A Must-See Documentary

If you haven't heard about BULLY, it's the groundbreaking new film about bullying in America. In the United States, 13 million children will be bullied this year. It's a mounting problem and one I've focused several posts on including highlighting the wonderful "It Gets Better" campaign.

BULLY is a documentary that has just released in select theaters nationwide. The film-maker even stressed that, at times, she was completely incapable of stopping the bullying happening right before her and often times in public places like a school bus or playground. Typically in documentaries, the film-maker is meant to simply observe but the atrocities highlighted were simply too substantial not to bring to the direct attention of school officials.

These are children bullied for being different, told to hang themselves or that they are worthless. There's the story of a girl who came out as lesbian and became so unsafe at her school she needed to drop out and enroll miles from home at an urban city school where she could start anew. As adults we seem to valorize people for being different but that's not always the case among children. Still, whether one of a kind or within the crowd, no one deserves this kind of punishment and as adults, we are failing our children and the next generation. Together, we need to be good examples ourselves and deter this kind of behavior at every opportunity. We have to recognize that bullying takes many forms and that no one is immune, that saying that "they're just kids" or "boys will be boys" are horrible excuses that simply allow bullying to happen.

I applaud the Weinstein Company for supporting such an important film and I hope you consider seeing it or supporting anti-bullying efforts in your community. Here's the trailer: