You don’t need me to explain to you how Harvey Weinstein is half huckster-genius and half megalomaniac witch doctor (even though I have, again and again and again). Find all the evidence you need in Thursday’s announcement that Bully — the “controversial” documentary chronicling America’s bullying epidemic — would finally receive the PG-13 rating it so conspicuously sought from the MPAA. The best part: It won’t even have to trim the offending scene at the heart of all the publicity to date. Surprise! Suckers.
The MPAA won’t even insist on the customary 90-day window between R- and PG-13-rated versions. Great! No one will ever accuse them of making it up as they go along ever again! From a Weinstein Company press release:
The Weinstein Company aided by the guidance and consultation from attorneys David Boies and Ted Olson, announced today that the MPAA has lowered the R rating, given for some language, for BULLY to a PG-13 in time for the film’s April 13th expansion to 55 markets. The scene that has been at the forefront of the battle with the MPAA, the intense scene in the film that shows teen Alex Libby being bullied and harassed on a bus, has been left fully intact and unedited. BULLY director Lee Hirsch felt editing the scene was not an option, and subsequently refused to do so, since it is too important to the truth and integrity behind the film. Also a victory is the exception the MPAA made by allowing the film to be released with the new rating before 90 days, which is the length of time their policy states a film must wait to be in theaters after a
…
Full Story »
Their five-time Oscar winner The Artist may have just experienced its most lucrative weekend at the box office to date, but newly installed Legionnaire of Honor Harvey Weinstein and his Weinstein Co. minions remain firmly focused today on the Great Bully Ratings Non-troversy of 2012. How do we know? To Twitter, where #BullyMovie is this morning’s highest-ranking (promoted, ahem) trending topic.
Here’s the official shout-out from the Bully gang, carrying over last week’s “human rights” crusade to get the Weinstein release’s R-rating reduced to a PG-13.
Wildfire petition to tell the @MPAA to give @bullymovie a PG-13 breaks 180,000 RT to keep the fire!bit.ly/AbQWZ1 #bullymovie
— Bully Movie(@bullymovie) March 2, 2012
So how’s the response? Mostly positive, naturally, with a few contrarian opinions and hilarious misunderstandings thrown in for good measure:
#BullyMovie needs to be PG13. #MiddleFingerUp to the bullies at the MPAA who rated this important film R.
— Extrovert (@RamiTime) March 5, 2012
I’m curious about #BullyMovie. Does it only look at the victims?Because the bullies themselves are almost always victims of bullies as well.
— Scott S Kramer (@scottskramer) March 5, 2012
If @WeinsteinFilms cannot change the R rating to #BullyMovie then no one can. Seriously, they made “The Artist” won best picture.
— Natalia Cariaga (@natajunk) March 5, 2012
Sorry guys, but this #BullyMovie isn’t going to stop bullying any more than “Roots” and “The Color Purple” stopped racism.
…
Full Story »You’ve heard about Bully, right? The anti-bullying documentary featuring real video of real teenage bullies tormenting real peers, interspersed with experts and victims alike expounding on our ongoing bullying epidemic? Of course you have, because when The Weinstein Company wasn’t shoving its 2012 Oscar crop down your throat, it was protesting way too much about a ratings “controversy” that would require youngsters under 17 to attend the doc with a parent or guardian. God forbid! Because the last thing we want is parents and teens watching and ideally discussing a film about bullying, right?
I privately vowed not to succumb to this most ironic of Weinsteinian pursuits: The most legendary bully of the modern Hollywood era releasing a movie about bullies, and then publicly bullying the MPAA over the last week with his outraged! Campaign! To overturn Bully’s R rating for language! For the children! No, really: “I have been compelled by the filmmakers and the children to fight for an exception,” Weinstein said in a statement. “[...] I want every child, parent, and educator in America to see Bully, so it is imperative for us to gain a PG-13 rating.” That was followed by a riotous threat to take “a leave of absence from the MPAA” after the rating was upheld on appeal (by reportedly one vote, which was awfully convenient for the press-release narrative, but hey). Such altruism, Harvey, seriously.
But what do we do when commentators as smart and influential as Andrew Sullivan are taking Harvey’s bait not once, not twice but three times, or when the tired, transparent King’s Speech/Blue Valentine-esque gambits that evoke Harvey’s singular…
Full Story »
