Of course it’s too much for kids to see. It’s also too much for kids to live through, walk through, ride the bus with, and go to school with. That’s why they made the movie.
NPR’s Linda Holmes, on the documentary Bully being rated “R,” effectively making it off-limits to many of those who need to see it most. It’s highly unlikely that schools will arrange or permit screenings of an R-rated film, and schools are precisely where this one needs to be seen. “The entire point of this film is that kids do not live with the protection we often believe they do — many of them live in a terrifying, isolating war zone, and if you hide what it’s like, if you lie about what they’re experiencing, you destroy what is there to be learned.”
And you lose your credibility, and any chance of appearing to understand what it’s like to be that kid living in that world. And you send the message that it’s more important to show your prim disapproval of profane language than it is to protect children who are having that language hissed at them and used to describe them. Ridiculous and disgraceful.
MPAA is broken
And you lose your credibility, and any chance of appearing to understand what it’s like to be that kid living in that world. And you send the message that it’s more important to show your prim disapproval of profane language than it is to protect children who are having that language hissed at them and used to describe them. Ridiculous and disgraceful.
MPAA is broken and needs to be fixed. In the meantime, we can demand a common-sense rating for this film.