Bully

By Harry McPhaul

Bully was one of the best documentaries I have ever seen.  Most documentaries are a product of an issue that the filmmaker is has passion towards.  This is what makes them so well done and insightful.  A great documentary should show footage of the issue that is being discussed as well as interviewing individuals who are either experts or someone who experienced it.  Bully does this exceptionally well. 

One of the aspects of film that I thought properly displayed the experience of someone being bullied was to show each one of the children telling parts of their stories throughout the film.  It did not focus on one child then go right to the next.  By doing this the audience can pick up some similarities between each situation.  I also liked how they chose not to emphasize on one type of bullying.

 As we all know they are many forms of bullying or hazing.  The most common I think is kids being picked on at school for looking or acting different.  This film covers that side of bullying along with children being taunted for being openly gay and from child who had finally had enough.  The number of perspectives we see helps to build this view that schools are not doing all they can to protect children.  This seemed to be the most common theme in all the lives the film chose to follow.

Every school had pretty much the same answer which was along of the lines of we will look into it.  This meant that they were not going to do anything about the bullying accruing at their school.   There were countless instances of parents telling the school officials that they have been complaining about the safety of the children for months and nothing has happened.  Even law enforcement in some cities was not doing anything even after being told what was going on.  Hopefully they had the chance to view this film and see how poorly their actions were and that they could have saved a life or lives.  

This film was simply captivating in that it showed how flawed some school systems are toward bullying.  Another reason why I liked this documentary was that it did not focus on the bully too often.   It was more about the results of bullying.   It also did not share the perspective of the bully or why the bully was acting that way.  I liked this idea because it shows that there is no excuse for bullying.    This documentary was one of the best of all time.  I would highly recommend it and give it a 10/10.