Vision Borgonia!
Ms. Happ!
Mythology & Composition!
13 January 2016!
Cycle of the Hero: The DUFF!

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A hero is someone who is admired for courage and noble quails. And as Joseph
Campbell would say “ A hero is someone who had given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.” In the movie The DUFF , the main character Bianca is a high school senior surrounded by immature teenagers. although she is a teenager herself she shows hero qualities. The cycle of the hero aka the mono myth is a template of categories that a typical ‘hero’ goes through while on their journey. Not all characters go through all stages of the cycle, some characters skip a stage while others deal with the stages in a different order. In the movie Bianca goes slightly out of order but quickly follows back on track.!
Bianca is starting her senior year off with her two best friends Jess and Casey.
Bianca doesn't realize it yet but her friends are significantly prettier and more popular then she is. She is also starting another year off with her childhood friend/neighbor
Wesley Rush, who just so happens to be the schools football captain. She used to be really close with him as kids but they grew apart through out high school. She currently has a huge crush on a kid named Toby Tucker. She never really had a full conversation with him before because she always got too nervous. When the school bully, Madison
Morgan invites her friends to her party she reluctantly says yes to attend, hoping to get

the chance to finally talk to Toby. Within 15 minutes of the party, Bianca and Wesley start talking. He asked her about her friends Jess and Casey, she responds saying its not her job to update him on their lives. Bianca’s call to adventure is when Wesley says
“ yes it is, its your job as the DUFF, the designated ugly fat friend” (THE DUFF). He explains how the DUFF doesn't necessarily have to be ‘fat’ or ‘ugly’ but just the least attractive one of the group of friends. And that the DUFF is the easy on the talk to, and acts as the ‘gatekeeper’ to their more attractive friends.!
Immediately after he explains to her what she is, out iic anger she pours her drink on him. That night she goes home and searches what a DUFF is, also watching videos. At this point she is angry and unhappy at the idea that Wesley called her the DUFF. She denies that she is the DUFF, in fact she refuses to be the call to being Jess and Casey’s
DUFF. The next day at school Bianca confronts Jess and Casey with anger. They both deny everything she's saying that they did to her. In result Bianca ‘un-friends’ the both on social media and the moments after she un-friends them in real life.!
It takes Bianca a day to realize that Wesley might be right. She remembers that on a daily basis she gets asked about her friends. Bianca seeks a way out, so when she overhears her teacher talking to Wesley about how if he doesn't pass the midterm he will be kicked of the football team, hence losing his scholarship, she decides to confront him and asks him to make a deal. “ i will make sure you pass science if you help me with this,” ( THE DUFF) Bianca says. “ i have to reverse DUFF you,” (THE DUFF) he responds. After minutes of begging, Wesley finally agrees to aid her through her reverse
DUFF. Although Wesley is the last person she would want helping her, she believes he’s

the honest because he’s the only one who told her what was really going on. They soon make a plan to start with Bianca and to meet at the mall.!
Crossing the first threshold into reverse duffing, Wesley takes her to a clothing store within the mall. He shows her the way to the bra section of the store to fix what he calls a unaboob. He then drags her to the clothes section and picks out a couple of different outfits for her to try on. As she try son clothes, he records her dancing and having fun.
When they leave the store he challenges her to try and flirt with at least 15 guys and try to get their number. Every time she ttys and talks to a guy she falls apart. When she just about gave up, she sits down and this this guy comes and sits next to her. They end up hitting it off and she get his number. Wesley congratulates her and they go their separate ways. The belly of the whale exits after Bianca’s roads of trials. The first road of trial is when Madison Morgan sends the video of Bianca dancing in the dressing room confessing her love for Toby Tucker. Apparently, one of Madison’s sidekicks was at the same clothing store and took video’s of Bianca. When the video was released she was devastated and humiliated. On top of the viral video she finally scored a date with Toby and she realized toward to end of the date that he was duffing her the whole time. He was using Bianca so he could ask her if Jess and Casey had dates to Homecoming. In the middle of her breakdown stage she searches for the help of Wesley because she realizes that she had feelings for him but soon finds him and his ex-girlfriend making out. After that she completely broke down.!
This is when her belly of the whale happens. She gets “ swallowed into the unknown” as Joseph campbell says. She completely changes after this, she has acceptance of who she is and she owns it. Because she's upset with Wesley for kissing Madison, and

has no one to talk to about it, she realizes that she screwed things up with her best friends. She invites them over and she tells them everything. At this point Bianca really does not want to go to the Homecoming dance because she does not feel like running into Wesley, Madison, and Toby.!
Bianca’s mom acts as her goddess figure. While her mom ease drops on the girls conversation about whether or not they are attending the dance, she jumpes in the room from behind the door and says “realize who you are and own it, your a weirdo, fine!, but just worry about what you think about you” (THE DUFF). Her mom convinces her to attend the dance after her darkest days. Bianca hit rock bottom because she now had feeling for Wesley and it seems as if he does not have the same feelings. But she gathers the strength from her encouraging mother to get out there and be herself.!
In the beginning of the movie Bianca’s obvious ultimate boon was to not be anyones
DUFF anymore. But through out the movie and all of the troubles she’s been through, all the realizations made her understand what her true ultimate boon is; to love and except herself for who she is.!
In the movie Bianca does not go through a refusal of the return, where she wants to return to trying not to be a DUFF, because when she finally excepts who she is and who
Toby really is, she does not wish to go back. She likes exactly where she is and how she feels at this moment. The magic flight is when the hero must escape with the boon.
This is the hero’s final flight. She goes head to head with her enemy; Madison Morgan.
Bianca confronts her at the dance and says that she “now realizes that none of this matters” (THE DUFF) to her and that her “labels in the end are meaningless” (THE
DUFF). Bianca’s rescue from without is when Wesley Rush kisses her at the

Homecoming dance as he is being called for wining the Homecoming king. She's remind that he's is the good one after being weakened by the whole experience. He is the one who stayed by her side the entire time, and liked when she was herself. As the night ends and the morning rises, Bianca crosses her return threshold; returning ‘home’.
Not her physical house but her home star of mind, who she was from the beginning, not worrying about what other people think about her.!
At the end of the movie, Bianca is the master of the two worlds. She one;excepts who she is and stays true to herself. and two; she gets the Wesley Rush. She showing that one can be themselves and still get what she wants in the end. She demonstrates how you don't have to change for anyone. Bianca’s freedom to live is her becoming and influence and advisor to others in her school. After she wrote her article for the school newspaper describing her whole experience as a DUFF, she changes the minds of everyone in her school.!
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