It's 2:30 on Friday night and I am watching one of my favorite movies on HBO: "Bully." I was watching "Permanent Midnight" but grew tired of it and turned on TV. I've seen "Bully" now about 8 or 9 times and each time I see it.... I used to hate Rachel Miner, but the more I watch it, she grows on me. I realized tonight she reminds me of this girl I used to know, Misty. Looks like her, talks like her, the whole kit and caboodle. For those of you who haven't seen it, you must. It's disturbing, violent, sexually explicit, but that's not what makes it great. See for yourself. I'm pasting into this a paper I wrote on it a year ago for a film class. Hope you go out and see it.

Film Profile Three: Bully

Marty (Brad Renfro) and his “best friend” Bobby (Nick Stahl) work at a strip-mall sandwich place, where they meet Lisa (Rachel Miner) and Ali (Bijou Phillips). Marty and Lisa spend most of their time together and Lisa falls head-over-heels in love. Bobby dominates Marty, by pimping him to gay men for phone sex and strip shows, and Lisa and Ali, by raping them. Lisa sees Marty’s mental and emotional anguish and refuses to sit idly by. She, Marty, Ali and four other disaffected teens concoct a plan to murder Bobby and “get rid of everyone’s problem.” After some last-minute changes and an aborted attempt, they succeed. They carelessly clean up the murder and a few of the accomplices unravel to the point of destruction: they are convicted and sentenced for the crime. (132)

Bully deserves to be more widely seen because Larry Clark paints a vivid and horrific portrait of teenage dynamics that cannot be ignored. Along with his debut, Kids, Clark depicts teenage life as a wild, meandering, disenfranchised existence that no other filmmaker dares approach. Yes, this film is violent, vulgar and sexually explicit, but modern society has warped the taboo to become normal. Language no longer titillates, sex no longer shocks and violence is on prime-time television. But Bully takes each of these factors dangerously close to the edge, creating a society of youth disillusioned to the point where moral emptiness is prevalent and acceptable. The murder scene is disgustingly graphic, but necessary to depict the realism of the action. This is, after all, a true story. The sex is important to showcase the connection between Marty and Lisa, and the violation and humiliation felt by Lisa and Ali. Even more, the lurid sex demonstrates the involvement and commitment between these characters. These are kids with nothing but money and time; their cars and drugs are designer, yet they have no real jobs and surf all day. The gratuitous sex, drug use and violence serve to de-glamorize these teens, enforcing an image of a generation: listless, ambivalent consumers without real hope or ambition. This image feeds into their moral depravity and lack of appreciation for their actions. This film, unlike any I have seen before, typifies the feelings of many of the co-habitants of my era, showing us the antithesis of what we want to be, yet in some strange way something we cannot shake. This film is important because it is everything we hate mixed with everything that entertains us. The juxtaposition rudely knocks the Generation-Y viewer back to reality and causes a personal uproar about the society in which we live. (303)