Bully on You — Part Two
by James Killough
Please read Part One first.
In between the time I posted the first part of this series and now, Harvey Weinstein managed to browbeat the Motion Picture Association of America into lowering its rating for Bully from R to PG-13 following a petition signed by over half a million students nationwide. This means the film can now be shown in schools, the most appropriate and effective venues to screen it in. In terms of social benefit, this might be Weinstein’s worthiest victory ever.
Gawker.com, one of the more vicious gladiators in the vast free-for-all of opinion websites, was as wantonly unkind about this landmark reversal as it was when it ran a piece a couple of days ago effectively trashing Mike Wallace’s career just after he died. Gawker insists that Bully isn’t really for teenagers, but I don’t agree; as I said in part one of this series, it’s a feature-length public service announcement. Teenagers should be its primary audience.