Opinion: This Article is Not Yet Rated by Ryan Szantyr

There’s a new documentary film set to be released fairly soon called “Bully.” The film, as one could predict, deals with bullying. Lee Hirsch, the film’s director, was himself bullied as a child and wanted to present a film which dealt openly with the effects of bullying, both from the standpoint of the victim and the bully himself. 

Hirsch has said his goal with the film was to “[inspire] advocacy, engagement, and empowerment not just in people who are being bullied and in their families, but by those of us who all too often stand by and do nothing.”

The documentary’s main audience are children––children who bully, who are bullied, and who do nothing while their peers are bullied. However, one thing might prevent the film’s most important audience from seeing it: its rating. 

We all know the ratings: G means anyone can see a movie, PG means anyone can see it, though parental guidance is advised for younger children, PG-13 means parental guidance is strongly advised for children under 13, R means no person under 17 can see the film without an accompanying adult, and NC-17 means no person under 17 can see the film at all. 

The organization responsible for these ratings? The Motion Picture Association of America, or MPAA. They’re also responsible for the green screen you see at the beginning of the previews which says “This preview has been APPROVED FOR ALL AUDIENCES.” The MPAA also decides the ratings for the films you see (or, if you’re under 17, might not see). 

“Bully” has received an R-rating, due to language. The kids in the film speak how kids speak––they swear. Now, the MPAA has pretty clear rules about swearing: if a movie uses a bad word (like the f-word) one to four times, then it can get a PG-13 rating, depending, of course, on the context. “Bully” uses such words more than four times, so one can assume that it should get an R-rating. 

But the rule has an exception: a documentary called “Gunner Palace,” about the War in Iraq. That film has 42 uses of the f-word in it, yet it got a PG-13 rating. How? The reason given by the MPAA is that the documentary “shows real life in the army overseas and the importance of the younger audiences to connect and understand what soldiers have to go through.” The MPAA also said “considering the combat conditions facing the human subjects of a war documentary, the language, while strong, did not constitute gratuitous profanity.”

The filmmakers of “Bully” have now presented the film in front of the MPAA twice, hoping for them to accommodate the strong language in light of the film’s important message, and that message’s importance to children. The MPAA, however, has upheld its R-rating. 

In reaction to the film’s R-rating, Harvey Weinstein, one of the film’s distributors, has decided to release the film unrated. While some may believe this solves the problem, the MPAA works in league with the National Association of Theater Owners (NATO), and unrated films are rarely shown at NATO-backed theaters, which mean just about every mainstream theater a kid would have access to. 

The fact that “Gunner Palace” can get a PG-13 rating despite its strong language yet “Bully” cannot is, in my opinion, appalling. Why can’t the MPAA acknowledge that the film shows the importance of the younger audiences to connect with and understand each other in order to try to stop bullying, just as they acknowledged the importance of “Gunner Palace” in showing the importance of younger audiences in connecting with and understanding what soldiers have to go through? 

Ultimately, “Bully” is being bullied. It is a film which should be seen by every kid, yet because of flimsy and crude rules, most of its audience will not be able to see it.