This is one battle The Weinstein Company needs to win. Their documentary Bully has been tagged with an R rating by the MPAA for “some language,” which means the film’s targeted audience will be restricted from actually seeing it.
Bully is an anti-bullying documentary that The Weinstein Company believes should be seen by middle and high school students. With this rating, the film can’t be screened in schools where TWC believes it would “reach a mass national audience of students and be used as a tool to stop an epidemic of physical, psychological, and emotional violence.”
TWC Co-Chairman Harvey Weinstein will personally appeal the MPAA rating at a February 23rd hearing along with Alex Libby, one of the bullied kids whose story is included in Bully.
In the press release announcing the appeal, director Lee Hirsch stated, “I made Bully for kids to see – the bullies as well as the bullied. We have to change hearts and minds in order to stop this epidemic, which has scarred countless lives and driven many children to suicide. To capture the stark reality of bullying, we had to capture the way kids act and speak in their everyday lives – and the fact is that kids use profanity. It is heartbreaking that the MPAA, in adhering to a strict limit on certain words, would end up keeping this film from those who need to see it most. No one could make this case more powerfully than Alex Libby, and I am so proud and honored that he is stepping forward to make a personal appeal.”
Weinstein added, “I have great respect for the work Chairman Joan Graves and the rest of the MPAA governing body do. I have been compelled by the filmmakers and the children to fight for an exception so we can change this R rating brought on by some bad language. As a father of four, I worry every day about bullying; it’s a serious and ever-present concern for me and my family. I want every child, parent, and educator in America to see Bully, so it is imperative for us to gain a PG-13 rating. It’s better that children see bad language than bad behavior, so my wish is that the MPAA considers the importance of this matter as we make this appeal.”
Bully will be released theatrically on March 30, 2012.
The Story:
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Safe and Drug-Free Schools estimates that over 13 million American kids will be bullied this year, making it the most common form of violence experienced by young people in the nation. In the new documentary Bully, award-winning filmmaker Lee Hirsch brings human scale to this startling statistic, offering an intimate, unflinching look at how bullying has touched five kids and their families.
Filmed over the course of the 2009/2010 school year, Bully opens a window onto the pained and often endangered lives of bullied kids, revealing a problem that transcends geographic, racial, ethnic and economic borders. It documents the responses of teachers and administrators to aggressive behaviors that defy “kids will be kids” clichés, and it captures a growing movement among parents and youths to change how bullying is handled in schools, in communities and in society as a whole.
