Bully

by Tyler Darke

      Bully was a touching, insightful documentary that brought attention to a severely underestimated issue in our society. Bullying is something we are all familiar with, whether we have been the subject of it, or we have just witnessed it. It is generally not taken very seriously due to how common it is. Many people shrug it off as part of childhood that everyone will be exposed to. They assume that it is just a stage in development, and that children who are subject to bullying will simply grow out of it at some point in their lives. Bully highlights the ignorance of these assumptions through real examples of how detrimental bullying has been to countless children.

      As our first documentary, I would like to take a different approach to reviewing this film, as you may have already noticed. While stylistic elements are important in any film, I believe they are less crucial in documentaries. For me, the power of documentaries comes from the content, and that is what I intend to focus on.

      I appreciated the variety of experiences that Bully presented. They did not compile a documentary of repetitive stories. There was variation in the effects that various families experienced through bullying. One family had to deal with the tragic loss of their son, while in another story, a mother was facing a possible life sentence in prison for her daughter who retaliated in the face of bullying. We get to see that there is no one way that all families are affected by bullying. Every family has a different, tragic experience. 

      It was extremely unfortunate to see how lightly school officials were taking the subject. They speak to concerned parents as if there is nothing they could possibly do to help them. They hear countless stories from students about their experiences with bullying, yet they only take very minor action. It was scary to see how helpless these children were. They turned to every adult they could for help, and nobody offered a solution. Many offered the same, cookie-cutter answers that solved nothing.

      I was shocked to see how severe this situation has become in our own country. I had heard some horror stories about bullying, but I never realized how few options children being bullied really have. Bully should be shown in every school in the country and at least recommended for parents. We have to find a solution for this epidemic that has proven to be detrimental to children in our society. Bully did a fantastic job of concisely explaining the severity of this situation, and I would highly recommend it. 9/10