Have you ever heard those words?
“Bully,” is the documentary by Lee Hirsch which addresses
the tragedy of teenage children bullying other teens. While bullying is often seen as physical
abuse, the film shows that words are just as powerful. Bully aims to show what teen bullying looks
like in America, focusing on five families in Iowa, Oklahoma, Georgia and
Mississippi, coping with bullying and the consequences of bullying. And the consequences can be devastating, as
shown by two of the families who lost their sons to suicide.
The movie comes at a time when “bullying,” long tolerated as
a fact of life, is being redefined as a social problem. Nevertheless, there are those who still
respond (and critics who attack the film) that the issue is over-blown and that
what is depicted is just part of growing up.
Ironically, that is the very heart of the film, which clearly demonstrates
that unless we change our view that it is “just part of growing up,” we will
have more children and their families who are forever changed by these acts of “kids
being kids.”
Bully is a heartbreaking, moving, infuriating, and powerful
film which is a must see for those children
in middle and high-school and their parents. Bully will make you cry and make you
angry. Angry not so much at the bullies and
the cruelty and tragic consequences of the bullying, but at the school administrators
and other adults who turn a blind eye to the bullying and say “what can I do,” “just
kids being kids,” and "just part of growing up.” You are confronted by adults who empathize
more with the bullies than the victims.
If that doesn’t make your blood boil, then you likely were a bully
yourself.
Some have criticized the film for not focusing more on the bullies. Aside from the difficulty of getting the parents of bullies to allow their children to be shown bullying, the broader message is that adults are as much of the problem as are the children. Bully is really about the victims, their parents and the adults who let them down.
Just how blind can adults be? The first parents we meet are Kirk and Laura
Smalley from a small town in Oklahoma. Their
11-year-old son, Ty, committed suicide due to bullying; which leaves behind devastated
parents and a devoted best friend, but little if anything by those who should
be there to protect him. In Georgia, we
are presented with a school superintendent that adamantly denies that bullying
is a problem in her district, notwithstanding the suicide of Tyler Long, a
17-year-old student who took his life after enduring years of harassment and
ostracism.
The heart of the movie Bully is 12-year-old Alex Libby; a
gangly, awkward, yet innocent Sioux City, Iowa boy. Before filmmaker Lee Hirsch began shooting
the documentary "Bully," he walked into a school board meeting in
Sioux City, Iowa, and asked for permission to film students and staff for a
year while retaining full editorial control.
"We need to be in buses, classrooms, in the halls for one year," Hirsch recalls telling officials that evening in 2008. "And we're going to tell an honest story about what we find. And they agreed."
Bully documents the intensity of Alex's abuse, particularly
on the bus. Hirsch's cameras captured
kids stabbing him with pencils, bashing his head into seats, and threatening to
kill him. Things got so outrageous and dire
that Hirsch ultimately showed the more disturbing footage to staff members at
Sioux City's East Middle School and to Alex's parents.
And if Alex is the heart of the film, then Kim Lockwood, the
assistant principle at Alex’s school is the ultimate villain. As depicted in film, Lockwood is one of many
adults who do nothing in the face of blatant student harassment. When a student at her school tells Lockwood
that he had been getting death threats from other students, Lockwood didn’t
offer counseling or any substantive resolution to the conflict. Instead, she suggests that he shake hands with
his tormentor and move on. She goes so
far as to criticize the victim of the abuse for not wanting to shake hands with
his bully by saying “You’re just like him.”
The poor child shoots back, ‘Cept I don’t hurt people,” which simply
falls on the deaf ears of Ms. Lockwood.
However audiences of the film are not silent and scream aloud at Ms. Lockwood.
I wanted to ask Ms. Lockwood if she had
been raped, would she shake hands with her rapist?
Later, Ms. Lockwood goes so far as to blame the bullied
students for not fixing the situation themselves. That Ms. Lockwood doesn’t even pretend to
take the parents’ complaints seriously, while on camera, just demonstrates how
little she cares about addressing the issue of bullying. Just how oblivious is she? In a deeply disturbing and surreal scene in
her office, Ms. Lockwood tries to empathize with Alex’s family when confronted with
film showing Alex being brutally attacked while on a school bus, she responds
that she had ridden on that particular bus route and that “Those kids are as
good as gold.” She then concludes by
showing Alex’s parents pictures of her granddaughter and saying, “See my baby?” “Who would want to hurt these Angels?”
At this point, moviegoers are left to gasp in horror and
hoot with derision at Ms. Lockwood. However
much we might despise and hate Ms. Lockwood, the point is that she is not the
only scapegoat. Unfortunately, there are
Kim Lockwoods in every school district across the country. Denying that there is a problem or saying that
you are powerless to stop it, are no longer acceptable excuses. We must all expose and hold those accountable
for allowing a culture of bullying to continue.
Bullying need not be a part of “just growing up.” Children should not be forced to accept abuse
and mistreatment as some sort of “coming of age ritual” and those adults who
allow cruel and horrific treatment of children to continue must be punished. As a pastor says in one poignant moment in
the film: “If bartenders are responsible for their customers' intoxication,
then why can't administrators be held accountable for bullying in their school?”
It reminds me of my own experiences in junior-high school
where the “gym teacher” lined up kids and allowed the two “captains” to pick
their team out of the assembled line-up until there was but one man
standing. Who could not see how cruel
and devastating that is for those always chosen last? And what kind of adult gets off on that power
and allowing that to happen to kids?
When I told this story to a famous Hollywood agent and how shocked I was
by this, he said “that is what decides who the winners and losers in life are.” Needless to say I totally disagreed and think
that it is that sort of attitude is which fosters and allows bullying to continue. There are no winners when children abuse
other children and adults stand by and do nothing. Just ask the parents in the film.
