Eighth Grade – Analysis: My Dad & Me

This Eight Grade analysis contains mild spoilers for the film. If you haven’t watched it, read our non-spoiler review first.

Mark Day, charmingly portrayed by Josh Hamilton, seems like the typical “movie dad.”

Quippy like Walter Stratford in 10 Things I Hate About You, though maybe not as overly protective. Goofy like Clark Griswold, though maybe not as dimwitted. Loving like Daniel Hillard in Mrs. Doubtfire, though certainly not as drastic.

We meet Mark first at the dinner table with Kayla, Eighth Grade’s main character played by powerhouse Elsie Fisher. Mark tries as he might to stoke Kayla into some form of conversation, flooding her with typical parent questions, all with a smile on his face.

Things like “how was school? Are you excited for your last days as an eighth grader? Can I get something other than ‘mhmm’ or ‘yeah,’ please?”

He asks Kayla to let him say one thing. Just one thing, and then she can continue scrolling about on her phone, headphones in, picking away at her dinner. He tells Kayla how cool she is, to which she just can’t stand in the way that eighth graders do, and tells her how impressed he is by her ability to express herself through so many different outlets, one of which being the
motivational videos she creates and posts on her YouTube channel.

For Kayla, the process of opening her laptop, pressing record, speaking to the camera, editing and uploading a personal YouTube channel for the world to see seems simple enough. But to Mark, and to all parents who’ve learned the digital age on the fly just to keep up with their children, it’s magnificent.

Burnham hits the coalescence of technology, social media and the like with modern tweens and teens like most writers or directors today have yet to do. He doesn’t use it as a crutch for jokes about converting a Word doc to a PDF or “take a snap-pic for the tweetergram app.” Instead, he takes us to where kids who’ve grown up with phones, laptops, the internet and social media engage in the bulk of their use: on Friday or Saturday nights, alone, in their bedrooms.

Throughout the film, Kayla is often found in her dark room, face lit with blue light, scrolling through her litany of accounts and apps. It’s not portrayed as some quirky new thing that “kids these days” do. It’s just her life, the life of an eighth grader who’s had Snapchat since she was
ten.

Kayla is, quite literally, always online. She doesn’t wake in the morning like a kid in an 80s movie, thundering down the stairs to bolt out the door, hop on their bike and ride to see where their friends are. Kayla’s friends can see her whenever they choose to by clicking her Instagram page, watching one of her YouTube videos or checking her Snapchat story.

Instead of eating breakfast first thing in the morning, Kayla feels compelled to put on her makeup and heave a “woke up like this” selfie into the abyss in hopes that someone in her class will reciprocate the effort with a response. Because being cool in today’s eighth grade isn’t about what’s on the inside, it’s about establishing an unfaltering online brand that never sleeps.

Her dad may never get that. He uses his phone to know when Kayla needs to be picked up and to keep tabs in his notes app about her quirks, like her disdain for bananas. The other parents in Eighth Grade may never get it either. I’m sure Mrs. Graves, mother of cool girl Kennedy, didn’t expect a forceful invite to her daughter’s pool party, with group photos to follow, would send Kayla into a panic attack in the bathroom. They’re just kids, they love pool parties! Right?

Mark may not be incredibly online like his daughter, but he soon sees that Kayla may need him to straighten up in order to protect her image. On the way to the mall to hangout with high schoolers, Kayla asks Mark “can you just not look like that, please?”

When he gets caught snooping about the mall, watching Kayla and her newfound and older friends, he tries to reason with Kayla. All he can justify his actions with is “I just suck” before slipping her a $20 bill for a pretzel and sulking away.

This mall trip means the world to Kayla, as most mall trips, hangouts and kickbacks do to kids just trying to fit in. She prayed for this, and her dad has just gone and ruined it all. Would they still want to be her friend? Could she even show her face on the first day of high school after what he’s just done?

What’s Mark thinking on his drive home, knowing his daughter is as mad as she may have ever been at him? How do you drive home knowing you just told your daughter that you suck? Will she ever want to talk to him after this? Will she spend even more time in her room, on her phone, away from him? How many more dinners will there be until he has to cut her headphone cords to get her to really listen to him?

Did she tell him about what the predatory high schooler Riley did to her on the drive home, the drive home that she chose to take because of his actions? As a parent, how do you cope with that?

When the dust starts to settle there, Kayla seeks a new fire. She asks Mark to help her burn something in the backyard, to which he lets out a nervous “yes.”

By the fire, Kayla opens up to her dad. She wants to know if she makes him sad. She tells him that if she were to have a daughter that was like her, she’d love her, because she was her daughter, but she’d make her sad.

“You’re wrong,” he tells her.

My mom passed away when I was 16 years old. She had Lupus, among other things.

My dad grabbed me by the arms when I got to the hospital room. He said “Scott, don’t be angry. I know you’ll get angry and I know you’ll think you could’ve done something. Don’t be angry.”

I was a mama’s boy. My relationship with my dad was a bit more complex.

I loved my dad. I still love my dad. But I never felt enough. I wasn’t as good at football as he was. Hell, I didn’t like playing football like he did. I got bullied in school. I spent most of my evenings like Kayla. Alone, in my room, with my phone and my laptop trying to build some form of myself online that would translate into a real-world image that people liked. But I always had my mom there to tell me that all those kids were just mean and that I was more than she could have ever hoped for in a son.

My dad and I don’t talk to each other like that. If I got a B, he asked why it wasn’t an A. If I hit the game winning homerun, he asked why I struck out in the second inning.

That made me angry. As dumb as it may seem now, older and wiser, it made me angry. In the grand scheme of things, your adolescent football abilities and eighth grade popularity do not matter. But, in the moment, along with a litany of other real-world problems seen from a yet-so real-world age, it all makes you angry.

Why can’t he help me with this? Why can’t he help me study? Why can’t he take me to the batting cages? Why can’t he teach me how to be better so he likes me?

I did what any kid would do, I tried to be cool. I tried to fit in with the scene kids on Tumblr. I tried to up my ‘gram game to fit in with the cool kids. I posted hip hop lyrics on my Facebook. I tweeted about hosting parties. I sought out any form of online validation I could to cope with my tumultuous father-son relationship and dead mom.

I got older. I stopped being so angry. I moved myself into college as my dad watched me drive off. I got on the honor roll. I graduated. I moved away from home. I got my own place. I got my own job. I learned how to cook, how to apply for a credit card, how to pay off my student loans, how to be an adult. I stopped caring about what people thought of my online footprint and started caring about my self-image. I didn’t need him to help me be “better” like I thought I did when I was a kid. I didn’t need to be “better” for him or for anyone to like me.

After Mark tells Kayla she’s wrong, he tells her what he felt when her mom left. He says he was really, really scared. He wasn’t scared for himself. He was scared that Kayla wasn’t going to be okay. But, as she grew up, as she took her first steps and ventured into life with him, she was
more than he could have ever asked for in a daughter. He didn’t have to do anything. He just watched.

I spent so long wondering why my dad didn’t want to help me, why he often threw me to the wolves with not much more than “you’ll figure it out.” I spent so long thinking I had no idea what I was doing, thinking I wasn’t smart enough to graduate, wasn’t cool enough to make any friends, wasn’t successful enough to land a job. I spent so long thinking I was so stupid that I didn’t deserve to do anything but sit in my depression hole looking at my hellscape phone watching others succeed.

But, like Mark tells Kayla, I was wrong. It took a few years and a few more panic attacks to realize that my dad wasn’t actively evading helping me navigate life. He knew what I didn’t, that I was enough, that I could handle whatever life threw at me. He knew that all I needed was a push and a “you’ll figure it out” text. So, he just watched.

The digital realm doesn’t leave much room for patience. Today’s coming-of-age story doesn’t involve the quiet student who walks the halls unnoticed and unheard of, taking their glasses off to reveal someone the cool kids want to get to know. There’s no way to hide when you’re online from the moment your parents are posting your baby pictures on Facebook. “Figuring it out” seems rushed when Instagram reminds you that you haven’t posted in a while. Bo Burnham navigates this labyrinth of anxiety and adolescence with a delicate and heartfelt touch.

After eighth grade graduation, equipped with a newfound realization that she’s more than enough, Kayla records a new message for her future, high school graduate self. She tells her “I can’t wait to be you. Love, Kayla.”

Something happened to me recently that I was pretty proud of. I texted my dad about it. No response. I texted him later, something stupid. He responded. I told him “I sent you a heartfelt text about something I did that was really cool but you choose to ignore that and respond to this
one? Would it kill you to say you’re proud??”

He said “you know I’m proud of you, I just can’t tell you that!!”

There’s no guidebook for fathering a child in the digital age. And there’s no guidebook for learning how to separate your online image with your own self-worth. But, with an occasional fireside chat, we’ll figure it out.

Like most sons, I’m turning more and more into my dad every day. I was so angry about that when I was younger. Now? Well, I can’t wait to be you. Love, Scott.