Bully

Plot synopsis:
This documentary is about five teenagers and the varieties of bullying or harassment that they went through. The film jumps from each teen and describes their lives in parts.The film starts off by telling the story of Tyler Long and how he died. Tylers father speaks to us about his sons certain social issues and how he knew early on that Tyler may be a subject of bullying. Mr. Long mentions that kids took his clothes when he showered, forcing him to leave naked. They shoved him into lockers and demoralized him vocally as well.
This is what was said to have lead Tyler to his action of suicide in 2009 at the age of 17. The mother found him hanging in his closet with a note on the bed and then proceeded to call the family in.Alex is thirteen years old, he is being interviewed about his family and how nervous he is to return to school, as he has issues making friends.
The cameraman follows him to the bus stop and onto the bus, where the bullying begins and doesnt stop. The boy sitting beside him on the bus is seen violently threatening him.At school, the camera captures instances of bullying that do not directly pertain to Alex, but do show the principal of the school noticing and simply saying the children should get along but doing little to put an end to it.A boy named Cody is pulled from class to discuss being bullied at lunch, but pulling him out of class was simply a move by the school to give the appearance of attempting to address the issue at hand.Kelby is a young teenage girl has come out to the town as a lesbian. She states that she is not welcome anywhere in the town, due to the towns religious standpoints and ideas of cultural society. Kelby states that as she was walking in the road a group of boys hit her with a minivan, not slowing down, knowing it was her.Kelby admits that she used to cut and has tried to commit suicide three times now. The family mentions that when Kelbys sexuality came out even the people they were close with had stopped talking to them as well as her.During the school year kids would harass and bully her or sometimes they would just outright ignore her. She mentions how even the teachers would bully her and disclude her from events and even categorize her in a separate roll call list.Her parents have offered to move several times, but Kelby disagrees stating that, If I leave, they win.After Tylers family found him hanging, they decided to repaint and redesign the layout of his room as a way of coping. They also took down the shelf Tyler hung himself on.Alexs mom reveals that he was born prematurely, at about 26 weeks and that the doctors said Alex wouldnt live more than 24 hours.They later on show JaMeya, a 14 year old teenage girl who lives with her mother. She went to school in Yazoo County Mississippi. JaMeya was an honor student who had many awards in basketball as well. The children harassed her mentally and picked on her for quite some time. As this was going on JaMeya was planning on going into the Navy to help out her mother.JaMeya stated she finally had enough and took her mothers gun onto the bus. She didnt want to hurt anyone, just to scare them enough to leave her alone. She was eventually tackled to the ground by another student, who retrieved the gun from her. The police took her away and she was sentenced to juvenile justice.Tylers parents used their sons death to focus on the issue of bullying at the schools in their town. They held a town meeting, trying to find a way to fix the problem and a way to show the schools and the officers that it was a serious problem. The administrators often stated that kids will be kids and the teachers shrugged it off, not really taking a stance on the problem even if they knew of bullying in the classroom.During the town meeting Tylers family arranges another child speaks up about the bullying issue and how the teachers dont pay attention. His name is Devon. Devon had finally taken the chance to stand up for himself and the bullies left him alone and treated him like another kid in the hall.Later they show that all the charges against JaMeya had been dropped, if she would be held in a psychiatric hospital for 3 months. After that she was allowed to go home, unless a doctor stated otherwise.While at home, Alexs father asks what had happened that day at school. Another student strangled him, and was verbally abused as well. He believes these kids are his friends. His younger sister is afraid she will be bullied as well when she attends school.Ty Smalley is a younger child who was bullied relentlessly until he committed suicide at age 11. The school officials claim that bullying wasnt a factor, even though his friend could state otherwise. Trey, his best friend, claims that Ty was extremely sad the last time that he saw him; he said he was crying.They show pieces of Tys funeral and his parents are tucking in their baby one last time. Trey is overcome with emotion and is crying at Tys casket. Trey assists adults in carrying Tys casket.Trey speaks to us on how he used to be a bully when he was in second grade, but as he got older he realized the harm and hurt that he did to people.
Eventually Trey had stated that he wants to be friendly with everyone. He also says that when he would try to stand up for Ty, he would always tell him that, they arent worth it, or, dont be like them, getting Trey to back down.We later see Mr and Mrs. Smalley together and Mr. Smalley is expressing their pain and how they miss their son.We see Kelby rather happy talking about the rain with her current girlfriend. She claims she would not be here, or be able to go to school, without her friends and girlfriend.
She refuses to let her bullies win.Alex is shown being bullied while on the bus. He has been stabbed, punched, and had his life threatened. He claims to not feel anything anymore.The filmmakers, worried about Alexs well-being, showed the footage to the administrators and his parents, and when his parents confronted the administrators, they claimed that there was nothing they could do to help.
Other students are shown lying about what happened, Alex is told to tell someone if he is being bullied again. Alex claims he doesnt because in 6th grade he told adults and nothing was done.We see a few months later JaMeya arriving at home with her mother. She is excited to be home again and states how different everything looks.It is Alexs last day of school. Other students are shown being friendly towards him, signing t-shirts and laughing with him. He makes a comment about how girls are like candy, and you never know what you want.Kelbys parents pulled her out of school because on her first day back, everyone moved their desks to be away from her, showing that nothing had changed at all.Tylers family is later shown hosting rallies to gain awareness for the other children around the world who committed suicide to due bullying. Eventually the father starts and they started an online group and meet others who had children of a similar fate. They started a memorial service called Stand for the Silent to help reach out to children and adults alike to be together on the bullying problem.Kelby, while also in attendance, stands for the support of the fallen children as well. Tys parents set off groups of balloons to symbolize the lost lives throughout the country. They also give out wristbands to help gain awareness for their cause.Tys father stands before the crowd giving a speech, in which he states that he will forever fight against bullies everywhere because, [his] son will be 11 years old forever.

Tags: cruelty, violence, revenge, romantic, prank, sadist, home movie

Review:
Other parents deal with the loss of their child through suicide stemmed from bullying and their efforts to change the school systems and law enforcement that ignore the problem.
Never have we seen bullying in its rawest form, and capturing that on film is one of the hardest, most emotion-testing things one could do with the art form.In the documentary, we follow around five people from all across the U.S. who have encountered bullying in some way or shape in their school.
He is a quiet soul, bottling up his rage and hatred for people and coldly tells the camera "sometimes I want to become the bully." The other two children's stories are told through their parents, because they committed suicide for continuing arrogance to the problem.
The film was released for two weeks with an "Unrated" rating, rejecting the MPAA's suggested rating, before the edited cut, the one now in theaters, was released moderately theatrical with a few of f-words subtracted to try and garner more revenue and viewership.With that being said, the documentary is definitely worthy of recognition and is almost required viewing for not only young children, but parents as well.
"Bully" makes the point that these things will continue until we as a society say that it's not acceptable for anyone to let this to happen to people, especially in settings where children expect to be safe.
"Bully" is a cut and dry example of subject matter superseding the MPAA's fundamentally rigid beliefs of counting the number of F-bombs in a movie.Now, here is my review of "Bully": Like a real time therapy session for anybody who has ever been bullied in school, "The Bully Project" or "Bully" as it has been retitled, may not only be responsible for stirring up more pre-release controversy than any documentary in recent history, but also be one of the timeliest documentaries ever released.
Hirsch films Tyler's parents as they discuss the dire epidemic that is school bullying today, and then we get to see bullying through the eyes of a child in a heartbreaking reality, as Hirsh introduces audiences to Alex, age 12.
And what's worse is Hirsch's depiction of how out of touch the adults are with their children, in conjunction with how seemingly unflinching school administrators act when confronted about bullying in their own schools.Final Thought: Unfortunately at times the subject matter of "Bully" is better than the film itself, even though Hirsch does daring work.
So much of the "emotion" seems staged and forced, almost to the point of whoring out the people involved.Basically, this disjointed documentary follows the lives of a handful of families effected by bullying, all in backwoods towns.
Have experts give testimony as to how to solve the problems, and give advice on what works and doesn't work.As it stands, this film is emotional masturbation for the families victimized by bullying, and that doesn't serve any real purpose other than their own catharsis.
In that sense, "Bully" is a prime example of what's wrong with our society in general - it's very good at identifying problems, pointing fingers and assigning blame, but it's not at all good at proposing solutions.There is also a not so subtle political message - the film implies that bullying only occurs in Republican "Red" states such as Georgia, Oklahoma, Iowa and Mississippi.
However, on the minus side, it gave no suggestions for solutions or possibilities for control, no statements of judgment regarding incompetence or inadequacy of school officials and parents toward ending the bullying, thus I became less involved as the film progressed, as there was no progress made toward anything other than progressively showcasing the bullied kids and what can result if nothing is done about it.A few things I saw that were consistent in the bullied boys were that all their fathers were nice, quiet and perhaps weak men who did not take any action themselves toward ending the bullying, but left it up to the mothers.
Wouldn't anyone seeing those scenes, even those moronic and lazy school officials, think something was wrong and needed immediate and serious correction?Overall, the film was a pretty good slice of life of this serious problem but a pretty bad suggester of possible solutions to it.
But thanks to a school system increasingly filled with ignorance and indifference on children's well-being, parents not standing up for anyone but their own kid, the Internet and texting, bullying has gotten a little worse since when I was in high school.
But by putting it out there for the world to see....to see the ambivalence of the school system and the lack of concern of parents of non-bullied kids...I know it made me wish I could do something.
But I want to sit down with every bullied kid in the world and not simply tell them it gets better, but to try to help them deal with the hell they are in now.
Throughout the film we feel a sense of empathy with these four children, all of whom are in difficult situations.But the real story is about the adults.Throughout the film, parents, school administrators, law enforcement officers, court personnel, and even the school bus driver all encounter children being bullied.
I went to a free screening of this movie and I walked out feeling guilty that I hadn't paid to see it, it's an extremely important and relevant story that all parents, teachers, principals, kids and pretty much everyone should see, in my opinion it should be compulsory viewing in high school, particularly in Australia where school bullying is indeed a big problem.The film is presented as a fly on the wall documentary, it follows about 6 different families and their experiences with bullying, all of these stories are equally important, however I have to say I found the story if Alex an absolutely heartbreaking thing to watch.
One thing that really impressed me about the film was that the filmmakers didn't shy away from presenting it how it is, and I'm glad they had the guts to show the problem in a realistic way, and not get too preachy, considering this film is from America I thought it would be full of religious propaganda but thankfully it wasn't.The principal in alex's story should be ashamed of herself, I don't know how these people get these jobs, her screen time is minimal but it was enough to make you realize that the school system is ridiculous and the staff they hire are incompetent.This really is a hard film to review, it really just needs to be seen, I strongly advise everyone to watch it, I'd you can't get through it unmoved, you mustn't have a soul.
We know it can happen in private schools too but the problem tends to be smaller in those schools, as the parents have paying power and can stop paying into the private school if their kid was bullied, or afford other alternatives like homeschooling/tutors or charter schools etc.
If they'd wanted this documentary to have real impact, they needed to choose more relatable, realistic examples and shoot in bigger school districts where bullying is far more prevalent and life-changing.
Stopping the behavior is also far more involved than just having a rally here and there and showing pictures of deceased kids who died needlessly because they were not taught how to stand up for themselves -- I mean, seriously, if your child isn't mentally equipped to handle being bullied, do they have any real chance of surviving the real world?
The documentary does nothing to address educating parents of these weak kids on what they need to do to make their own kids stronger and less likely to be bullied.
Some stuff simply makes you want to punch those bullies, or the teachers/officers/principal who let this happen - they can easily stop the bullying (by punishing them), but instead they do nothing.The film shows you how far the results can go - up the the point of little kids killings themselves.
The director really wanted people to see and understand that bullying happens everywhere and some of the teachers just don't care or sometimes they don't believe the student when they tell them.In the beginning of the movie they started with a boy named Tyler, he had been bullied to the point where he took his own life.
One thing that stood out during the film was that it showed that bullying is a real problem that needs to be solved.
The film opens with part of the heartbreaking story of Tyler Long, a 17 year old that committed suicide because he was constantly bullied at his school in Murray County, Georgia.
I wasn't bullied like the kids in this movie, and so far, my kid is not either, but it WILL effect and touch you just the same.I confess, I kind of avoided watching it for a while thinking I just wasn't in the mood for it, but once I started, I couldn't stop, and I wish it had been twice as long.
If this is so, then it certainly gave this viewer the impression that there actually might be a direct correlation between the act of bible-thumping and the desire to be a nasty, little bully.Of course, there can be no denying that this decidedly cruel business of bullying is a mighty tough and touchy subject to tackle and deal with both in an objective and responsible manner.For one thing, producing a documentary (like this one) that completely concentrates on the victims of this viciousness only results in an imbalanced viewpoint and doesn't offer one any reasonable solutions to the problem.What a documentary of this one's nature really needs to do (and this one didn't) is to offer the viewer some clear insight into the motives of bullies and, with hidden cameras (of course, a big no-no), go into the homes of these bullying culprits to expose what it is there that breeds this sort of behaviour from behind closed doors.Though I believe that this documentary was made with the very best of intentions in mind, one of Bully's main problems was its inability to hold its audience's rapt attention, throughout.
Patton ("Americans love a winner, and will not tolerate a loser.") and NFL coach Vince Lombardi ("Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing").People in authority, as the film shows, often don't take the kind of proactive steps to stop bullying that the parents of those victimized do, and thus seem to sanction the bullying—much of the times, that abuse is more verbal than physical, with the use of sexual, racial, and homophobic slurs.
I also believe the schools need to be tougher, because honestly, does anyone really think that giving a bully detention, telling them they're not nice, and that their hurting other kids really does anything?
But people that have been bullied before, may find this film a little frustrating and lacking since the conclusion implies that children need to tolerate living in a world where they are constantly denied of justice.
This doc named "Bully" follows different stories of kids all around the country it captures footage of actual cases at schools and interviews with the kids and parents, it's sad to hear of kids be driven to suicide over bullying.
This is a documentary where I couldn't help but be moved and feel for the people that got bullied in this film.
It's heart-breaking, heart-wrenching, hard-to-watch-but-impossible-to-look-away documentary film-making.As someone who was bullied throughout my time in school, this is a picture I waited eagerly to see.
The three remaining stories are as follows: Ja'Meya, 14, of Mississippi, grew so frustrated with the constant torment of her peers that she brought her mother's gun with her on a school bus and was incarcerated in a juvenile facility as a result of her actions; Kelby, 16, from Oklahoma, is an "out" lesbian who is the butt of cruel jokes not just from her other classmates, but teachers, as well; and finally Alex (whom the film spends the most time with), 12, of Iowa, is called "fish-face" by his peers, is a socially awkward loner, a victim of some particularly cruel mental and physical abuse, and can barely contain his rage when he coldly informs the camera, "...They...
I also understand that documentaries themselves are many times inherently biased (supposedly to help them prove their point) in some way, but, reflecting back on it, I think it would have been quite informative to at least hear why some bullies feel the need to prey on others and why they do what they do to make someone else suffer.The way I see it, the strong love to prey on the weak, and no one ever really does a damn thing about it.
Hirsch's documentary focuses on three young students who have been subjected to merciless verbal and physical attacks during the school year and on the parents of two victims who committed suicide as the only way they could see to end their torment.The film opens with a look at the grieving parents of Tyler Long of Murray County in Georgia watching home videos of their son when he was a little boy.
The Longs have become activists, organizing town meetings to let other parents know how the school system failed in its responsibility to protect their son.In another tragic situation, we see Kirk and Laura Smalley of Perkins, Oklahoma as they attend the funeral of their eleven-year-old son Ty who committed suicide after being relentlessly bullied for a long time.
It tells the story about a man named David Long and his wife named Tina Long who are doing their utmost to keep the voice of their 17-year-old son named Tyler alive, a woman named Laura and her husband Kirk who are doing the same for their 11-year-old son named Ty and a 12-year-old boy from Sioux City, Iowa named Alex who is being bullied regularly both on the school bus and at his school whilst his younger sister is being bullied because he is her brother, a 16-year-old girl named Kelby and a 14-year-old South-African-American girl named Ja'meya from Sioux City, Mississippi who has been marred by similar experiences.Finely and subtly directed by American filmmaker Lee Hirsch, this finely tuned documentary feature which is narrated by the children and their parents, from multiple viewpoints and through interviews with friends and school officials, draws a humane and intimate portrayal of bullying and how it affects the children who are exposed to it, their education, their families, other students, teachers and communities.
While notable for it's naturalistic milieu depictions, fine cinematography by Lee Hirsh and unsettling scenes of bullying, this mindful examination of a global theme contains a good score by American composer Ion Michael Furjanic and American indie rock band Bishop Allen.This conversational activist independent film which is set on various schools in the United States of America during the late 2000s and where parents who have suffered loss are constantly worried about their children, their safety and whether or not the schoolteachers are listening to them and doing anything to prevent the ongoing harassment of their children, is impelled and reinforced by it's fragmented narrative structure, poignant comment by a 14-year-old boy who experienced losing one of his friends who was a victim of bullying, interrelated stories, home-video recordings and use of music.
Hirsch has said that he was bullied as a child and that was his main inspiration for the film; he wanted to show the world what it's like to be a bullied child in hopes of working towards a solution for the problem.The documentary was filmed during the school year of 2009/2010 at high schools in Georgia, Iowa, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma.
The film also pays special attention to the families of two students (Tyler Long and Ty Smalley) who committed suicide due to bullying that school year.
Those kids who don't have the strength to shake it off or stand up for themselves have simply accepted it as an everyday occurrence, bring weapons in defense of themselves, or have gone so far as to kill themselves, seeing no other way out.Bullying is an important issue that a lot of people acknowledge, but few seem to genuinely take action against.
I personally think this was nothing more than smart publicity because even though you feel sorry for the kids in this movie BULLY just falls into a trap with so many recent documentaries in the fact that it shines the spotlight on a subject but then does very little with it.
That, and my wife and my other kids." The Longs take action, organizing a town-hall meeting to address the ways in which the school system failed to protect their son.Later in the film, we meet Perkins, Oklahoma residents Kirk and Laura Smalley as they attend the funeral of their eleven-year-old son, Ty, who also committed suicide after years of bullying.
An overarching theme throughout is that society as a whole actually promotes those who are aggressive and the subtext in the film is that school officials are often tacitly behind the abuse of kids who do not fit the mold or are completely inept in dealing with the situation, they themselves just cogs in a hierarchical machine.While it is true that the first and only real line of defense against bullying is from the victim's family, there are a few problems with the above 1) What happens if for whatever reason the parents do not provide the support that the child needs to stand up for himself?
Yet when the exact same act is perpetrated on children by children, no one acts.The film is very good because it shows several different scenarios of bullying, from kids who committed suicide to those who are dealing with it.
One child's parents tell her about the bullying occurring on the bus, after watching videos of it happen, and her response is that the kids on his bus are good as gold.
What I love about the film is that they show that in fact, schools do really do care for the children, and are indeed trying to stop bullying from happening.