Maria Miller

Editor-in-Chief

Running from May 1st to May 10th at Maiden Alley Cinema is the award-winning documentary BULLY directed by Lee Hirsch.  The film is strikingly intense, following the stories of five bully victims and their families.  Two families, Kirk and Laura Smalley and David and Tina Long, had children who committed suicide because of bullying. 

The film was released to select theaters on April 23.  In order to get BULLY to Paducah, community members had to vote for BULLY on an online competition conducted by the film’s producers.  Paducah got it, and the director of the film, Lee Hirsch, even came to a showing on Friday evening, May 4, for discussion and a question and answer session. 

BULLY is an extremely controversial documentary.  The film originally was rated R for language, but the producers of the film finally were allowed to rate the film PG-13 after public pressure from BULLY supporters. Hirsch, in the fight for a PG-13, stated on the MPAA’s rating standards:  “I’m no expert on the MPAA, and there’s lots of big issues, but one thing I realized is there’s a great hypocrisy in allowing films that glorify -- and even sexify -- violence to get PG and PG-13 ratings time and time and time again.  And for them to then bring down the hammer on a film like this, on behalf of family values, seems to me totally out of whack." 

Perhaps the most controversial scene happens on the bus when 12 year old Alex is physically accosted. The camera captures Alex getting physically bullied on the bus by two or three of his “friends.”  He gets stabbed with a pencil, his head is knocked into the seat, he gets pushed, shoved, and called names.

For more information on BULLY, visit http://www.thebullyproject.com/indexflash.html#