Flawed, but compelling and important.
The H-Bomb: Bullying is one of the more unpleasant aspects of childhood, I don’t think there is anyone who will argue with that. For many out there, it’s a sad fact of life, a pain in the ass that’s an inherent part of growing up. Just about anyone who has experienced bullying firsthand will tell you, it is no fun to endure. Have I ever been bullied in my life? Well, I was a fat kid for most of my childhood, so what do you think? Bullying is something that has gone on for as long as anyone can remember, but over the last few years, it has become more and more of a societal concern, mainly due to the number of kids who have committed suicide because, apparently, they were being bullied relentlessly. The number of bully-related suicides have grown to near epidemic levels, and parents, teachers, and entire communities seem to be at a loss as to what to do about it.
With the documentary, Bully, filmmaker Lee Hirsch attempts to examine the effects of bullying by following three subjects; Twelve-year-old Alex, a geeky introvert who is both physically and verbally abused by kids on his school bus, and is pretty much friendless at school, sixteen-year-old Kelby, who has been ostracized from her entire Oklahoma town ever since she came out as a lesbian, and fourteen-year-old Ja’Maya, who is in deep legal doo-doo after bringing her mom’s gun onto her school bus and threatening her classmates with it.
The film also introduces us to David and Tina Long, whose eldest son Tyler took his own life at the age of seventeen because of bullying, as well as Kirk Smalley, the father of another bullied child, twelve-year-old Ty, who also committed suicide. The movie cuts back and forth between these people, as we observe the kids trying to cope with the constant torment, and the adults, parents and various school administrators, as they try, seemingly in vain, to combat this problem.
If I were to give out ratings to films based solely on good intentions, then Bully would earn six out of five stars, easily. As an indictment of bullying, it is pretty powerful stuff. It tugs on your heart strings, it pushes your emotional buttons. When you watch it, you won’t be able to help feeling sad for the awkward-but-sweet Alex when you see what he has to put up with day in and day out, or for the two sets of parents when they talk about the children they’ve lost. You’ll vacillate between frustration and anger as you watch various school officials refusing to deal with the problem by either saying “boys will be boys” or going into complete denial- there’s an absolutely bubble-headed, brain-dead bimbo bitch of an assistant principal in here who is so fucking inept at resolving bullying issues that you’ll just want to take a fucking crowbar to her head. Not to hurt her, mind you, just to knock some Goddamn sense into her.
As far as eliciting emotions from the viewer goes, Bully succeeds in spades, there’s no denying that. It also gets the job done in terms of bringing awareness to the issue of bullying, how truly harmful it can be to the victims, and how it most definitely should not be tolerated. It more than gets all of that across. However, when it comes to examining the issue in any kind of deep or truly meaningful way, that is, sadly, where Bully falls short. Way, way short.
Yes, we see the effects of bullying from the point of view of a few victims and their families, all cherry-picked from rural parts of the heartland. Unfortunately, that’s just about all we see, and that is the egregious flaw of this documentary- its scope, its focus, is way too narrow. Other critics have pointed this out, and having seen the film myself, I can say they are absolutely right. There are so many other angles to this issue, so many other points-of-view, that a comprehensive documentary would have included, but this one simply does not.
Why are there not any child psychologists interviewed in the film, to shed light on why kids bully each other? Do they do it out of insecurity? An undeveloped sense of empathy? Because they themselves are abused at home? For the lulz? Why? Another question that’s never explored, why is it that even though bullying has been around since the dawn of man, only in recent years have children started committing suicide because of it? Does it have to do with the prevalence of online social networks, like Facebook, where bullying can now follow kids home from school? Also, if the purpose of this documentary is, in part, to understand bullying, why not interview a bully? Follow him around, see what his day to day life is like, at school and at home, and see if we can understand why he’s compelled to pick on and torment other kids. The film never does that.
Another problem with the movie is that it fails to give equal time to its subjects. The film primarily follows Alex, he’s the one we get to know the best. We actually see him get picked on while riding the school bus (thanks to an apparently hidden camera) and at recess, as kids punch him in the arms and back, call him names, and even threaten to kill him. We also watch him at home, as his parents, who know he’s having problems, try to talk to him, and his inability to open up and communicate with them.
Kelby and Ja’Maya aren’t covered nearly as much, and therefore, we don’t come to understand their situations nearly as well. Kelby talks about the way she’s been treated at school since coming out, but we never see any of this. In fact, the only townsfolk we see her interact with are her friends, of which she has quite a few. As for Ja’Maya, all we ever find out about her bullying experiences were that kids on the bus were always calling her “stupid,” which in and of itself just doesn’t sound like enough to drive her into taking a gun onto the bus. Yet, that’s all we’re ever told. Pretty weak, pretty damn weak.
However, while Bully is plagued by numerous flaws, ultimately, its intentions do overcome its imperfections. It’s meant to strike an emotional chord in the audience and to get us thinking about this societal ill, and that it does. It will make you mad, it will make you sad, it will make you want to reach out and punch someone (like that idiot assistant principal). You’d have to be one heartless bastard (and in all likelihood, a bully yourself) in order to walk out of this one without being moved. If you’re a parent, then Bully is a must see. In fact, it should be required by law that every parent, and every school age child in this country see this movie. Like the ads for those HBO after school specials used to go, “See it with your kids, see it for your kids.”
