http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/bulle/2012/03/bully_document
ary_lee_hirsch_s_film_dangerously_oversimplifies_the_connection_between_bull
ying_and_suicide_.single.html


[I do not entirely agree]


Bully documentary: Lee Hirsch's film dangerously oversimplifies the
connection between bullying and suicide.
 
By Emily Bazelon | Posted Thursday, March 29, 2012, at 6:44 PM ET
 
| Posted Thursday, March 29, 2012, at 6:44 PM ET
 

Slate.com
 





The Problem With Bully 

The new documentary dangerously oversimplifies the connection between
bullying and suicide.
 



The movie Bully 


What do you say about a documentary that could do some good-and also a lot
of harm? That's how I feel about Bully, the new documentary by Lee Hirsch
that has already received a lot of attention because the MPAA gave it an
unwarranted R rating, on account of a few curse words. (The movie is now
being released unrated, and at least one major exhibitor has said it will
admit children under 17 if they bring a note from their parents.) I was
prepared to love this movie for offering an in-depth take on a difficult
problem that I've been covering for a few years. And I did love parts of
it-the parts about children who face troubles from their peers but also show
inspiring resilience. But the movie's depiction of a boy who committed
suicide is utterly one-sided, factually questionable, and could pose a real
risk to some vulnerable young viewers.*
 

First, the good parts. Hirsch's most affecting character is 12-year-old
Alex, a sweet, odd boy from Sioux City, Iowa. We see disturbing, raw footage
of Alex being bullied on the bus, and we see the administrators and guidance
counselors at his school fail to help him, at least at first. It's one of
the best depictions I've seen of how well-intentioned educators can be
overwhelmed by the day-to-day dilemmas that bullying poses for them. There
is much for kids, parents, and school staff to learn here about how small
cruelties add up and should be addressed, and I hope this part of the movie
spurs a lot of discussion and soul-searching about how to help targeted
kids.
 

I also loved another of Hirsch's main characters, Kelby, the 16-year-old
girl from Oklahoma who comes out, finds a note in her locker that says
"faggots aren't welcome here," and bounces back because of her strong
relationships with her friends and family. The movie similarly benefits from
the storyline of Ja'Meya, a 14-year-old in Mississippi who brings a gun on
the bus after being taunted and is charged with 45 felony counts. Good for
Hirsch for taking on the problem of disproportionate punishment.
 

I wish I could also laud his approach to suicide, but I can't. At the heart
of the documentary are the deaths of two boys, 11-year-old Ty Smalley and
17-year-old Tyler Long. Hirsch dwells on the Long narrative, in a drawn-out
opening sequence narrated by Long's father and in several other painful
scenes. We see home video of Tyler growing up in Murray County, Ga. We see
his parents at his gravesite. We hear that bullying-and bullying
alone-caused his death. We see a town hall meeting at which Tyler's mother
blasts the police officer stationed at his school, Murray County High, for
failing to help her son.
 

What we don't see is Tyler's mental health history. Here's some of what's
missing. Tyler, who died when he was a junior, was diagnosed with ADHD,
bipolar disorder, and Asperger's (autism with a normal to high IQ) in sixth
grade. Five weeks before his death, Tyler's father found him in his room
"messing" with belts and asked his son if he was contemplating suicide.
Tyler said no, and his parents believed him. About two weeks later, however,
on Sept. 25, 2009, the Longs took Tyler to see a psychologist, at least in
part because he wanted to go. Tyler's parents, Tina and David, didn't tell
the psychologist about their suicide concerns or report that their son was
being mistreated in school, even though the psychologist asked about this
specifically. (The Longs also didn't tell the school that Tyler might be
suicidal, or that he'd gone for counseling.)
 

The Longs scheduled a follow-up appointment with the psychologist for Tyler
on Oct. 12., five days before Tyler's death. Tyler didn't show up. The
reason, his mother said later, was that he had totaled his car. A couple of
other facts that could be relevant to Tyler's mental health state: He had a
girlfriend in fall 2009 who broke up with him. Also in September, his
parents pulled him from all of his honors and AP classes, where he had high
marks, to make sure he could keep up his grades and remain eligible for
Georgia's Hope Scholarship, which helps pay for college at in-state
universities.
 

These facts all come from a brief filed by the Murray County school district
in response to a lawsuit filed by Long's family, which blames school
officials for Tyler's death and demands $1.7 million in damages. The
family's brief in response doesn't dispute these facts, saying instead that
they are "irrelevant and immaterial." You will learn none of this from
watching Bully.
 

I asked Hirsch why he didn't mention Tyler's diagnoses. "I really felt that
by not disclosing it, we wouldn't allow the audience to prejudge," he said.
"It was a decision we thought about a lot. Ultimately, we thought the film
would be more powerful without it."
To Ann Haas, a senior project specialist for the American Foundation for
Suicide Prevention, this was a serious error. When I played Bully for Haas,
she recoiled in horror, and I don't use the word lightly. "To leave Tyler's
mental health problems out of the film is an egregious omission," she said.
"It is really misinformation. The filmmakers' had the opportunity to present
bullying as a trigger, as one factor that played a role in a young person's
suicide. But to draw a direct line without referencing anything else-I'm
appalled, honestly. That is hugely, hugely unfortunate."
 

Haas feels strongly about this for a few reasons. First, research shows a
strong link between Asperger's and suicide and a link between bipolar
disorder and suicide as well. This means these facts about Tyler are
important to understanding his decision to take his life. There's more, too.
From Haas' point of view, by presenting such an incomplete version of the
facts, Hirsch has created a real risk of suicide contagion-the documented
phenomenon of people mimicking suicidal behavior in light of media
representations. "I worry terribly about the contagion effect," Haas said.
"One message of this move is: 'Bullying kills'-as if it's a normal response
to kill yourself, when of course most people who are bullied don't do that.
Young people who feel bullied could harken back to the movie, and it could
be a powerful draw to suicide for them. If Tyler had been accurately
portrayed as a kid with mental health challenges that were very hard for him
to manage, he wouldn't seem so attractive. We might feel sympathy for him,
but he wouldn't have the emotional pull of a character who is being
romanticized. When you turn a real person, who had a very painful,
distressing life, into a kind of fairytale character, that's something young
people are much more likely to identify with. And identification is at the
heart of contagion."
 

There's another omission in the film that dismayed Haas. The police report
on Tyler's death made public the suicide note he left. It reads:
 

Dear Family,
If you are reading this I am DEAD. I don't want to live any
longer with this burden I have. I don't have a supporting
family or friends for that matter. You think I am
worthless and pathetic. All I wanted was acceptance
and kindness, but no I didn't get love. Maybe I'll see you
in the afterlife or not. I want to end this pain I have and to
live in eternal hapiness [sic]. I hate myself because I don't
make everyone happy. Tr. [younger brother] I love you because we share a
battle of disabilities. Te., [younger sister] You will be great someday.
Tina,
Your personality is what helped me. David, I looked up to
you for all my life and I love you the most. This World will
be a better place without me.
Sincerely,
Tyler Lee Long
1992-2009
 

The suicide note has seemingly nothing to do with bullying. By now, you must
be wondering: What bullying did Tyler Long experience? Honestly, after
watching the movie and reading all of the legal papers filed by Tyler's
family and his school, I'm not sure. In the film, David Long says that kids
banged Tyler's head into a school locker a day or two before his death. No
one has said who those kids are supposed to be. Murray County High has 42
video cameras installed throughout the school and grounds. They cover the
hallway where Tyler's locker was. The police looked at the tape on the
relevant days and saw no one pushing Tyler's head into a locker or doing
anything else to him. This allegation also disappeared from the family's
lawsuit after it was challenged by the school. In the movie and in the suit,
Tyler's family says that he was bullied daily. Nine students quoted in the
Longs' brief say things like "students spit in his food in the cafeteria,"
and "he was pushed in the back of his head in the cafeteria and would yell
'leave me alone' and then throw his plate away and leave," and "they'd call
him retarded, slow, faggot," and "people would pull his pants down in the
bathroom and throw stuff at him."
 

It's very hard to tell, but it doesn't seem that these accusations and
others like them are about Tyler's junior year. They seem to be about middle
school and the first year and a half of high school. In ninth grade, Tyler
had real trouble in school with other kids, his mother complained, and
school staff tried to help him. In 10th grade, there was an incident in
which Tyler called a girl a "pregnant bitch" and was pushed down the stairs
by her boyfriend. The boy and the girl received five-day in-school
suspensions for bullying Tyler, and the Longs asked prosecutors to press
criminal charges. After that, Tyler told a teacher a student kicked him in
hallway, but he didn't want it reported because it was just horseplay. The
teacher reported it anyway, and the student got an in-school suspension for
three days. Also, in Spanish class in December 2008, a teacher saw a student
irritating Tyler, and in discussing the incident afterward with his
counselor, Tyler said he was picked on daily but was "used to it." When she
asked him to name the perpetrators, however, he didn't.
 

That's the end of the written record of bullying, with one possible
exception. In the days before his death, the Longs say Tyler experienced
"egregious bullying" in his guitar class. The teacher saw some "jawing," but
nothing else. A friend of Tyler's who saw what happened said that another
student pretended to take Tyler's guitar away, then cut it out when told to
stop, and that Tyler wasn't upset afterward.
 

Maybe there is more to the bullying than that-maybe kids were mean and
unfriendly in Tyler's junior year, and he kept this buried inside, or he
told his family and they didn't report it to the school. But the allegations
the nine students make in the lawsuit are for the most part vague and
unspecific. Given the contested facts in the lawsuit, when I spoke to Hirsch
over the phone, I asked him whether he'd tried to talk to anyone from the
Murray County schools. At first he said yes, then he said he wasn't sure,
then noted that the school district was invited to a town hall meeting
that's shown in the film, but school officials declined to come. "By not
attending, they made a very clear statement," Hirsch said. A minute or two
later, the phone went dead, and Hirsch said he'd call me back. He didn't.
Instead, he sent me a statement days later saying, "Our additional attempts
to engage school officials in person were declined." The lawyer for the
Murray County schools says that no one in the district remembers hearing
from Hirsch or his crew. 
 

Hirsch also told me, "I presented the parent's perspective. That was my
story." But is that enough? On television, Tina Long has said of the school
district officials she blames for failing to help Tyler, "I think they
killed my son, I think they led him to do what he did." This is a message
you could take from the movie, too: The only thing that matters in
explaining Tyler's death is that school officials failed to prevent bullies
from tormenting him. I don't want to excuse kids who were cruel to Tyler, or
the problems he had in school. And I can understand a family's desire to
assign blame for a child's awful death. And believe me, I know that by
describing the other problems Tyler was facing, I will be accused of blaming
the victim.
 

But given the larger set of facts about the death of Tyler Long, does Bully
portray it responsibly? There are real people on the receiving end of these
blame campaigns, campaigns that certain members of the media are all too
eager to embrace. Reviews of the movie thus far have assumed that Hirsch's
version of the story is complete and true, with no mentions of the ongoing
court battle. Just as important, the stated mission of this movie is to
portray the problem of bullying honestly and accurately. By taking the
parents' side so completely, and leaving out all the information that
doesn't fit his narrative, Hirsch oversimplifies and distorts. His film is
supposed to be a teaching tool, yet it offers some serious misimpressions
about the connection between bullying and suicide, misimpressions that could
have real effects on young viewers.
 

Think about that for a minute if you go to see Bully-particularly if you're
bringing your kids.
 

*Correction, March 30, 2012: This article originally suggested that the
depictions of two suicides in the movie were factually questionable. The
factually questionable account is of Tyler Long's suicide.
 

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