Amateur Recommendation Hour: Bully

Today’s recommendation is my favorite Rockstar game of all time, one of my favorite video games of all time, one that was naturally extremely misunderstood in it’s time by the ridiculous American media (I can only imagine what they’d do to it today), and one that has only grown in reverence since it’s release back in 2006.

Bully, developed by the aforementioned Rockstar Games, is a game set within the fictional New England (HELL YEAH) town of Bullworth, which is still one of the most unique settings in gaming in my opinion, the story follows juvenile delinquent student James "Jimmy" Hopkins, who is involuntarily enrolled at Bullworth Academy for a year after being expelled from every school he previously attended, and his efforts to rise through the ranks of the school system in order to put a stop to the rampant bullying throughout the school.

Beneath all of the eccentric humor and characters that you’d expect from a Rockstar game I believe this particular one is very intelligently deceptive in how it handles it’s themes of social hierarchy, the cruel world of interpersonal teenage relationships, self actualization, and injustice. Jimmy isn’t a bad person. He’s done bad things but he’s as much of a product of his surroundings as he is responsible for his own actions. An unsure teenage lacking emotional intelligence of how to process the bad things happening to him and around him. What sets him apart from other Rockstar protagonists, trying to make sense of, live with, and possibly atone for the wrongs they’ve committed throughout their lives of crime, is that while he is close to the point of no return, not only is he not there yet, but he does not want to find himself there.

That’s why I ultimately believe this work is about the importance of clinging on to our desires to be good and do good. No matter how many bad hands life deals you, at the end of the day you are responsible for your choices, not what negative experiences have shaped you or your cynical worldview, even if it does play a role.