Since the MPAA would not budge on its "R" rating for the movie "Bully," the Weinstein Company announced plans to release its multiple-F-bomb version as unrated on March 30. Many theater chains have a policy refusing to carry unrated films, but since "Bully" has a massive liberal PR blitz behind it, some chains will knuckle under to this crusade. (See AMC Theatres, for one.)
This is not a nonpartisan campaign. See how MoveOn.org is campaigning for the film. The Parents Television Council is warning that these kinds of "ratings games" could undermine the MPAA ratings system and cause a trend of browbeating theatre chains into accepting unrated films of a "socially important" nature, leading to a demise of the MPAA system:
This would-be end run around the ratings system is a threat to the continued viability of the movie ratings system. After all, if a distribution company can simply decide to operate outside of the ratings system in a case like Bully, nothing would prevent future filmmakers from doing precisely the same thing, with potentially much more problematic material.
It is unfortunate that the serious problem of schoolyard and online bullying is being overshadowed by a misguided and manufactured controversy over the MPAA rating. It’s even more unfortunate that the MPAA ratings system, which only exists as a tool to help parents make informed viewing decisions for their own families, is being deliberately undermined by Weinstein and his colleagues in the entertainment industry, and that their efforts may well spell the demise of a system that has benefited parents and families for over forty years.
Though the MPAA is not perfect, it has been remarkably consistent at least in this regard: any more than a single "sexual expletive" (usually the “F-word”) will lead to an R-rating. Bully employs multiple uses of this “sexual expletive,” and that is why it was given an R-rating.
If the production company wanted to ensure the widest-possible viewership for this important film, it could excise the “f-words” entirely or bleep or otherwise obscure the “f-words.” Instead, they choose to argue for an exception.
It is worth noting that this is not the first time The Weinstein Company has butted heads with the MPAA over a film rating. In late 2010, the company successfully appealed the initial NC-17 rating for Blue Valentine after an “exceptionally public” campaign. Last year, Weinstein pushed the MPAA for a lower rating for the Oscar-winning film The King's Speech, which was released in theaters with an R-rating because of a scene in which King George VI is encouraged by a speech therapist to say the word “f—k” repeatedly to help him overcome his stutter. Weeks before the Oscars (when many film-goers try to catch-up on nominated films), Weinstein made the edits to get the lower rating and beef-up his bottom line.
