Just Above Sunset
August 22, 2004: Affirmative Action Should Not Keep Me From the Movies
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Just Above Sunset
August 22, 2004: Affirmative Action Should Not Keep Me From the Movies
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Affirmative Action Should Not Keep Me From the Movies Joy Childs - August 18, 2004 ___________________ Last
week began as it usually does - with an eye toward my usual full week of after-work activities. I had plans to go to a movie or a concert practically every night of the week and the weekend. My two passions in life are music and movies, you
see, and as a single black, middle-aged professional (female), I finally can afford to indulge my passions any time I want. And I want to a lot. Just call me a music
and film fanatic of the nth degree. Only Monday night would be free, so as I was driving
from work on Monday around 6:30 p.m., I decided I’d better stop and do my weekly errands on La Cienega before going
to my home in the Fairfax area. It was around seven in the evening when I got a
call on my cell phone from a friend who was calling to ask me if I’d be interested in going with her to a movie around
eight. This may not seem all that unusual.
When you consider, however, that this particular friend works in the heart of the movie industry at a company whose
employees merely have to walk downstairs to the huge screens at their work site to see first-run movies most any night of
the week but that she rarely takes advantage of this opportunity (I’ve long envied her), it still may not seem like
a big deal. But what made this a big
deal was that her invitation was not just for some about-to-be-released movie but to a screening of “Birth of a Nation”
at the Silent Movie Theatre on Fairfax. “Oh yes,” she added, “and I hear
the NAACP might be protesting the screening of it. I’m just about to go
and get the tickets.” “Great. I’ll finish my errands and meet
you there around 7:50 – and do me a favor, call me when you get there,” I said, for no particular reason. All kinds of thoughts ran through my mind as I raced
to finish my errands. I couldn’t remember having ever seen the movie but
I did remember hearing ‘bad’ things about it - mostly that it was racist in the most horrific way. I didn’t care: I was excited about the prospect of ‘crossing the picket lines’ to see
this movie. In my mind’s eye I could see myself getting into a healthy
intellectual debate with one of my protesting brothers/sisters about why the movie should or shouldn’t be screened and
then walking into the screening with the protester and discussing it afterwards. Armed with ‘I-don’t-care-what-the-critics-say,
I’m-gonna-go-so-I-can-judge-the-movie-myself’ motto (which applies equally, by the way, to Ebert and Roeper, whom I watch religiously, and to the NAACP, whom I could
not believe would condone any kind of censorship anyway - doesn’t that organization preach ACLU-like values about free
speech?), I headed north on La Cienega, then headed over to Fairfax. I was sure
the ‘protest’ would be poorly attended and would only minimally impact
the screening - until my cell phone rang again at 7:35. “Joy, don’t bother to come over. The movie’s been cancelled because of the protestors.” “Whaaaaatt?” I screamed into the phone. “Why?” “Well, one of the protestors told me that
it’s up to those persons who were oppressed, not the oppressor, to decide whether that movie should be screened.” Now,
even though I’m a law graduate who studied the First Amendment in first year Constitutional Law, I’ve never been
a rah-rah advocate for free speech - that is, until now. When it comes to my
movies and music, I’m a strict constructionist. Free speech means just
that. How dare anyone - Ebert and
Roeper, the NAACP - tell me I can’t see a movie, let alone take actions to
prevent me from seeing any movie, just because they don’t like what it says
and/or because it offends them? I
see any and every movie I wanna see and, no matter how bad/racist, racist/bad or just bad/bad a movie is, I never walk out.’ I’ve always figured I can register my
opinion with my hands and feet. Most importantly, though, to suggest, as one
of my more Afro-centric brothers did, that ‘if history repeated itself, I, along with the protesters would likely feel
the wrath of the modern-day KKK in ‘suits’, who share the racist ideology of this film’s creator’
strikes me as absurdly racist. I
was so very annoyed with the NAACP ‘protecting’ my rights while taking affirmative actions to destroy someone
else’s First Amendment right to screen the movie and my right to see it or not that in protest I drove to a nearby video
store in the Silent Movie Theatre district and rented it. As
of this date, I haven’t had the time to watch the three-hour video version, but that’s OK because I’m planning
on renting it as long as it takes me not only to see it but to duplicate it so that others of my friends who want to see it
can do so without having the NAACP ‘protect’ them. You’re
welcome to join us. Copyright © 2004 – Joy Childs
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Editor’s
Note: The
audio of the NPR discussion of this on Weekend Edition with Scott Simon can be found here. The Associated Press account is here. UPI is here. Of note also is Renée Graham in the Boston Globe here. Released
on February 8, 1915, at Clune's Auditorium in Los Angeles, under the original tide, The Clansman, then released on
March 3, 1915, at the Liberty Theatre in New York City under its new and permanent name, The Birth of a Nation. The
film was financed, filmed, and released by the new independent Epoch Producing Corporation of D.W. Griffith and Harry T. Aitken,
in 12 reels of 35mm black-and-white film stock with chemical tinting, silent with music score written for live orchestra,
165 mins. |
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This issue updated and published on...
Paris readers add nine hours....
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