First broadcast in 1981, The Wave stars Bruce Davison as Ben Ross, a high school social studies teacher who conducts a social experiment.

Frustrated by the fact that he can’t answer his students questions of how the German people could have allowed the Holocaust to occur, Ben decides to teach his students a lesson.  He starts by introducing a bunch of seemingly arbitrary rules to his classroom, concerning the proper way for students to sit at their desks and to address the teacher.  Ben is somewhat surprised to see how quickly his students adapt to the new rules, even taking pleasure in showing how quickly and efficiently they can follow orders.  The next day, Ben tells his students that they are now members of The Wave, a national youth organization with membership cards and a secret salute.

And that is when all Hell breaks loose.  Ben only meant to show his students what it’s like to be a member of a mass movement but the students take The Wave far more seriously than Ben was expecting.  Soon, other students are joining The Wave.  When the popular football players announce that they are a part of The Wave, others are quick to flock to the organization.  The formerly likable David turns into a fanatic about bringing people into the organization.  Robert, a formerly unpopular student, revels in his new job of reporting anyone who deviates from the rules of The Wave.  When a student reporter writes an article that is critical of the organization, she and the school paper are targeted.  Has Ben’s social experiment spiraled out of control?

42 years after it was originally produced, The Wave remains a powerful and sobering look at how people can be manipulated into doing things as a mob that they would never do as an individual.  If anything, the film feels more relevant today than it probably did in 1981.  The character of Robert, in particular, is a familiar one.  He’s someone with no self-esteem who latches onto a movement and finds his identity by taking down others and accusing them of failing to follow the rules.  One can find people like Robert all over social media, searching through old posts for any example of wrongthink that they can broadcast all through their social world.  It’s tempting to smirk at how quickly the members of The Wave sacrificed their freedom and their ability to think for themselves but it’s no different from what we see happening in the real world every day.  (Indeed, if the film had been made just two or three years ago, The Wave would probably be the people policing whether or not the rest of us were observing quarantine and wearing our facemasks correctly.)  People like to feel that they belong to something, even if that means sacrificing their humanity in the process.

Featuring a good performance from Bruce Davison as the well-meaning teacher who is both fascinated and terrified by the experiment that he’s set in motion, The Wave can be viewed below: