Michelle1
Anne Michelle
Professor Corbally
English 101
10 April 2012
So Who’s the Bully?
“Thirteen million kids will be bullied in the U.S. this year” (Weinstein Company). This staggering number covers different ages and actions ranging from repeated name calling to physical violence. Teenagers, especially those between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, make up a huge part of this group that is very prone to bullying. The movieBully (aka The Bully Project) challenges the misconception that bullying is being handled properly in the United States. The 2011 documentary directed by Lee Hirsch is a raw, honest look at the lives of kids who are the victims and the aggressors and the kids who look the other way. The goal of the filmmaker, showcased on the film poster that features the word BULLY circled and crossed out, is to get people to take a stand. The film was released in a few cities near the beginning of the 2011 school year in hopes that the current generation of teen bullies to see just how destructive this behavior is, and allow teen victims to recognize they are not alone and have the power to take a stand. The only problem is the rating given to it by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA): R. This excluded the main audience the movie was intending to reach. The MPAA needs to reevaluate how a film should be rated if the content has an overall message that can benefit society.
Spokesmen for the film urged the MPAA to reconsider and give the movie a PG-13 rating, but the MPAA stuck to their R rating. The reason was not specifically related to the violence in the film, and it does have violence. Bullyfollows five children between the ages of eleven and seventeen who have been bullied. Two of the children, Tyler Long and Ty Smalley, committed suicide due to the constant bullying they suffered during school including the constant insistence that they hang themselves. It follows the lives of their parents along with the life of a fourteen-year-old girl named Ja’Meya who threatened her tormentors with a gun, a sixteen-year-old name Kelby who recently admitted to being a lesbian, and Alex, a twelve-year-old boy currently being bullied at his school in Sioux City, Iowa. The actions are often harsh and ugly, but the problem, as far as the MPAA was concerned, is not torture. It is language. The documentary does not clean up the comments of the bullies, and the “F” word is used several times. “The MPAA has strict rules about how many times the "F" word can be used on screen, and for them "Bully" crosses that line” (Berkshire).
And there are some who support this position arguing that children, even teenagers, should not be exposed to what they consider excessive foul language. An opinion article in the Vancouver Sun quoted a writer from The Los Angeles Times who feels that the rating is consistent with MPAA guidelines and that the push to get a PG-13 rating may be based on increased box office revenue. While the article acknowledges that bullying is a serious problem and the film gives an honest look at bullying, it disagrees that the movie is too important to be released to a wider teen audience. The author states, “neither entertainers nor members of Congress should decide what content is ‘too important’ to be rated in a manner consistent with the film’s content” (Winter).
The MPAA argues that children are still able to attend the movie as long as there are accompanied by an adult, and, therefore, the rating is not keeping teenagers from seeing the movie. The MPAA also states that anything that has more than two “F” words is given an automatic R-rating, and is considered inappropriate for anyone under the age of seventeen. They also argue that Weinstein Company allowing Bully to go into theaters unrated is going to stop more teenagers from seeing the movie because normally when a movie is unrated the theater will treat it as if it was rated NC-17.
This argument, and the MPAA comments, reduce ratings to simple mathematics, and this sometimes interferes with the ideas of these forms of expressions. If a film uses crude language to get a cheap laugh, that’s one thing, but Bully does not use the “F” word frivolously. This is not scripted; it is a documentary. The children bullying Alex are actually saying this word repeatedly to taunt him. It is a truthful portrayal of what is actually happening to this twelve-year-old boy, and it is a truthful portrayal of what is happening to hundreds of thousands of other tortured kids. To take the “F” words out is taking away from the actual situation of being bullied; it is making the situation less powerful and less repulsive. One teenager writing to Tips for Parents online that teenagers should be allowed to see the film. She also noted that the language is important to the film: “The language is not ideal, and no parent wants to expose their child to dirty words. But most children, whether we like to admit it or not, are exposed to this type of language on almost a daily basis. And some of those children, like the ones portrayed in this movie, are exposed to this language as the victims of bullying” (Hannah). It’s not as if teenagers do not already know these words. The movie reinforces how words and actions can be used to hurt people. This movie is meant to prevent bullying in high schools and give teenagers tips to initialize a change in their school. Ideally, teenagers should be shown movies like this in school, where the problem exists. However, with an R-rating, it is difficult for adolescents to even see the movie outside of school.
Refusing to accept the MPAA’s rating, the filmmakers chose to release the movie unrated. Many chain theaters will not show unrated films, or, if they do, they are treated as R-rated films. Consequently, Bully is mainly being shown at festivals and independent theaters. A movie that could help to expose a problem is unavailable to many in the U.S. In Canada, this is not the case.
Six provinces in Canada have rated the film PG in order to allow children and teenagers to see the film without having to bring their parents. There is a notice in the rating about the coarse language it entails which allows parents to judge for themselves if the movie is appropriate for their child or not. The reasoning for British Columbia’s PG-rating for this movie is, "We took in the tone, the intensity of the film, and who would be seeing it. The panel decided that this wassomething that had educational potential" (Wong). With this rating Canadian schools are able to show the movie in the classroom, which can be partnered with a lesson plan, provided by the movie’s website.
The Motion Picture Association of America needs to re-think their idea of an R-rating, especially for a movie that affects mainly children between the ages of thirteen and seventeen. A writer for the Vancouver Sunmade the point that, “The MPAA rating system casts no value judgment on the relative merits of the film” (Winter). However, the merits of the film do matter. The number of times that the “F” word is spoken is far outweighed by the millions of adolescents who can learn from this powerful documentary.
Works Cited
Berkshire, Geoff. "Review: Bully exposes MPAA flaws and a touchy feely approach to schoolyard harassment." HitFix - Entertainment News, Events, Exclusives & Reviews for Movies, Film, Television, Music. HitFix, 29 Mar. 2012. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Hannah. “Contraversy surrounds ‘Bully’ Movie.” Tips for Parents | Troubled Teens. N.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Weinstein Company. Bully | Official Site. TheBullyProject.com. N.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Winter, Tim. "Opinion: Bully’s R rating perfectly justified." Vancouver Sun. Vancouver Sun, 30 Mar. 2012. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Wong, Tony. "Reading the ratings - Why that movie you're watching got an R rating in the United States but a PG in Canada." News Bank: Access World News. Toronto Star, 23 Mar. 2012. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.