In the new movie, “Joe Bell,” Mark Wahlberg stars in a story inspired by a series of tragic events involving an Oregon family, that became national news. The film, which opens July 23, is based on the true story of Jadin Bell, a student at La Grande High School who had spoken about being bullied for being gay. In 2013, Jadin died from injuries suffered from a suicide attempt.
To honor the memory of his son, and raise awareness of bullying and its lasting impact on mental health, Jadin’s father, Joe Bell, embarked on a cross-country walk, beginning in the spring of 2013 in La Grande, and headed for New York City, where Jadin had said he hoped to live one day.
As The Oregonian/OregonLive reported in 2013, Jadin died at Portland’s Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, in February 2013.
His father planned on making a two-year, 5,000-mile walk across the country, sharing the story of his son, and spreading awareness of the harm caused by bigotry and bullying.
Sadly, Joe Bell’s journey ended in October, 2013, less than a year after it began, when the driver of a semi-truck reportedly fell asleep at the wheel, and the truck struck and killed Bell as he walked along the shoulder of a Colorado highway.
The film’s cast includes Connie Britton as Jadin’s mother, Lola, and Reid Miller as Jadin. Reinaldo Marcus Green directs, from a screenplay by Diana Ossana and the late Larry McMurtry, the team that won an Oscar for “Brokeback Mountain.”
A post on the Oregon School Boards Association website about the release of the movie outlines some of the steps undertaken by students and the La Grande School District to help build connections and support for students, including a “Culture of Care Framework.”
The post also includes a link to a statement from Lola Lathrop, Jadin Bell’s mother. In it, she notes that people will ask whether the events depicted in the movie really happened. “And the answer to that question is that this is a dramatization, a Hollywood production. Not everything on the screen occurred in real life. But that misses the important message.”
Lathrop goes on to say: “I’m not here to place blame or point fingers. That’s not going to bring back Jadin or his father, Joe, and blaming others only generates anger and does nothing to prevent what happened here in La Grande from occurring in Wisconsin, New York or Florida.”
The bullying Jadin experienced, Lathrop writes, “Could have happened anywhere. And it still does occur, every day. This is where our schools and communities and our parents need to focus their attention, because our young people are at risk. Each of us needs to examine ourselves and begin making changes. We need to look at our own actions and consider how they affect others, instead of casting the first stone.”
Of the film, Lathrop writes: “I know that the people behind this movie thought that Jadin’s life experience, and the walk that Joe set out on, were both important to tell in hopes of effecting change. It is my hope as well that through this movie people will be more sensitive toward those who are different from them, and not be so quick to judge. I hope that the message this movie sends will make all of us more vigilant, and inclined to safeguard the well-being of young people who deserve the opportunity to thrive.”
Wahlberg’s involvement in “Joe Bell” has been generating negative responses from some, who claim, as a New York Post column headline says, that casting the actor as an “anti-prejudice hero” is the height of “Hollywood hypocrisy” considering his history of racism and violence fueled by prejudice.
The criticisms point to Wahlberg’s past actions, which include a 1988 assault conviction in Massachusetts, for which Wahlberg served about 45 days of his sentence. As Judith Beals, who prosecuted Wahlberg when she was an assistant attorney general, wrote in the Boston Globe, the then-16-year-old Wahlberg attacked, apparently at random, two Vietnamese men on the same day. In the first case, Beals wrote, Walhberg broke a five-foot pole over his victim’s head. In the second case, Wahlberg punched a victim to the ground.
The attack, Beals wrote, showed a “tendency toward serial acts of racial violence. The two men had no connection except for the fact that they were both Vietnamese,” adding that “Wahlberg’s repeated racial epithets” revealed a “racist motivation.”
Those attacks, Beals wrote, followed a 1986 incident, in which Wahlberg and a group of others chased a 12-year-old African-American boy, “hurling rocks and yelling racial epithets,” actions which were repeated the following day, resulting in injuries to some of the students who were there.
In 2014, Wahlberg sought a pardon for his 1988 conviction. As New England Cable News reported, Wahlberg wrote in his pardon application that he was “deeply sorry for the actions that I took on the night of April 8, 1988, as well as for any lasting damage that I may have caused the victims.” The actor said that he has, in subsequent years, “dedicated myself to becoming a better person and citizen so that I can be a role model to my children and others.”
In 2001, Wahlberg founded the Mark Wahlberg Youth Foundation, which raises money for services and programs for young people.
The pardon application encountered criticism, however, and Wahlberg later dropped his request, but said “some good did come out of it,” because he was able to apologize in person to one of his victims.
In a recent appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” Wahlberg spoke about being moved when he read the script for “Joe Bell.” He visited La Grande, he said, to meet with members of Jadin and Joe Bell’s family.
“It’s such an important story to tell,” Wahlberg said.
The East Oregonian reports that Wahlberg visited La Grande in late January 2019 to do research for the movie, which was filmed in locations in Utah.
-- Kristi Turnquist
kturnquist@oregonian.com 503-221-8227 @Kristiturnquist
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