My concerns are mounting about some of the emerging messaging and organizing around the issue of bullying, especially connected to the film Bully. President Obama, himself, has hailed the director of the film, and Mitt Romney's anti-gay high school violent behavior is national news. When you factor in the increasing attention to so-called zero-tolerance policies and the frequent announcement of new anti-bullying initiatives, and it is clear that the manner in which our national discourse evolves on this issue couldn't be more timely -- or critical.
Don't get me wrong. Bully is a moving documentary that deserves the attention it is receiving and one that I, too, would urge parents, in particular, to see. But, when I went to a screening, I left the theater wondering about what message the film is leaving with viewers, particularly with students, its primary target audience.
The closing scene in Bully showcases a rally where people touched by youth-on-youth harassment release balloons and call for an end to bullying. While heart-warming, this gesture is far too simple a solution to a phenomenon that is steeped in and abetted by unexamined bias.
In our quick fix, short attention span culture, shaking a finger is not enough. Just like the much-parodied mantra of the '80s and '90s to "Just Say No" to drugs, simply saying "Stop Bullying" will never change deeply entrenched cultural attitudes.
Similarly, harsh "zero-tolerance" policies fail to take on the complex nature of the motives of those who are doing the bullying. They do nothing to develop compassion and respectful understanding of differences among students or staff. What's more, the students primarily disciplined by zero tolerance rules are disproportionately LGBT youth, students of color and students with disabilities, ironically the same groups that are often the most targeted. Criminalizing and expelling students who bully, without looking at the underlying causes of their behavior, only creates more pain in their lives and the lives of others.
My concern is even more urgent for the young people who go to see Bully who, themselves, are harassed every day traveling to and from school, in their classrooms or in the hallways. The bleak picture Bully portrays of what life is like for students like them is the opposite of a lifeline. Waiting for one's community, church or family to become more loving and less abusive, without any roadmap on how to get there, will take too long. To a targeted teen who's on the edge, that's an impossible dream.
I worry that someone who is subjected to endless abuse every day, with no adults standing up to challenge the culture of bias-based harassment, will choose the route of the youth who are (finally) honored and celebrated in Bully -- but only after they took their own lives. With suicide, someone finally pays attention, holds a sign in their honor, and chants their name with respect and love. But only after death. That sends a horrible message, one that can, in some ways, make the option of taking one's life appealing, prompting what has been documented as "suicide contagion" by experts in the field.
We saw some of that after the tragic death of Tyler Clementi and others; only after losing them did those around them pay closer attention to the school, church, and family cultures that contribute to so many bullying-related suicides. Now, Tyler's own parents, for example, devout Christians who used to believe homosexuality is a sin, are publicly saying we need to challenge our cultural assumptions about gayness.
Fortunately, the director of Bully is starting to talk more about what needs to happen next after screenings of his film. But I want to urge him, and everyone else jumping on the anti-bullying bandwagon to take their calls for action one step further.
We should be asking how it's possible for high-achieving students like Dharun Ravi, the roommate who videotaped Tyler's tryst, to arrive at college still thinking it's perfectly normal to humiliate a classmate for being gay. What was missing in his K-12 education that would allow a high school student to graduate with that assumption? And how can we make sure that doesn't happen again?
In most communities, if you don't fit into some narrowly defined box of how girls and boys are "supposed" to act or look just because of your gender, you are at great risk to be bullied. If you are attracted to students who are the same-sex as you are, you are at great risk to be bullied.
So, why can't we call it like it is and demand solutions that reflect these facts, which directly address the root causes of so much bullying?
Simply put, there is no way we will stop bullying unless we insist that the curricula in our schools address anti-gay stigma and the pressures to conform to gender norms. Until politicians of all political stripes stop vilifying the LGBT population. Until all "people of God" stop telling children they are evil.
The stories captured in Bully certainly imply for example, that hostility and ignorance about sexual orientation and the pressures to fit into a standard "male" or "female" box are critical factors in almost all of the horrific, senseless deaths it recounts. And if targeted students are like Alex, the film's central character, and have a mental or physical disability or other characteristic that sets them apart from others, the chances are extremely high that the weapons used against them will also include homophobic or sexist slurs and innuendos.
Yet Bully and other programs and policies like it stop far short of demanding that our schools adopt curricula that is inclusive and respectful of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. They fail to make a strong enough case that parents and educators could transform school climates dramatically if they took the courageous step of challenging behavioral norms for children based on gender. They rarely ask parents to question their own biased attitudes, which they pass down to their children who then turn against their peers.
So administrators, please: be very thoughtful when you ask your staff to go see Bully or sign onto an anti-bullying campaign. Don't do it unless you are ready to insist that there be changes in your curriculum.
Teachers, be very careful if you take your students to see Bully. Don't do it unless you can take the next step immediately to begin addressing gender pressures and homophobia in your classrooms and hallways. Please consider how students who are already on the edge may feel after watching this film if you don't.
Politicians, it's a no-brainer to support anti-bullying policies. But we need you to also have the backbone to support and fund curricula that is inclusive of LGBT-headed families, youth, and teaching methods that don't reinforce limited gender norms.
The best thing that could come out of the mass attention to Bully and other new anti-bullying efforts would be that parents, politicians and educators joined together and did far more than put up posters saying "No Bullies Allowed" or offer speeches and incomplete policies that don't really do the job. We need to roll up our sleeves, take some risks, and open up real dialogue in our school communities about these deeply entrenched, and often politically sanctioned, biases.
Follow Debra Chasnoff on Twitter: www.twitter.com/debrachasnoff
Kim Sandland, School Counselor
I agree with you that much of the actual behavior is learned at home. In my documentary film, Let's Get Real, for example, http://groundspark.org/our-films-and-campaigns/lets-get-real, there is a powerful scene where one of the boys who bullies explains quite clearly how he learned to beat up on less powerful students from having been beaten up by his father. Another started calling kids anti-gay slurs because that's what his step-father calls him whenever he does anything "unmanly." My point is not about where bullying behavior is learned, but about the content of it. The fact that such a huge amount of the harassment that goes on is manifested in anti-gay language or in response to gender non-conforming behavior screams out for schools to address those biases in their curricula. But should we do that and also pursue strategies that look at domestic violence and family norms that are passed on? Absolutely. Thanks for commenting.
This has been a passion of mine for many years, and I have found two programs that if allowed would change school climate. Many schools use them and are successful, I can't even get someone from my school to go to monthly anti-bullying workshops or to the Bully movie! The two programs are Challenge Day and the Olweus program, they go to the root, it's all inclusive, respect becomes part of school climate, I encourage everyone to check them out.
The issue of bullying goes deeper and farther than one film could address, and one film can't fix it.
(That film apparently has it's flaws too--Hint hint: the erasure of Tyler Long's autism. Which was so many kinds of wrong and should not have been done. Especially given that the bullying of autistic kids and teens is as severe as the bullying of LGBTQ* teens, but is getting less attention. And it was kind of a kick in the face to some of us who happen to be both autistic and LGBTQ* and who were excited at the first mention of this documentary.)
And--sorry for the derail--but I'll never not mention that.
Heartwarming happy endings rarely really occur; the damage of bullying is real and it lasts.
"Simply put, there is no way we will stop bullying unless we insist that the curricula in our schools address anti-gay stigma and the pressures to conform to gender norms. Until politicians of all political stripes stop vilifying the LGBT population. Until all "people of God" stop telling children they are evil."
And that actual solution ^^^ (something more than watching a movie) sounds great.
Unfortunately, I can't see our politicians and "people of God" ever allowing that to happen.
I am currently studying to be a high school teacher, and it is my intention to have books on racism, antisemitism, LGBT awareness, etc in my classroom, so if I see bullying, I can attempt to show my students something more than punishment can.
Without law...there are no incentives for even adults who do this mess not to. No consequence whatsoever. We cannot assume that people will be decent when there is nothing compelling them to. If murder were not illegal there would be probably several thousand per hour. I say I want to be protected from sadistic harmful behavior in school at work and wherever else it is required that I go in order to become stable educationally or economically. I say PROTECTIONS FIRST. NOBODY SHOULD HAVE TO BE AT THE MERCY OF SADISTIC PEOPLE AT ANY AGE.
WHY NOT PROTECTIONS FIRST???
This is happening in WORKPLACES all over the world. The same thing that the bus monitor experienced is happening with ADULTS. This is why folks GO POSTAL and kids do school shootings and suicides of workers and kids. There is always someone these days who will say that humiliation, constant pressure cooker workplaces where there is name calling, demeaning, invasions, threats and all sorts of nonsensical harassment occurring daily are just a part of life and if you don't like the abuse, you can find another job, or toughen up (and what, behave the same?) or something having to do with the target.
I do agree with you that bullying also happens frequently employer-on-employee and is hardly limited to students.
Oh, and could you not use demeaning and stereotyping terms like "going postal"? Thanks.
I didn't mean it to sound labeling at all. Folk just seem to understand immediately that it means getting fed up and having to truly exact revenge while at work.
One question examined in the article is "HOW IT IS POSSIBLE" that someone would be so despicable as to ever have a notion that it would be ok to humiliate or harass and invade another person. I myself often wonder how also this could be reality. I am less concerned about the urgency of learning the -WHY- and more urgently concerned about severe serious and immediate protections from those who indeed "FEEL IT IS POSSIBLE" and perfectly ok to diminish, strain, destroy the joy in a person's life experience and saddle them with lifetime memories and anguish of having been humiliated, accosted, demeaned, invaded and emotionally raped with no consequence. All boundaries of civility crossed and trampled.
These are feelings that are handed to the target to carry around on their spirit for life. It is like being forced to carry someone's luggage...forever. The baggage is severe.
These zero tolerance policies I think might have been a motivator in why teachers are hardly active or are willing to cover up bullying. Too many school policies work against the needs of the majority of the student body. Anything you do to intervene is considered a risk factor for a teacher losing their job or a student getting suspended. I think it's time to say screw the policies and grow a spine. Most of the time, it's obvious who the bully is and who the victim is. And even policy or no, the bully gets more protection. I say stop worrying about the lines and take action when you know it's right.