After several weeks of the MPAA essentially sitting on Bully, slapping the documentary with its own hands, and saying, “Stop censoring yourself, stop censoring yourself,” The Weinstein Company has opted to give up on its quest for a PG-13 and release the film unrated—which is sort of the equivalent of just pulling their kid out of gym class. Or not really, we guess, as the Weinsteins’ decision was born of necessity rather than cowardice or noogies: As previously reported, the MPAA refused to budge on its R rating for Bully’s excessive profanity, hoping to spare young people from being exposed to the harmful foul language that they themselves were filmed saying.
And despite a campaign by Harvey Weinstein, director Lee Hirsch, and one of the film’s subjects to lower the rating, thereby allowing Bully to reach the very teens it’s about, the MPAA ultimately overruled their appeal by one vote, leaving it up to the theaters as to whether they want to expose innocent children to the horrible behavior of innocent children. “We believe theater owners everywhere will step up and do what’s right for the benefit of all of the children out there who have been bullied or may have otherwise become bullies themselves,” The Weinstein Company’s Stephen Bruno said in a statement, presumably while holding theater owners’ homework over a sewer grate.