The Disturbing Effect of Child Neglect

Foreign is a word that gets thrown around a lot on the internet these days, but it can manifest itself in all sorts of different ways, maybe you've endured a bad relationship that led you to develop some trust issues or maybe you've had your fair share of Loss. Bullies grow up fine, what about being abandoned as a

child

to the point that your parents can't see you for who you are? I was a little specific on that last one, but that's because it perfectly describes a short film known simply as Opal that he debuted with. on Halloween 2020 on the famous Adult Swim, it was created by this man, Jack Stauber, if you somehow have never heard of Jack Stauber, he is famous for his signature sound profile, this very original, strange and strong sound that seems to resonate with a lot of people.

At the very least, you had to have heard at least one of these songs in the room, but we are not here to talk about his other achievements, we are here to talk about this opal, a 12-minute short that despite of its short duration manages to package a complete story and a story of

child

hood trauma that has been repressed in this poor tortured child. In the short, you can see this character struggle to cope with a dysfunctional family made up of a complete narcissist, a dying smoker and an alcoholic mother. The short begins with a rather pleasant piano melody that introduces us to the three main events that this character will find throughout the entire short these grandfather's cigarettes, the mirrors of the narcissistic man and the pills and alcohol of an older woman.

After showing us these three scenes, we fly through a window while cutting to a house on the other side of the street, inside we are greeted by a family singing a song to their daughter, who seems to be called Opal, the song is entirely about seeing their daughter. daughter with each character saying a line about how they can see opal there she is, that's my girl, opal has sent her a burger and randomly decides to just dance with her, presumably because he doesn't know what to do with her now let's take a note this right now because this will be imported later.

Opal's attention is drawn to the other side of the street as we see a darker, creepier looking house which her parents then interrupt with a quick lyric about not worrying about the house across the street, it doesn't matter. The house across the street is not where your attention should be. Oh, I hope you hear about going to bed early, but decide to sneak out and see what's up with the house across the street. Opel's attention is drawn upstairs to the house with a beautiful piece of music. playing that can only be described as eerie but heavenly as she heads to the front door she gets scared by a bunch of lights illuminating it forcing her to run in, this catches the attention of this blind man who asks her to bring him his cigarettes writing down the next thing is that you come here I need you to bring me my cigarettes either don't think about hiding them again I know it's you who's doing that then we go into an absolute Banger of a musical number where the man starts singing a song about how he should be easy to breathe on TV and you know, why explain it when we can just sit here and vibe?

Tell me why breathing sounds so easy on TV. I can't understand why it sounds so easy. to breathe i'm popular here we get more information about the man as throughout the song we see his struggle with health as he uses television to cope with his current health condition using cigarettes and television as an escape from this condition drastic situation in which it finds itself. As the song comes to an end, Grandpa notices that this is not his granddaughter Claire and this leads to Opal running out of the room as Grandpa yells at her to get out, leading to our next encounter as he heads to the En the hallway we see her attention directed to this door which is met with the same beautiful music from before when we saw the window from outside, just at that moment she is interrupted by this man in a room full of mirrors who begins to talk completely about himself in this whole scene.

The man basically has a conversation with himself and never allows the boy to make a single Guardian move so quickly from point to point comparing himself to the boy, even insulting his ankles and saying that he's glad he doesn't have them. I actually look very good. in that I'm glad I don't have your ankles, although nothing, nothing against them, I just don't care, sorry my brain, it's a little

disturbing

how the music jumps from terrifying suspense to Aryan joy within seconds of each other , which I will talk about later. As this combo is coming to a close, it switches to a musical number about her personal insecurities and his overt narcissism.

He gets so angry. I'll just tell you that they rejected me. Now I'm in my nightmare, seen by someone with tons of references to how beautiful and divine his skin is, noting that life is just a costume away, clearly putting emphasis on the fact that this man has had some profound event. in his life that has led him down this path of being constantly nervous about his physical appearance. to the point that he now sits in a chamber of reflection, a metaphor for how trapped in his own life his father is. As this musical number comes to an end, Grandpa appears scaring Opal, forcing her to run to the door next to her and close it.

Suddenly, a hand grabs her legs, which appears to be from this woman who is clearly drunk. The older woman began to say how terrible she feels, telling Opal that women like her and Opal just survive. I feel terrible about all the things that feel terrible, you and me. Let's not live of course, we survived the woman started singing a song about how she needs her little girl to take care of her arms, this scene then gets out of control and Opal manages to escape the situation by running up the stairs towards the safe haven that we have seen alluded to throughout the short, she finally goes up to this room and closes the door pushing a chair against it.

It is during this scene that the viewer realizes that Opal is not actually the name for this. The character, her name is actually Claire Claire, being the name that everyone in the house has been calling her by the name Opal, comes from this sign called Opal's Burgers and in it we see the main family from before at the beginning of the short ones, a manic realization begins. to go into opal after having to accept the fact that she has a real family that is completely different than the fake family from before. In the midst of all this pain and suffering, she manages to hide his head in her lap and force her mind to escape from her. the reality that she is with her fake family singing to her presumably to calm her down, then we move away from her fantasy seeing that it is all in her head as the family in the real house unnecessarily approaches her door wanting to get her attention by getting so far away. . revealing that there was never a house across the street, further confirming that it's all in her head.

What's surprising about this short is the small amount of detail that adds to the overall theme. Claire is the byproduct of a truly

neglect

ful family, one of the greatest symbolism in Opel is the fact that no one in her family sees her, Grandpa was literally blind so he can't see her, the mirror man, who is her father , is so caught up in his own life that any small chance of seeing his daughter is I met with him readjusting his mirrors, which I took literally and figuratively with the adjustment of the mirrors, possibly referencing how adults will reinforce his priorities and They'll leave the kids at the bottom of that list and then we see her mother, a dispossessed alcoholic drug addict who doesn't want a daughter for normal maternal reasons, she wants a daughter she can use as a therapist, someone to turn to with her struggles, completely flipping to father and son.

Head dynamic. Usually we see the parents taking care of the child, but in all cases. Claire interacts with her family, it's Claire taking care of them, she talks to her mom about her obvious depressions and relapses, she gives unnecessary attention to her dad who talks to himself all the time and Grandpa constantly uses him just to get his cigarettes while we. We're on the topic of Grandpa watching the short film for the first time, this little line might go over your head Claire, but upon watching it a second time you'll realize that Grandpa doesn't really recognize his own granddaughter.

Much more

disturbing

than the initial reaction you might see at first glance and all of this has a drastically disturbing

effect

on Claire herself. Her parents

neglect

her so much physically that she is also clearly malnourished, like when you compare her appearance to the child on the billboard. It's almost obvious how poorly fed she is and what's more disheartening is the fact that it makes sense when you factor in the fact that her mother is in no position to care for her due to her addiction, Grandpa can barely care for himself. , so how is he supposed to take care of Claire and the father only when he cares about himself?

So who is left to take care of her? No one, not even the smallest details, like the way she walks in, the way she walks in the first time. You'd think everyone in the house is asleep because she's basically tiptoeing around the house. Now I relate to this on a very close level because I grew up with parents that I just didn't want to interact with because of how she was. Treated, you learn to walk quietly to avoid the fuss and chaos of having to deal with your parents or whatever adults you're living with. In this case, Claire walks carefully around the house because she doesn't want to interact with them. her family, she just wants to get to her safe haven, which is her lonely room at the top of the house, that's why we keep seeing those sequences where this music plays, it's because that's the only real way Claire has to be safe in your own home. she has to make this long and adventurous trip every time she wants to enter her house and it shows the amount of horror and shock on her face when an adult in the shorts decides to talk to her it shows us the amount of anxiety and Social problems. that she must have developed and if you don't believe it, just look at what Claire's favorite hobby is.

The beginning of the short begins with Claire with her fake family, but she is not in her room daydreaming according to the ending we have known for a long time. The fact that she is outside looking at the sign and this little detail of the lights turning on implies that it is night and the lights on the sign have finally come on. All of this means that Claire's favorite pastime is walking outside her house, sitting and watching. get up and fantasize about leaving her problems that could be miles away, which is why Claire panics so much when the lights come on because she doesn't want to have to deal with the reality of her living situation, even when she's in her room towards At the end of the movie, she covers the billboard lights in her mind with these hamburgers using them to hide the fact that she is daydreaming about a simple hamburger restaurant and sees the boy in the photo with his fake family wishing he were them and in his place. and that's where there are even more disturbing details that I noticed at the beginning of this video, that this sequence where she dances with the hamburger is extremely important and that is that those two full minutes at the beginning tell us more than enough about Claire's current psyche, Let's take another one.

Listen to what each family member tells Claire at the beginning. There she realizes that none of them hint that they are trying to take care of her with Grandpa and they don't even say anything more than hello. This is because Claire is no longer in her relationship with her family and says that she just wants to be seen as a person, that's why when they give her the hamburger she doesn't know what to do with it, she isn't aware that she's supposed to He must eat the hamburger and he doesn't know how to be. grateful for the food because she's never had the chance to do it, so she dances with it because in her mind that's what makes sense and what ties this whole message together is the beautiful musical number oh, which indicates how her family sees her imaginary, confirming the mental state Claire is currently in.

I must admit that before I continue, the only reason I really chose to do an analysis of this short is because it really caught my attention. All of this analysis you're seeing comes from someone who endured a lot of emotions. I neglect growth and it still affects me today and to be even more meta about this I could even attribute it to why I am a YouTuber who constantly posts things online and posts my opinions everywhere trying to get validation for what I believe because I never I understood that. growing up and honestly, that's what I found really disturbing about this whole short is how incredibly relatable it can be if you're someone who lives in a household similar to this one or has a parent similar to one of Claire's adult family members. , then I will be able to relate to a lot of what this short offers, even small things like the mom doesn't admit fault before, she says this line, this is getting so bad, I feel terrible about all the things, I feel terrible, I notice she stutters , It's about toadmit failures. saying that he feels terrible about what he has done, but he stops because people who are like that, people who cause their own problems and their own emotional turmoil, never accept responsibility, instead choosing to blame other people for their problems and what's even scarier is that it can come in all kinds of different forms, for example you can have people like the father who actually on the surface, if you really listen to what he says, is not a terrible person, he seems like a very innocent man. that he went through some kind of an event in his life, whether it was his wife hitting him, as it kind of alludes to that in this short, if they pause during this sequence, you actually see what his real face looks like and also You can see later in the video when the mom's musical number plays, you kind of see her hitting the dad with something that clearly implies there's more going on behind the scenes. but in these homes there are people who enter their homes without knowing what will happen making this great journey, this 12 minute short is the lives of some people, unfortunately to say that some children will grow up in homes where all the adults in their lives simply they use and that is what the entire last sequence shows, we see that Claire is the mother's pills, we see that Claire is literally the mirror in which the father looks at himself and we see that the clay replaces the grandfather's eyeballs, each adult at home he is using her for his own personal gain, leaving her with nothing that gives her the feeling that she is not even herself and the only way to escape her reality is to literally cross the street and look at a photo of another family wishing I were them and what is the disturbing

effect

of childhood neglect, let me know if you enjoyed this analysis.

I will do more in the future on what interests me if you want to leave some comments below and if you want me to take a look at it. I'll definitely watch those with no promises about whether I'll make a video about them or not. This one took a while to come out because I really wanted to focus on what exactly I wanted to say when it came to Opal because I really liked her and it obviously spoke to me on a personal level because I haven't gone through the same level of things that Claire goes through in the short , but I would say I definitely dealt with emotional neglect.

I grew up and it's had a lot of side effects on me, so I'm glad I can talk openly about it and talk to people about my thought process when it comes to watching shorts like this that delve into the same topics I do. I feel like I've dealt with a little bit in my life now. We cannot finish today's video without thanking the boss. Thanks to everyone who has joined the patreon. Sincerely, thank you all so much for doing this. recording, we have about six members at the top here on Patreon again, if you guys aren't subscribed, consider subscribing as it's hard for me to monetize because of the content I produce.

I really want to monetize myself, unlike these videos. essays and my icebergs, but the Disturbed media series, which is like the most popular series on my channel, is almost always demonetized or ads limited, so if you want behind the scenes content, some exclusive content or an early access day , go ahead and head over to the patreon And subscribe to one of the levels and with all that said I'll see you all in the next video thanks for watching