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May 23, 2013
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 Stars, Studio and Ratings Board Battle Over ‘Bully’Posted on Mar 14, 2012
There’s a big, built-in problem with the Motion Picture Association of America’s contested decision to slap “Bully,” a documentary about kids battering kids, with an R rating, and it’s a problem of which powerhouse producer Harvey Weinstein and a growing lineup of Hollywood stars are well aware. Namely, the MPAA’s rating would make it that much harder for the very demographic most affected by the problem to see it in theaters. E! Online has put together a timeline laying out the tug of war between the ratings board and the filmmakers, featuring cameos from such concerned celebs as Justin Bieber, Johnny Depp and Meryl Streep. So far, the R rating still stands. Check out the trailer for “Bully” after the excerpt below. —KA
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By Dr_Snooz, March 16, 2012 at 3:45 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I have felt for some time that public school is no
Report thisplace to send our youth. Even if they aren’t physically
abused, the social and psychic stresses of those places
are too much for impressionable kids.
By Tobysgirl, March 16, 2012 at 2:18 pm Link to this comment
First, watch This Movie Has Not Yet Been Rated. Excellent film about the MPAA.
Second, endless yak about bullying sickens me. We live in a bullying, violent society, and we glorify bullying. All one needs to do is watch mainstream television for about 30 minutes to comprehend what I am saying. We cannot preach to children while we revel in Survivor (biggest bully gets big prize), foul-mouthed drunks on the radio, vicious politicians.
It’s like yakking about domestic violence in a society where we worship violent males!!!!!
Report thisBy Migs, March 16, 2012 at 2:54 am Link to this comment
So the MPAA thinks it needs to protect kids from seeing things at the movies that they’ve already seen in real life? How out of touch can you get?
Report thisBy Malcolm, March 15, 2012 at 7:59 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
Why do we even have the MPAA? Filmmakers should stop submitting their films for ratings.
Report thisBy rosemerry, March 15, 2012 at 3:07 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
I agree with gerard. It is the bullying adults who need to be stopped.
Report thisBy Not One More!, March 14, 2012 at 11:24 pm Link to this comment
It’s interesting that if the real lives of some children were filmed, it would be so filled with violence and objectionable behavior, that the children themselves would not be allowed into the theater to watch the movie about their own lives.
Report thisBy The NavigatorBR, March 14, 2012 at 11:12 pm Link to this comment
This is what amuses me endlessly about our country…
Documentary about bullying, Protect the youth.
Report thisActual bullying, screw ‘em.
By AnAlienEarthling, March 14, 2012 at 8:44 pm Link to this comment
To deny victims of bullying the right to participate in the public discussion of bullying is to victimize them with the same kind of human-rights violations from which bullying already forces them to suffer: denying them expression of their personal voice, denying them presentation of their person in a forum of which they are presumably the focus.
This denial will only confirm their views that “adults” don’t really understand bullying, that “adults” can’t really be confided in when confiding in someone is desperately needed. This denial seems so typical, so uninformed, so condescendingly “all-too-adult”! How often do we hear, “...but children don’t really understand!”
At issue are not the kinds of atrocities for which children often do lack adequate conceptual understanding. Rather, in the case of bullying, children are often quite articulate about their suffering: they understand its wellsprings, they understand the mechanisms that sustain it. What’s more - as this particular case will confirm to them - they understand the adult hypocrisy that often allows it to continue.
Our children deserve better: they also have the right to be respected as thinking human beings. Indeed, in dealing with children’s problems, adults are typically the ones lacking in maturity!
(So unthinkingly, so callously, adults often ask each other, “Do you like children?” - speaking of children as some form of domesticated animal, as it were (compare: Do you like dogs? Do you like cats?) - ... it isn’t the children I mind; it’s the adults!!!).
In denying children access to this documentary, the MPAA provides bullies the concealment that is part of their cache of weapons - an accomplice by any other word!
How dare the MPAA!
Report thisBy gerard, March 14, 2012 at 1:33 pm Link to this comment
What may be needed even more is an anti-bullying film for American adults who are silently permitting their military forces to be shipped anywhere a war looks “do-able” and turning them loose for years on end, killing and wounding men, women and children to get raw materials to be exploited by the 1% for the 1%.
Report thisProbably the main reason lots of people don’t want the picture shown to children is that it is the mirror image of themselves, whether bullies or bullied.