“Bully” gets a bigger pulpit

By Montreal Simon

It never made any sense. A movie where children kill each other gets a PG-13 rating, a documentary about children getting bullied gets rated R. So I’m glad to see that Bully has been reclassified.

I’m happy that kids are going to be able to see it, and that the new rating will make it easier for schools to use it as an educational tool. But I’m really hoping that more adults will see it as well.

Because they’re the only ones who can change the situation, a lot of them are living in denial, so they need really need to see what happens when horror meets blindness

Too many older people think that bullying is just like it was when they were in school. When in fact it’s much much worse. Our culture encourages aggression, from our hockey rinks to our Parliament. Kids are being desensitized to violence. The internet is a bully’s happy hunting ground. There are more and more victims.

And they are younger and younger. 

His son then tried to befriend the boys during another recess — “presumably to get them to stop” bullying him, Ratte says. Instead the trio gave him another beating.

“That really affected him.” the father says. “He barely ate for two days, would fall asleep (before six) each night. He was just so withdrawn, and, then, he finally told us.”

And what’s most striking about Bully is how casual that violence is. The bullies in the film knew the cameras were there.

But that didn’t stop them…

Will I see the movie? I honestly don’t know. Seeing anybody young or old bullied makes me really angry.

That’s one of the reasons I hate the Harper Cons so much.

And I don’t need to be educated about the problem, I’ve been blogging about it for years.

But I do know this image haunts me:

Even though the three boys were not allowed out at recess this past week, all his son did the other day “was walk around by himself,” apparently too timid to go near anyone.

And I do know that anyone who thinks they can build a kinder, gentler, more peaceful world, without fighting bullying.

Is blind to the horror, and doomed to failure . . .