American bullies.

    At the opening of the documentary film 'Bully' we hear a father talking about his dead son, Tyler Long. "  "As he grew older," the father says as we see photos and video clips of Tyler, "I knew he would be victimized at some point in time. Some kids told him to hang himself."
    So Tyler did kill himself at the tender age of 17.
    'Bully' has one main character, Alex Libby, a 12 year-old boy of Sioux Lake, Iowa. Then there's Kelby Johnson, a lesbian living in small-town Oklahoma, and Ja'meya Jackson  From Mississipi, the only black teenager in the film. Other youngsters show up in the film too.
     All these young people are constantly harassed, hit, beaten, poked and abused by their classmates. High schools in 'Bully' don't come off as havens in a heartless world or quiet places of learning. They're more like William Golding's novel 'Lord of the Flies'.
     "I'm not your buddy," one of Alex Libby's bus seat neighbours says to him. "I will end you. I will cut your face off."
    Kelby's classmates threaten her, hit her, and isolate her. Some school students aim their car at her and hit her. But Kelby's lucky in a way. She has supportive friends.
     Ja'meya Jackson finally gets tired of being put down and reacts violently. For this act, she nearly ends up in prison for a long time.
     Near the film's end, parents band together to stop the bullying. "I will fight bullying forever," vows one father at a rally.
     In 'Bully' director Lee Hirsch zeroes in on smalltown bullying. Bullying in big city schools doesn't show up on the screen , which is too bad. The bullies who drive their classmates to suicide and despair, don't get much time on the screen either, except to bully. But maybe they shouldn't take up too much of our time either. Still, 'Bully' is a powerful film and is also a great argument for home schooling.
     But it nearly didn't get releases. It seems  U.S. censors thought there were too many f---- words  in the movie. At last, some of these words were taken out and so we do get to see the hellish lives of some very young Americans.