Salon.com > Adam Chandler

“Bully’s” Hollywood ending?

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 21:20:00 +0000

A strange détente to the kerfuffle featuring the Motion Picture Association of America and the Weinstein Co. emerged yesterday, when it was reported that a slightly recut version of the documentary “Bully” would be rated PG-13. This news came after more than a month of wrangling during which the film about teenage bullying was given a controversial R rating by the MPAA for its limited use of the f-word. The MPAA became the target of widespread derision, including on Salon, as critics pointed out that its decision made the film inaccessible to its intended audience. (The documentary had received a "PG" rating from the Canadian rating board.)

In the end, the debate has been hugely beneficial to the film (a fact that Harvey Weinstein, a famously shrewd marketer, was likely aware of). Following an initial appeal by the Weinstein Co. -- which the MPAA ultimately rejected -- the film was defiantly released without a rating, earning $115,000 in five locations, the strongest release for a documentary in 2012. “Bully” greatly benefited from a groundswell of public support, including an online petition that garnered 500,000 signatures and the plaudits of high-profile celebrities who held screenings and raised awareness for the film.

Secrets of the MPAA

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:28:00 +0000

The release of the documentary “Bully” comes on the heels of a long-simmering (and undeniably ironic) imbroglio between two notoriously domineering forces: Harvey Weinstein, one of the film industry’s most feared hectors, and the monolithic Motion Picture Association of America. The film about teenage bullying was hit with an “R” rating last month, setting off weeks of tussling between Weinstein and the MPAA. Many celebrities and high-profile media personalities came out to support the film and raised awareness of its message in an unsuccessful campaign to convince the MPAA to change the rating. When “Bully” hits theaters tomorrow, it will run without an MPAA rating, making it potentially even more difficult for younger moviegoers to see it.

The MPAA’s “Bully” outrage

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 16:45:00 +0000

As more details emerge about Monday's fatal school shooting in Ohio, one question has been on the minds of many people: Was the shooter bullied? Some students have suggested -- unsurprisingly -- that T.J. Lane, the 17-year-old who allegedly killed three of his peers and wounded others at Chardon High School, had been an outcast and the target of bullying. Others have argued that he was merely a nice-seeming, quiet kid.

Either way, this latest episode of alleged bullying and teenage death pins another town into a national mosaic that has startlingly sharpened in recent years. In the fall of 2010, within weeks of each other, news of three teenage suicides in Indiana, California and Texas initiated a new national conversation about the specter of bullying. The public consciousness reached its zenith that September with the story of Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers, who took his own life after his roommate secretly broadcast Clementi's romantic encounter with a man in his dorm room. The media cycle passed, but the crisis continued; in late December 2011, a high school sophomore in Staten Island, who had been a victim of bullying, died after she threw herself in front of a city bus, a suicide note in her pocket.