Bully Review
Bully center’s around the lives of five victimized children and their families over the course of a year. The director, Lee Hirsch, does a powerful job of portraying the victims daily torment and humiliation. We also get a glimpse of the administrators’ struggles, as they try to resolve this horrendous problem facing millions of kids today. Bully is a heart-wrenching documentary that will spark some great parent child conversations.
Rating: 5 out of 5 buckets
Release Date: March 30, 2012
MPAA Rating: PG13
Best Age Group: 12+
Sexual Content: Mild
Violent Content: Moderate
Crude or Profane Language:Excessive
Drugs and Alcohol Content: None
See a clip of my review here, along with The Lucky One, and Touchback!
Talking Points:
As a mom of three this was a very difficult film to see. Two of the families interviewed were those whose children had committed suicide, because they were bullied. We also saw a young girl who was ostracized for being a lesbian; we saw a nice quiet boy who was physically abused…poked, hit and choked. We even met a girl who was so frustrated from being bullied she responded by bringing a loaded gun to school.
It was interesting that many of the victim’s parents were shocked to discover how badly their kids were bullied. Some comments we heard from the bullies were; “I’ll break your Adam’s apple, which will kill you,” “I will f–ing end you and shove a broomstick up your a–.”
A very upsetting scene was seeing a suicide victim’s parents attending their son’s funeral. We eventually learned that these parents set up an anti-bullying organization.
The film was initially rated R. I read that the director said, ” I made Bully for kids to see-the bullies as well as the bullied. 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.” They eventually reduced the number of swear words to secure a PG-13 rating, which would hopefully attract more kids and their parents.
Sexual Content: Mild
- We saw a lesbian couple holding hands and hugging.
Violent Content: Moderate
- We saw kids being physically abused; poked, hit and even choked.
- We also saw the mental abuse which the kids faced; as they were continuously being ridiculed and humiliated.
Crude and Profane Language: Excessive
- The f-word was said several times, we also heard “a–,” “b–ch,” and “n-gger.”
Drug and Alcohol Content: None
Bully was not a fun entertaining movie, however bullying is a serious issue facing millions of kids today. The film will hopefully spark some awareness towards the problem, and is a great vehicle for parent/child discussions. However, parents need to be aware of the profanity laced throughout the film. Depending on the kid, I recommend this for kids ages 12 and up.
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