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By George Heymont in Huffington Post
Harvey Weinstein’s recent battle to secure a PG-13 rating for Bully was a classic example of film industry power brokers attacking the messenger instead of heeding the message. Whatever crude language may have been included in the original edit of the film was language being spewed by kids who feel compelled to attack those they perceive as vulnerable targets….
With today’s youth spending so much time playing violent video games – and action movies aimed at a demographic of teenage boys who like to see things explode and watch people get beaten up – it should be obvious that poor parenting can’t be the only factor contributing to a nation of adolescent thugs.
Whether kids see bullying as a way to prove their superiority, exert their newfound masculinity, or simply as an opportunity for comic relief at someone else’s expense, it’s important to understand that bullying is nothing new. Even after college hazing rituals have resulted in accidental deaths and numerous gay teens have committed suicide, many parents and school administrators cling to the misguided belief that being the victim of bullying “is all part of growing up.”
Herndon Graddick, the new President of GLAAD recalls that:
“It wasn’t until I left Alabama for California that I learned that everything I had been taught was essentially bullshit. I got pissed. Kids across the country are making themselves miserable and, frankly, leading themselves to the brink of suicide because of the bullshit they learn from a bigoted society and it’s the role of GLAAD to fix that. We’re no longer the silent sort of invisible presence in our community. My ambition is for gay people and transgender people to be treated fairly in the media just like anybody else. I think it’s finally time for us to grab our power and really use it to make sure that we’re not sort of treated as second-class citizens anymore. I think it’s time for our community to go on the offensive. We’re not going to be the punching bags anymore.”