Bully Dance

Although we've recently witnessed a macabre leveling of the playing field, as the weapons of choice have escalated from name-calling and fisticuffs to semi-automatic rifles and handguns, the "bully dance"--in which the bigger and stronger prey on the smaller and weaker--has been with us since Fred first dragged Wilma by the hair back to his cave. In Janet Perlman's wordless animated short Bully Dance, young viewers will see an all too familiar situation unfold as oval creatures with stick-like arms and legs ignore a schoolyard bully's steadily increasing harassment of a littler victim...until someone gets hurt. While the ending scene in which the other kids ostracize the bully and embrace the victim is, unfortunately, pure fantasy, this otherwise compelling anti-violence mini-fable, with its pulsing soundtrack, effectively conveys the message that being a bully is très uncool. Recommended. Aud: K, E, I, P. (R. Pitman)