We at AddALinkOfCharm have for the last 5 years have provided Medical Alert Bracelets to Children of all ages with all kinds of Medical issues & Developmental Disabilities. Parents have shared with us time after time the horror stories of how their children have been bullied and treated!
We want to share with you this issue which in the hands of The MPAA presently on ”The upcoming documentary Bully” Please find below a portion of this well written story, in hopes that folks like you and myself will share your opinions so that Maybe just maybe The MPAA will really hear and decide the “right way” on this decision to change the rating on this production to PG-13.
The Following Story which is on the Forbes Website
Mark Hughes, Contributor A former media specialist & campaign ad writer, That also works as a screenwriter for film & TV.
Why The MPAA Needs To Change The Rating For ‘Bully’ – UPDATED
Bullying has always been a problem in society, but today, the Internet and the prevalence of cell phones allows bullies newfound ways to increase and spread their torment of others. This has been especially hard for at-risk teens, including gay teens (for whom suicide rates are increasing globally). According to the CDC, suicide is the third leading cause of death in young people aged 15 to 24, and there are between 100 and 200 attempted suicides for every successful suicide. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth are four times more likely to attempt suicide, and a shocking one in four transgender youth attempt suicide. These statistics highlight just how much bullying plays a serious role in threatening the safety and lives of young people today.
I’ve no doubt that a frank discuss of bullying, including footage of kids who are bullied and kids who do the bullying, will include profanity and harsh discussions at times. However, the MPAA routinely gives out PG or PG-13 ratings to films with plenty of profanity — including even the “F-bomb” — and vulgar sexual humor, nudity, and so on. The Other Guys, for example, was a PG-13 movie that had a lot of sexual humor and profanity, including increasingly crude descriptions by a mother of what her daughter wants to do sexually with her estranged husband. A recent study, in fact, found that the MPAA has been particularly and increasingly lenient about allowing violence in PG-13 films. We can all of course think of plenty of films that include high body counts and depict plenty of bloodshed for our children to witness, a reflection of how the odd prudishness in this country toward “naughty words” and nudity isn’t matched by an equal degree of concern about murder and beatings on film.
My point is, the same MPAA that’s trying to prevent younger audiences from seeing Bully has no problem making other films accessible to children despite graphic violence, strong and pervasive sexual content, and other supposedly objectionable material. Does it have anything to do, by chance, with the inclusions of a message against homophobia in the documentary film? I’ve noticed that films with homosexual relationships or depictions of anything approaching gay intimacy are given a much stricter treatment by the MPAA (similar to the double-standard they exhibit with regard to female nudity being more permissible, while male nudity is almost a guaranteed R-rating). If any of the people responsible for rating films is allowing bias regarding Bully‘s content to influence their decision about the rating, they need to either rethink their position or simply recuse themselves from the matter entirely. I hope this isn’t an issue, but I fear it might very well be.
There is much more included in the above story-read the entire story here to find out more!
The film shows that we have become the bullies. Do you consider this thought to be possible? Have you every been a bullie or have you been on the receiving end of being picked on?
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