Bittersweet homecoming Wheeling native returns home to shed light on bullying

Bring up the snowsuit story, and Marie Nalepa still cries.

Her son Michael was in first grade. He was walking home from his bus stop when a group of boys knocked him down, stuck him in a snowbank and stole his snowsuit.

“Michael was never a fighter,” Nalepa said. “He was so upset. I don't understand why kids are so mean so young.”

It was just the beginning for her son, who went on to suffer years of bullying for being gay. If Nalepa knew that, she would have done something after her son was thrown in a snowbank.

But more than 20 years later, she still can't come up with a solution.

Michael, now 29, went to MacArthur Middle School and Wheeling High School. After graduating from Wheeling in 1999, he shortened his name from Michael Anthony Christian Nalepa to Michael Anthony and left for Los Angeles, where he found success as a filmmaker and journalist.

His first real glance home came last month when he returned to film a documentary about overcoming bullying. But here waiting for him were some of his old issues. His childhood church, St. Edna's in Arlington Heights, declined interviews and wouldn't let him film in the church. Neither would his old high school.

So Anthony turned to social media, and in the end, more than 350 kids flocked to an exhibit he hosted at an Arlington Heights banquet hall.

“It was so powerful,” Anthony said. “My goal was to change a few hearts and minds, and people told me that I helped them. I rarely, if ever, say this, but I am proud of myself.”

The idea for the documentary started when Anthony made a video for the “It Gets Better” campaign, started in September 2010 by syndicated columnist and author Dan Savage in response to a disturbing number of students committing suicide after being bullied in school. Savage and his partner wanted a way for adults to be able to tell lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth that, yes, it does indeed get better.

The project has turned into a worldwide movement, inspiring more than 10,000 videos viewed more than 35 million times. In his video, Anthony talks about coming out in eighth grade when he expressed his love for a classmate by making him a mixtape of Reba McEntire songs.

It was a mistake — the boy brought the tape to school and the bullying began.

Things were already tough. Anthony describes himself as a chubby kid who wore fanny packs and stonewashed jeans. His prized possessions were a group of “My Little Ponies” and a few Tiffany compact discs.

“His friends began to disappear; he wanted to disappear too,” Anthony says in his video.

So he went to talk to his mom, who simply told him, “It gets better.”

“Darling, you're the fat kid in ecology club, of course it gets better,” his mom reassures him in the video.

After posting his video on Facebook, Anthony got almost 200 letters and emails. Some were thoughtful, like the “Love Me” collage made with AIDS ribbons. Others were funny, like the mother who wrote, “Be gay, who cares, just get a job,” about her adult son.

But it was a letter from a boy named “Billy” that really got to Anthony. “Billy,” a Wheeling High School student, said that he did not have one real friend but felt better about the future after watching the video.

“Your video made me smile, laugh and then cry at the end,” Billy wrote in his letter. “I sometimes literally feel like it's hopeless and pointless. But I have also rushes of hope and excitement and confidence. Your video gave me that for a moment.”

It was after reading Billy's letter that Anthony gathered all the other emails, poems and art projects and booked a flight home to start filming his documentary.

Anthony's friend and co-producer of the film, Samantha Kern, joined him on the trip, but first wrote up a business plan.

“Documentaries cost, I don't know, $650,000 to $1 million to make, and we have about $20,000,” Kern said. “That's basically going to get us through Chicago. It's low-budget.”

The movie crew consists of about 14 people. All are volunteers. Meanwhile, Anthony is thinking big. He hopes his documentary will be shown in movie theaters, but he'd be happy to start with a film festival or two after it's released in 2012.

Back in Wheeling, Anthony spent days interviewing his friends and local high school kids around town.

The Rev. Jerry Jacob, St. Edna's pastor, had a long talk with Anthony before declining his request to film at the church on advice from the archdiocese's attorneys.

“I wanted to help him, but I don't know what he was going to film and how that might be interrupted,” Jacob said. “It could be offensive.”

Anthony talked to Northwest Suburban High School District 214 officials in January, but they said there wasn't enough time to plan events for his return in March. The district does have anti-bullying activities planned, but for a later date, said Venetia Miles, District 214's spokeswoman.

“You know when I came back to Wheeling, I thought it would be a lot of Kumbaya and holding hands, and that's not the reaction I got,” he said. “Yes, I feel that in a small, small way I'm not welcome, but I'm shrugging it off. More than 300 people came to my exhibit. That's what I'll remember.”

And of course, his first and last stops were his Wheeling home, where his parents still live.

When he first arrived home, his mom threw a party for the crew and kept checking to make sure the nacho cheese was hot and the napkins were near the cookies.

Meanwhile, guys with video cameras, speakers and light poles lumbered around and messed up the hand towels that matched the bathroom soap.

Such is life when your son is filming a documentary. Everything is real, but it's also being recorded.

“I don't care what happens; I'm so proud of him,” said Nalepa, loud enough for the cameras to hear.

For more information on Anthony's film, visit www.forbillythemovie.com.

Homecoming: Film set for completion in 2012