Sundance Film Festival, possibly the premier film festival in the United States, is facing pressure from gay rights proponents to cancel or move out of Utah. This is to protest the influx of money from the state in support of California's Proposition 8, most from the faithful of the Church of Latter-Day Saints. I have friends in the programming and planning departments of the festival, who said they're receiving hate mail over it. The idea, I guess, is to punish the Church of LDS and other Utah businesses over their support for the measure. More below:
An AP article came out this weekend that quoted John Aravosis from AMERICAblog:
Utah, Aravosis said, "is a hate state," and on this issue, "at a fundamental level, the Utah Mormons crossed the line. . . . They just took marriage away from 20,000 couples and made their children bastards. You don't do that and get away with it."
His answer then is to boycott Utah's $6 billion tourism industry, of which Sundance is a major part. The idea has found support with some, who have threatened to not only boycott the festival, but also its sponsors, the films shown there, and the studios and filmmakers who attend the festival.
The proponents of this boycott blame the people of Utah, which they assume are all Mormon or in someway culpable, for the funding and passage of Proposition 8. Besides the fact that this clearly ignores that California voters passed the initiative, not Utah voters, it also distorts the facts of how the campaign was funded.
AP had this to say:
On the yes side, the Knights of Columbus, based in New Haven, Conn., is the measure's largest single contributor so far, having given $1.4 million. Other top contributors to the Yes on 8 campaign were Irvine banking heir Howard Ahmanson Jr.'s Fieldstead and Co. foundation ($1.1 million); John Templeton Jr., son of the late Bryn Mawr, Pa., investor John Templeton ($900,000); the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association ($500,000), and Elsa Prince, ($450,000), mother of Blackwater founder Erik Prince.
Not only that but:
Nearly three-quarters of the total contributions have been from individuals or institutions based in California, with the rest from out of state or from 90 international donors, representing areas from England to Italy and Thailand to Taiwan. Nearly all international contributors opposed the measure.
The measure's opponents received a greater share of their money from outside the state or country — 33 percent compared with the 19 percent of out-of-state contributions reported by the initiative's backers.
Apart from California, the states whose residents and institutions have invested the most in the contest are New York ($2.5 million), Michigan ($1.6 million), Utah (1.5 million) and Connecticut ($1.4 million). Connecticut is about to become the third U.S. state to sanction same-sex marriage.
So 75% of the campaign came from California (with a greater share from out of state for OUR side), and 100% of the yes votes were cast by Californians. Utah's folks were only the fourth ranked state to donate to what was an internationally supported campaign on both sides. But somehow the cry is out that Utah and it's people are to blame, and Sundance has to move.
This assumption is paired easily with those who have laid the blame at the feet of black voters who voted nearly 2 to 1 for the Prop, another case of a disturbing reaction among us liberals to label entire demographics as intolerant.
Nonetheless, we know that individual Mormon donors make up a huge portion of the funding of efforts to support Prop 8. We know that despite their IRS tax-exemption, which precludes their engagement in lobbying for political campaigns, they put people on the ground to influence the election. Here's a link to help the effort to complicate their coming tax return.
But punishing Utah is not the same as punishing Mormons and their illegally political church. Punishing Sundance is not the same as punishing Utah. And punishing filmmakers, especially up and coming filmmakers (even GAY filmmakers), is not the same as punishing Sundance. Why do we want to punish so much any way?
Producer Ross Katz wrote this on Facebook:
The idea of boycotting Sundance is totally misguided and only HURTS the cause. The fact is that Sundance has been a constant home for celebrating gay films and filmmakers since its inception. Look back at the history of films that Sundance has supported. Look back at the history of theater projects the Sundance theater lab has supported, nurtured, and launched into the world. They offer a voice - a loud, uncompromising voice - for filmmakers of all ethnicities, sexual orientations, political bents. Those voices are shouted from the mountain tops of Park City. If anything, take the amazing platform that Sundance is, and run with it.
Sundance is the biggest film festival in the world after Cannes. It has always welcomed a diverse crowd and showered them with adoration, free gifts from sponsors,photo-ops, and more importantly, a platform to tell their stories. Even better than a costly boycott would be an influx of positive gay culture into the "hate state." Mike Thompson, executive director of Equality Utah said this to the Park Record:
We don't need people to stay away from Utah. We need gay people to come to Utah.
Doesn't that sound reasonable? My buddy in at the festival is receiving form-style letters from the movement's supporters threatening ruin to the indie filmmakers who come for their a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
Sundance Festival isn't some Mormon institution started to bring revenue to the state. One reason it's held in Park City (besides the skiing) is for the area's ties to Native American culture; Redford envisioned a truely western setting with real American history. The sponsors, volunteers, festival staff and filmmakers are nearly 100% from out of state. And yet hundreds of emails a day flood the festival calling for it to be upended, moved out of Utah, or cancelled. Gay filmmakers are being guilted by AMERICAblog and others to pull their films from the festival, an unfathomably foolish career choice no matter how much you support equal rights.
Is this really the best route for us to take? Who will notice, except for the most liberal people in entertainment? Hollywood boycotts don't do anything anyways, so why would we harm these artists for such a sloppy and misdirected protest? Does this really hurt the people who threw their weight behind a bigotted, unconstitutional ballot initiative?
No. It's a scattershot outrage which, while understandibly rash, is hitting everything in its path. Blacks are not to blame for this. Sundance is not to blame for this. Not even the Great State of Utah is to blame for this. We can blame ourselves for our lack of organization and support for the No On 8 campaign before the election. We can blame the churches and individuals who funded the effort to strip our gay friends of their rights. We can blame the voters who chose to vote yes.
Let's stop with the Sundance boycott.