justified reason and not necessarily arbitrary. As any action with advantages and disadvantages, social inclusion is primarily beneficial to the punisher and not to the precedent of punishment. It is then fully biased to the implementer of the inclusion while those not included in the circle are automatically tagged as free riders or parasites.
In the film, the students have become portraits of Adolf Hitler’s robotic people who unbelievably unquestioned Hitler’s autocratic definition of race and democracy at the expense of the genocide of Jews among others. They are unconscious of the evolution of such attitude in themselves. On the other hand, Rainer was aware that what he was doing was autocracy but he did not really want to stop even though he had clearly made his point and that even his wife Anke warned him that he was practically manipulating his students. At one point, Rainer recognized that it was his academic ego functioning, a value that was absolutely absent in Hitler who saw himself and his race as the supreme being. On the other hand, Rainer developed this obsession of domination by proving more, provoking more, craving for more and pushing more to the extreme edges.
This obsession was highly evident in the action of Tim (portrayed by Frederick Lau) who burnt his designer shirts in response to the call for uniformity as well as what he perceived as anti-capitalism. A typical loner youth, Tim savored the sense of belongingness in “The Wave” with "Herr Wenger" as the patriarch to whom he is willing to be a slave and bodyguard.
Consequently, he defied heights just to paint their logo at the amazement of his classmates and at the anger of Rainer who blurted he did not approve of dangerous acts. Tim however became too engulfed in the idea of their group being supreme that even sparked a confrontation with a group of anarchist whom he pointed at with a gun as if it was some toy. While the rest of the members were alerted with his attitude, it was never addressed by Rainer as the guiding teacher simply because he refused to see this coming. On the other hand, Tim could have felt the power of a gun and relished it the way fascists forget the value of other people’s lives.
Thus, in the end, as Rainer finally declared to abolish the social class experiment using the same experiential strategy, it was not easy to accept because it was so ideal to the point of being perfect. Autocracy though became clear for the students as something that should be totally abolished instead of just correcting its parts and carrying over its parcel which they consider as positive.
However, this assertion by Rainer was then too late because in Tim’s desperation for the continued existence of “The Wave” as his found space and power, he began a shoot out wherein Bomber the former bully (portrayed by Maximilian Vollmar) was injured. It must be remembered that it was Bomber who protected Tim from bully anarchists looking for stash of drugs.
The ensuing suicide of Tim was of course a shocking scene for everyone just like any shoot out that happened in schools such as at the Columbine High School in Colorado, USA in 1999 wherein 12 students and a teacher were reported dead and the two shooters who were merely in their teens killed themselves thereafter. Michael Moore’s 2002 documentary Bowling for Columbine investigated the connection of the aggressive attitude of the youth with the American policy on the war of aggression against Iraq. The film exposed the reality of national arrogance imbibed to the mind and heart of the youth with the impression that America is a superpower.
This brings to the fore that school violence is a phenomenon that is created by an atmosphere of aggression. The film The Wave wants to show that the school as an experimental site is a microcosm of German society, of American society or of societies which were the main machinators of World War II in general. It must be noted that The Wave is based on the actual experiment on Nazi Germany of American writer-teacher Ron Jones in his history class at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California. The undertaking then was aimed at proving that despite the claims of rich countries on the reign of democracy, fascism is still possible if no political and cultural mitigation is done.
The films sends the ultimate message for the consequences of inculcating and radiating autocracy in the education of energetic and adventurous youth who despite their vibrancy still need guidance to have the assurance that they are leading in the right track. Responsible citizenship is then a matter of political policy and cultural development.
Tim’s violent response can be seen as an isolated case of individual desire to retain the space of comfort that he found in The Wave. In recent Psychological Science research on conflicts, it is revealed that conflicts could really arise when one’s territory and identity is under siege. This was proven on the opposing reactions to the building of Ground Zero Mosque in New York wherein others consider it a threat to their economic standing while others embraced it positively (Hirt et al).
Meanwhile, C. N. DeWall and B. J. Bushman explored the binary of acceptance and rejection. It must be categorized that Tim experienced the joy of being accepted in a social group and even felt an affinity with his teacher Rainer by staying in his private house and offering his service. The abolition of the group because of its excesses was then too painful for him and a mixed feeling of anger, hatred or remorse may have dominated him and triggered the bloodshed in their school auditorium where everyone was a witness of their failure.
A behavioral research proposed the hope of bringing out creativity in cases of rejection. In such study where rejection is fully processed by the individual, being an outcast can backfire to something great by expanding one’s horizon and moving forward instead of backtracking or being pulled down by others (Kim et al).
It remains important to note however that violence can be mitigated through the promotion of cultural pluralism wherein people respects each other’s culture. In the developmental study at the Hebrew University, it stressed the popularization of such universalistic values of respect, dignity and love is relevant (Daniel et al).
The school as site of the experiment is interesting in the sense of being a breeding ground of values. In the first part of the film, it was revealed that the demography of students as coming from different ethnicities, economic background, attitudes and education. Naturally, it is the task of the teacher to encapsulate all differences and invite the students to an informed and enlightened understanding of their existence. Being a step ahead in life’s experience, the teacher is then in a more advantageous position of handling a classroom situation. One has the option to use that power for the common good. Others however choose to abuse such power. This is a reality that still hold true. The film then exposes us to the remnants of fascist perspectives and actions that people may not be fully aware of their participation in making it worse.
In the ending of the film, the reunification of lovers Karo and Marco symbolize the possibility of conflict resolution by listening to the strong points of one another as well as looking at the strengths of each person to bring out only the truth and goodness of pressing issues. Other conflict resolution could really be very basic such as remembering and cherishing friendship like in the case of forgiveness shown by their friend Lisa (portrayed by Cristina do Rego).
Most importantly, the last images of Tim being dead is symbolic of fascism as a self-destructing system while the unbelieving Rainer escorted by the police is a portrait of the anti-hero, an archetype Hitler who once dreamt of human progress but turned out to be the reason of their downfall and demise.#
Works Cited
Bushman, B. J. and DeWall C. N. Social Acceptance and Rejection: The Sweet and the Bitter.
ScienceDaily. Association for Psychological Science, 13 August 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. <http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2011/08/110812213032.htm>
Daniel, E, Knafo, A and Khoury-Kassabri, M (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem).
Adolescents' Values Can Serve As A Buffer Against Behaving Violently at School. ScienceDaily. Society for Research in Child Development, 15 May 2008. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. <http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/05/080515073009.htm>
Hirt, E. R., Jia, L., and Karpen, S. C. Why does Conflict Arise When Social Identity is
Threatened? ScienceDaily. Association for Psychological Science, 7 October 2011. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. <http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2011/10/111006173610.htm
Kim, S. H., Vincent, L. C., & Goncalo, J. A. (Cornell University). Rejection Bolsters Creativity:
Independent Individuals can Benefit from Exclusion. Science Daily. Association for Psychological Science, 18 October 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. <http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2012/10/121018133959.htm>
Uchida, Satoshi and Sasaki, Tatsuya. Evolution: Social Exclusion Leads to Cooperation.
ScienceDaily. International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 5 December 2012. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. <http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2012/12/121205084425.htm>
Bowling for Columbine. Dir. Michael Moore. Dog Eat Dog Films, 2002. Film.
The Wave. Dir. Dennis Gansel. Perf. Jürgen Vogel, Frederick Lau, Max Riemelt and Jennifer
Ulrich. Producer Rat Pack Filmproduktion and Christian BeckerFilm. Constantin Film Verleih and GmbH, 2008. Film.
