Bully (documentary about bullying) given an R by the MPAA

Before I saw This Film is Not Yet Rated, I wrote a research paper on these people. I was in eighth grade. I got an A.

Which means I know things like, for example, the PTC spends more time and money on monitoring all of television than most of it's members do with their kids.

And 98% of annual complaints to the FCC come from the PTC, which has membership in the six digits. I like to think the FCC realized this and that's why Two Broke Girls can make jokes about facials undeterred.

But yeah, censorship sucks.

And I say, "Good for it!" The fact that it's doing this just shows how much the current system does not work.

EDIT: removed to later post

edited 27th Mar '12 10:34:31 PM by 0dd1

This movie is like two learning experiences in one!

I love this bit at the end:

Bullies are not the ones who need to see a movie about bullying, people who observe someone bullying someone else and do nothing about it are the ones who need to see the movie.

People don't make a movie about the impoverished to make them stop being impoverished, they make it so that those of us with income will help them.

But I doubt they'd go willingly either, if we're still on the "make it an optional extra credit viewing" tangent.

I would argue several demographics need to see this movie. People who are bystanders to bullying, the victims, the authorities(many out there are pretty lax to certain situations) and the bullies themselves. It's really a kill-several-birds-with-one-stone thing.

Oh, the clever bullies will go, alright. Why? Because this is a documentary about people like them! They'll go just to learn a few new techniques for hurting others, you can bet on it. If it's earning an R rating for anything but language, it means the filmmakers caught footage of some rather violent stuff that bullies can pick up.

'Cept it's not, which is what prompted this whole conversation.

Then again, the MPAA has some really bizarre takes on what is and isn't okay violence, so you never know.

If there's footage of violent bullying techniques so expertly-shot that bullies would pay to see this movie, I'd think we could stop worrying about the rating and start worrying about the filmmakers.

It's the U.S. violence, which kills people, is more acceptable than sex, which creates them. We're a nation of war no matter what you'd like to say about us. Long as there's no blood, violence won't earn half the rating that language will.

And documentaries work best when they SHOW what to look for, rather than just telling people. If they did catch sight of some serious bullying, filmed it, and didn't do anything to stop it at the time, they were probably doing the victims a favor. When others fight your battles for you on the playground, you tend to get ganged up on instead of left alone.

This may not be the thread to bring this up in, but something to bear in mind is that, if you see sexually provocative content in a live action film, the tantalizing bits of flesh on display are usually a real person's body, while violent content in movies is almost completely fake. That makes a big difference. After all, obviously fake nudity (like, say, an ancient marble statue, or a cartoon character's bare butt) can even show up in children's films occasionally, while a film that actually injures or kills its actors to produce realistic gore won't even make it to the MPAA; it's gonna wind up buried in an evidence locker somewhere.

The reasoning there is that, while viewers imitating the violence they see in movies is far, far worse than them imitating profanity, it's also far, far less likely to occur.

edited 4th Apr '12 8:27:53 AM by RavenWilder

Not that said logic keeps video games of being accused of just that!

To be fair, I see little kids running around with chainsaws sawing people in half every day.

Where can I see this movie, if its even out yet?

So, it finally has a PG-13 rating, but at the cost of some edits.

I'm conflicted. I know it'll reach a wider audience with this rating, which is a good thing, but I kinda wish they stuck to their guns on this. C'est la vie.

Seamus: Violent techniques? Bullying isn't always physical. For a lot of it, you just need a script and no special effects, because that's the problem- you don't see the scars, it looks like nothing happened.

Journeyman: If you see bullying and do nothing, that's as bad as approval.

0dd1: The article says one use of the word makes it pg13, 6 make it R... I find that ridiculous. If they learn it from the first use, the next five change nothing.

And as for the rating issue- I learned the F-word in 6th grade. A teacher barely reacted to its use in 8th. Either the rating system is messed up, my middle school is, or both. (I vote... both!)

edited 5th Apr '12 5:19:51 PM by YsaSlayerOfSporks

Come on, there was no way they were going to change their minds and not make any edits. They still got the lower rating with three uses of it in there. That's like the perfect definition of a compromise.

In a way, I guess, though this undercuts the message of the movie in a way that even the movie itself likely doesn't show, in that the filmmakers were essentially bullied themselves into editing the movie. It's a sign of a larger societal problem, one that pretty much is that bullies aren't just in the classroom, but in the real world pretending to be mature adults every day.

edited 5th Apr '12 9:25:26 PM by 0dd1

Why we don't have a quote button on this site is beyond me.

Let me propose a theory: The cycle of bullying never ends. Now hear me out on this, because I'm fully aware that humans have this entitled sense of morality that blows reality out of proportion.

Take a kid. Put them in a scenario where they're being bullied. They can't take any more and they also become a bully. Then here come these righteous pricks pushing you around to stop being a bully when they themselves get very aggressive with the bullies and inspire more bullying towards the bullying. Or in other cases, the bullied kids became fearful and overwhelmed at the aspect of not being able to do anything. This is all the worse when it's an adult, one that's supposed to be this perfect role model who teaches and preaches words from archaic principles, that incites or helps fuel this cycle.

As I see it, this film is a redundancy upon a redundancy, and it's even more delicious that they were bullied enough by the MPAA to edit their film to get a PG-13 rating. It goes to show that the War on Bullying is a pointless endeavour, because they still caved in to bullies regardless. Bullies happen to be the most professional business people if you haven't gotten the memo by now. Same goes for a whole lot of bandwagons and trends. Bullies are everywhere and it is their job to make you feel like shit. It's good for the economy and society after all! Advertising, politics, your own social circle.... But no one is really trying their hardest to put an end to it now are they? But why should they when that won't yield desirable results (i.e. profit)?

Thank you for saying my point more eloquently than I did.