As you may have heard, there’s a huge controversy brewing about Bully, Harvey Weinstein’s new documentary about how teen bullying has affected a number of families throughout the country. The short version: the MPAA denied it a PG-13 rating because somebody curses in it. It’s become a cause celebre, especially for people who hate the MPAA, like Kevin Smith. And since I hate the MPAA, I’m on board too, right?
Nope. Lost amid all this is the fact that Bully is actually a bad movie and chock full of unpleasant implications about our society. Intentionally or unintentionally, the MPAA did us a favor.
Here’s the thing: most documentaries that get a wide release have a specific formula — they center around some social issue that everyone agrees is wrong. They oversimplify the issue to varying degrees. They lay out some solutions, which are also oversimplified. Then they end with a false upbeat ending designed to make you feel good about yourself and dedicated to doing absolutely nothing to stop this problem yourself because the documentary told you other people are already taking care of it. That’s Bully in a nutshell.
The film’s tagline is, “It’s time to take a stand.” Stop and think about how appalling that actually is for a minute: going to see this movie isn’t “taking a stand.” You’re not protecting some kid from getting beaten up by seeing this movie? It’d be more productive to go out, find a kid beating up another kid, and beat HIM up.
You show this to a kid and he’ll see it for what it is: feel-good B.S. for adults that has nothing to do with how they live their own lives. It’ll just prove what he already knows: you don’t understand what he’s going through.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of the MPAA. And the rules over ratings are asinine. But in this particular case, there’s no real controversy here. Bully is a bad movie. Let’s have a little more concern about this whole “child-beating” thing instead. That seems like something we should care about.
(Image via Weinstein Company)
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“The film’s tagline is, “It’s time to take a stand.” Stop and think about how appalling that actually is for a minute: going to see this movie isn’t “taking a stand.” You’re not protecting some kid from getting beaten up by seeing this movie? It’d be more productive to go out, find a kid beating up another kid, and beat HIM up.”
Yes, because the only way to take a stand is through violence. Huh?
See under “humor”.
Shock journalism, what a way to make a name for yourself. Sadly, @VeryPunny, someone like Dan would see violence as the answer. He’s hoping to get notoriety by writing a shock piece that goes contrary to mainstream thought and sensibilities. Kind of pathetic when you really think about it, but this is the only way people will pay attention to him.
well said
So even though you don’t clearly state it…I assume by your opinions that you saw the movie and think it’s bad, correct? I want to be sure you’re not just saying it’s bad because it’s a big documentary.
Yes, I’ve seen it and it’s pretty awful. It’s not bad in the sense that it’s incompetent, but bad in the sense that it tries to stuff a complex issue into a short run time.
I haven’t seen it, but it is, in my opinion, pretty beneficial to shine a light on a topic people overlook constantly. Even if this kind of conversation is the only thing resulting from it at least it’s done that much. Looking at it critically is fine (more than fine, essential), but give it at least credit enough for bringing the topic back out of obscurity.
That’s the thing: WHAT obscurity? It’s not like people stopped giving a shit about bullying. It’s just recently become this fad to wring our hands about school bullying.
If there’s a “fad” it’s the preponderance of young people killing themselves after well-documented struggles with bullying. If you follow the subject, you’ll see far too many of these sad stories. I think that’s the driving issue here.
It’s an obscure topic that is coming to the surface more and more, particularly in light of all the suicides that have been occurring due to bullying and adults turning a blind eye. If you can actually say it’s not a problem, or not happening, then I’ll say this once again: “Dan, you are an idiot”
Dammit, with this option now gone along with Kony 2012, how else are we suppose to do to feel good about ourselves without actually doing anything but the most minute effort?
You’ll have to start eating food grown within a hundred miles of your house.
I like the article, yours is the first I’ve read that wasn’t praising this movie like mad. But, I thought the issue was that they’re giving it an R rating for saying the F-word 4 or 5 times. Not because its a good or bad movie. Most kids that can get into a PG13 movie have heard the F word tons of times.
Also, there have been plenty of other movies that uses the F word and got only a PG-13 rating. Dan is simply looking for attention. Sensationalism at its best
It’s kinda funny that I haven’t heard dick about this movie aside from people on Twitter saying that it shouldn’t have gotten an R because it’s supposed to be seen by teenagers. It’s disappointing to hear that it’s just pablum. From your little review-ish thing here, Dan, it really kind of sounds like teenagers, or at least bullied teenagers (the ones who really need some “feel-good B.S.”), are the ONLY ones who should see this movie, as an extension of the whole “It gets better” thing.
Of course, it seems to me that the filmmakers are to blame as much as the MPAA on that point — surely it’d be easy enough to cut out the offending swear words in order to dodge the R, and that’s probably something they could’ve done long before the film was ever examined and rated by the MPAA, right? I mean, I assume their rules on swear words are pretty well-established and set in stone.
So I guess it’s pretty easy, then, to put 2 and 2 together and assume that the filmmakers only left those swearwords in there in order to get the film “R’d” (like anyone would want to “R” Bully) and have something to bitch about and create a controversy and media buzz about their film. Which is hypocritical as hell — “Let’s make a movie that’s designed to help the kids who watch it, and then make sure to drop some F-bombs in there so they won’t be able to see it, thus guaranteeing some ineffectual clusterfuck of social media publicity, and probably increased ticket sales!”
Hang on, how can we teach our kids to weed out the weak and prey on them, feasting upon their teenaged souls, if they can’t see an R-rated movie? Seems like they should have called this Anti-Bully, cause it’s just bullshit.
Way to fuck up, Hollywood. We have to channel these little monsters to their proper targets lest Carlin’s predictions come to fruition. I like my stuff, OK? I’d like to hang on to it for just a little while longer, do you miiiinnndd???
It’s pretty ballsy of Harvey to make a doccumentary of himself and call it Bully, say what you will about Harv he sure does have some cajones.
This is some dynamite journalism here.
/sarcasm
Before you write a self-righteous commentary on how a movie should be rated, you should probably familiarize yourself with how movie ratings work. Movies get an R-rating because of objectionable content, not because they are “bad”.
the fact that it is an R movie has nothing to do with whether the movie is good or bad which in turn…makes this article pretty irrelevant.
Are you really saying the movie is bad (as in not enjoyable) and that the MPAA has the right, and should have the right, to give bad movies ratings that prevent people from seeing it? As much as you may like or dislike the MPAA it should not have the capability to rate movies on their enjoyability. That’s not what the MPAA is supposed to do or even ever was intended to do. While the MPAA has strayed of their purpose and gotten out of touch with reality, you seem to like something in the MPAA that is so much worse than what it has ever done, giving ratings based on how good a movie is, that it shows a bad view of a country or shows that people are really assholes all along.
This entire ‘controversy’ has only given this movie more publicity then it would have ever gotten, more people are probably going to watch it because they think the big bad MPAA tried to prevent them from seeing it by giving it an R rating. Maybe the R rating is well deserved, I have not seen this movie, and have no real interest in it either, but it has done no-one a favor if its just a bad movie.
Dan, the fact that you are replying to virtually everyone’s comments shows just how unsure you are of your own opinion. If you had any conviction at all, you’d put it out there and let people think and say what they will. Instead you feel you have to defend your position at every turn, showing that at best this was meant as a shock tactic to draw in more attention to your narcissistic self. I love that you think the R rating is suited due to instances of profanity. You may want to look into the MPAA guidelines for profanity in PG-13 movies, they actually allow quite a bit, and realistically this was obviously a move to hide a movie from the general public, as the ass clowns at the MPAA are concerned about a movie with an uncomfortable subject matter. Oh, and you’re an idiot for writing this whole piece.
This says it all, ” They oversimplify the issue to varying degrees”. GASP you mean films oversimplify the subjects they cover? I guess Schindler’s List oversimplified the Holocaust and Killers oversimplified how much Ashton Kutcher sucks. All forms of media have their limits. One of the biggest limits in film is time. And we aren’t talking about The Cove here, this is an issue that normal people in the USA are affected by.
What’s appalling is that you use a term as hyperbolic as ‘appalling’ to address an issue that you simply invented out of desperate need for some way to castigate this movie. No, I haven’t seen it, will not be seeing it, don’t know anything about it beyond what you’ve stated about it….BUT, I am a rhetoric-conscious adult with a passable understanding of how movie taglines work and as you are (presumably) a at-least-marginally trained “journalist”, you can’t basing your barely 350 words on “the words on the top of the poster are OBVIOUSLY describing what you’ll be doing if you see this movie”. If the “controversy” is over the amount of teenagers that won’t be able to see it, then clearly whether or nor adults/parents are getting in is a non-issue, and therefore clearly a non-issue whether it motivates said adults/parents to do anything about it. Kids like when issues are presented to them without sweet smiles and poorly-designed activity books. They like gritty, ‘here’s the facts, kid’ presentations that lay out the issues without overselling the fact they’re supposed to care. I don’t know if this movie is that, but the marketing and the (again) “controversy” seem to point to that.
So what’s the point? You should be ashamed of your strident inability to intuit anything worth commenting on, yet attempting to come off as the righteous ferreter-out of “the real issue here, folks”.
Dan Seitz you sir are a noob who does not understand how bullying works. “It’d be more productive to go out, find a kid beating up another kid, and beat HIM up” no it would not. 4 out of every 6 bullys were once the one getting bullied violence is not the answer . get your facts straight before you slam a movie that all kids need to see.
“4 out of every 6 bullys”
Nah, more like 6 out of 9.