Famed attorneys David Boies and Ted Olson have responded to the rallying cry to overturn the controversial R rating the MPAA gave the Weinstein Company-distributed documentary Bully. The legal duo were integral to overturning California’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage and also helped TWC in 2010 when they appealed the NC-17 rating for their Oscar-nominated film Blue Valentine. Olson was a solicitor general under George W. Bush, and Boies argued for Al Gore during the 2000 election’s landmark case Bush v. Gore.
At a special screening of the documentary at New York City’s Paley Center for Media yesterday, Boies said he would take the case to court if necessary. “How ridiculous and unfair and damaging it is to have a film of this power and importance that is being censored by a rating system that has got simply no rational basis,” he said. “You can kill kids, you can maim them, you can torture them and still get a PG-13 rating, but if they say a couple of bad words, you blame them. I hope, for heaven’s sake, that they find some rational basis before we have to sue them to revise the rating system.”
Olson added these words of warning to the MPAA: “They better shape up, or here we come.” READ FULL STORY »
