The director of Bully, a documentary about bullying in schools, says he does not want to water down his film’s message by editing out the rough language that earned it an R rating.
His stance means it will be much harder for the movie to be seen by its target audience: bullied kids.
“It’s a film for them, it’s about them,” Bully director Lee Hirsch said in a phone interview with Wired.com. Hirsch says the harsh talk is essential to get across how bad bullying can be for children picked on for being “geeks” or for being “different” in other ways. “That’s why the irony is so incredible — it’s like they can’t see a film that’s real based on what’s happening all over the place. The language is real.”
Hirsch is looking for options to get his movie in front of young people after the Motion Picture Association of America slapped it with an R based on “some language” in the film — roughly seven uses of the word “fuck” — which means those under 17 won’t be permitted to see the film without a parent or guardian. It’s the latest ratings struggle in which the MPAA, a shadowy organization that has been questioned and criticized for its rating process, said to employ arcane formulas about the number of times a specific expletive is used.
“The irony is so incredible, it’s like they can’t see a film that’s real based on what’s happening all over the place. The language is real.” It’s an inexact science at best. Asked whether he would be willing to alter Bully to gain a more-accessible PG-13 rating, the director said, “I’m fighting to have the film released as it was honestly shot.”
Harvey Weinstein — co-chairman of the Weinstein Company, which is releasing the film — made a personal appeal to the MPAA last Thursday to change the R rating to a PG-13, claiming, “As a father of four, I worry every day about bullying.” The powerhouse Hollywood producer was joined by one of the documentary’s subjects, Alex Libby, a boy with Asperger’s syndrome who discusses being hit and strangled by his classmates in Hirsch’s film. Libby implored the MPAA to change the rating so kids his own age could see the film, said Hirsch, who had to wait outside the hearing but spoke to his subject afterward.
The MPAA kept the R rating after last week’s hearing. In a statement, Joan Graves, the chair of the MPAA’s Classification and Ratings Administration, said that although the organization agreed it was important for young people to see Bully, “The MPAA also has the responsibility, however, to acknowledge and represent the strong feedback from parents throughout the country who want to be informed about content in movies, including language.”
The MPAA points out that people under the age of 17 could still see the film — they’d just need to be accompanied by a parent. While that’s possible, the truth is that not every kid has supportive parents willing to take them to see Bully, Hirsch said. He’s also quick to note that the rating will keep young people from watching a film depicting a reality they could experience any day of their lives.
“Everyone feels this is appropriate and necessary and it gains its power and meaning from the honesty and the truth of what kids experience,” said the director, who won the audience award at Sundance in 2002 for his documentary Amandla! A Revolution in Four Part Harmony. “And our position is that we want to release the movie as it is.”
Following the ruling on the rating, Weinstein released a statement announcing that the company was considering a “leave of absence” from the MPAA. (Though, as the Los Angeles Times’ 24 Frames blog points out, Weinstein isn’t actually in the MPAA, leading some to wonder if the studio just meant it would no longer submit films for MPAA ratings.)
The documentary, which is scheduled for release March 30, couldn’t be coming at a more opportune time. Bullying is in the news almost daily and a rash of suicides in recent months has brought the issue to the forefront. had originally been intended to serve as part of an educational curriculum on bullying but the rating puts those plans in jeopardy, Hirsch said.
In St. Louis Park, Minnesota, just outside Minneapolis, the film was going be screened at a community event to begin the school year next fall as a part of an awareness campaign on the issue, said Brian Johnson, chair of the city’s human rights commission. The R rating means it’s far less likely Bully can be screened in a public setting. After the ruling, Johnson wrote a letter to the MPAA saying the organization’s rating has “removed access to a film from the very viewing audience that needs to see it the most, children.”
“An R rating would significantly impact the ability to incorporate Bully into an widespread anti-bullying awareness campaigns.” “An R rating would significantly impact the ability to incorporate Bully into any widespread anti-bullying awareness campaigns,” Johnson said in an e-mail to Wired.com. “This film provides children who are being bullied with proof that they are not alone and that others are going through the same things they are.”
Asked whether removing some of the film’s language in order to get a PG-13 rating would be beneficial, Johnson was emphatic in his belief that the language should stay in the film. “To remove some of the language just to get a PG-13 rating would minimize all of the children who have been verbally bullied throughout this country,” he said.
An online petition has been started on Care2 to get the MPAA to change its mind about the rating. The goal is to get 100,000 signatures; as of this writing, more than 3,100 have been collected.
It’s hard to tell what would or could change the MPAA’s ruling at this point, especially with just a few weeks until the film’s scheduled release. The director, who was himself bullied as a young person, said he hasn’t decided if he’d be willing to edit his film if it meant it could change the rating. He’d rather fight to have his documentary released as-is.
“We could take out a lot of things,” Hirsch said. “But I think the film will have less impact and power.”
