Friday, March 2, 2012

A movie about bullying in US Schools gets an R rating, preventing it from being seen by kids - and what YOU can do to help!

I've seen BULLY.

And I believe the movie's honest window into bullying can open eyes, get people talking, and contribute towards making things better - but not if it has an "R" rating and kids under 17 can't see it!

Here's the trailer (that's rated okay for "Appropriate Audiences")

Lee Hirsch, the movie's director, said about the "R" rating:

"I made BULLY for everyone to see, kids who are bullied, who bully, and the vast majority who are witnesses ...those kids can make change by speaking up, becoming upstanders instead of bystanders. We have to change hearts and minds in order to stop this epidemic, which affects more than 13 million young lives a year in our country. The stark realities of bullying are that kids say terrible things to each other...and kids in junior and senior high-school use profanity. ~~ It is devastating that the MPAA, in adhering to a strict limit on certain words, would prevent this film from being seen by those who need its message the most...."

There was an appeal to the ratings board. It was rejected.

As the Bully Project wrote, an R rating

"could potentially ban the very students who are on the front lines of America's bullying epidemic from seeing the film unless accompanied by a parent or guardian. Clearly, this is unacceptable."

Katy, a high school student from Ann Arbor, Michigan launched an online petition on urging the MPAA to reconsider. In less than 24 hours more than 100,000 people had signed on - but they still need more signatures!

The movie is set to debut March 30, 2012.

Add your voice.

Let's get this movie seen, and let's get people talking about bullying, and how to stop it.

***UPDATE MARCH 5, 2012***

They've gotten over 200,000 signatures so far, and Katy is planning "to deliver the signatures to the MPAA personally."

You can still sign!



The movie is slightly edited (to remove three of the six uses of the F-word) and the MPAA gives BULLY a PG-13 rating!



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Okay, so I don't know a ton about this, and I know that this is really important for kids in middle and high school to see, but I think there are some pretty specific guidelines for how movies are rated. I think that there are a lot of parts that aren't subjective that cause movies to be rated one way or another, so I don't know if they can just decide to give it a different rating than R. I think I read somewhere that as far as the language used in a film is concerned, there are very specific rules about what is PG, PG 13, or R.