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THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2012
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
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Sporting KC shows appreciation for young fans
JOEL PETTERSON
jpetterson@kansan.com
Graham Zusi and several partners rode down Jayhawk Boulevard Wednesday afternoon in a large van with decals obscuring the windows, looking for a victim.
They found a student walking by.
we want that generation to adopt Sporting as their team"
Martin Ramos, a senior from Chanute, adopted Sporting a year ago and came to see the practice despite having never attended a Sporting game.
"Since the World Cup, I've been attracted to soccer, and I just needed that fix," Ramos said. "Sporting KC kind of gives me that."
Edited by Amanda Gage
ENTERTAINMENT
--their grief to become tireless anti-bullying advocates.
Movie Review Bully
// LANDON MCDONALD
"Bully" is ostensibly an effort to show how the problem of bullying has developed into a full-blown epidemic, how the recent spike in teen suicides has carried with it a rancid undercurrent of startling cultural prejudice, homophobia and the kind of malignant stupidity that could easily be mistaken for evil. It paints a tender, vivid portrait of bullied youths and their families, including two couples whose children turned to self-destruction after years of torment and ridicule.
But does Lee Hirsch's documentary, which opens amid a well-publicized ratings tiff between the MPAA and executive producer and notorious Oscar hoarder Harvey Weinstein, really do justice to its subject? On one hand, it has popularized an issue that too many school administrators seem content to shrug off as part of the rigors of growing up. And no one can doubt the sincerity of the families affected, many of who have since rallied in
Yet the film itself is far too narrow in its focus, framing the problem as a regional quirk by insisting that all its subjects hail from working-class Bible Belt communities, a decision which has already led to predictable accusations of coastal elitism and the concealment of thornier psychological implications regarding the universal cruelty of children. The phenomenon of cyber-bullying, an often-anonymous brand of harassment that led to a number of the suicides the film mentions, is barely touched on.
I'm also skeptical about the legitimacy of certain sequences. A frail, bespectacled middle-schooler named Alex is savagely beaten aboard a school bus with one of Hirsch's cameras stationed only a few rows away. There has been no obvious attempt to hide the camera. Did the bullies know it was there? Did they care? Should
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
In the end, the kids are the film's saving grace. Alex, awkward and unknowable, has been numbed to the point where he regards the bullies as his only point of human contact outside his immediate family. Kelby, a lesbian tired of being persecuted at her high school, is pulled back from the brink by her merry band
the cameraman have intervened? No one ever elaborates.
of friends and lovers. The best friend of an 11-year-old suicide victim reveals that he was once a bully himself. And, in the film's most achingly honest scene, a kindergartner is asked how he feels about a bully calling him a faggot. His answer: "It breaks my heart." Despite all its faults, "Bully" might do the same for you.
FINAL RATING: ★★★☆
soccer
marketed our team to that generation," said Tretiak. "And
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