A ridiculous, self-serving documentary about schoolyard bullying. Originally entitled The Bully Project.
This year, over 18 million American kids will be bullied, making it the most common form of violence young people in the U.S. experience.
Following five kids and families over the course of a school year, the film confronts bullying’s most tragic outcomes, including the stories of two families who’ve lost children to suicide and a mother who waits to learn the fate of her 14-year-old daughter, incarcerated after bringing a gun on her school bus.
With access to the Sioux City Community School District, the film also gives an intimate glimpse into school buses, classrooms, cafeterias and even principals’ offices, offering insight into the often cruel world of children, as teachers, administrators and parents struggle to find answers.
While the stories examine the dire consequences of bullying, they also give testimony to the courage and strength of the victims of bullying and seek to inspire real changes in the way people deal with bullying.
With or without the movie Bully, there will NEVER be a change or turn in the tide on an epidemic of violence that has touched every community in the United States – and far beyond – since the beginning of schooling.
In essence, the movie is a complete waste of time.
Harvey Weinstein unsuccessfully bullied the MPAA to amend the R-rating it bestowed upon Bully – for vile language. The director alleges that with a PG-13 rating the film would have a bigger audience.
There are NO kids in this country or any other that would go to see this movie on their own volition; neither those who Bully nor those who are Bullied. So the director’s and Harvey Weinstein’s cries of foul reek of an attempt at free publicity.
There is no documentary in the history of motion pictures that have attracted an under 18 crowd. And this one, even had it been rated PG-13, would not be an exception.
Finally, there is no law enforcing any movie rating, even NC-17, in America, so the fact that the movie is Rated-R means nothing when it comes to (the zero) under 17 year olds who would have wanted to see the movie.
