billypootons wrote:
Quote:
The NWFC chose it "for its importance in Oregon filmmaking history," according to a press release. However, their stance quickly changed following a Saturday tweetstorm by left-leaning Portland author Lois Leveen.
Leveen went on a Twitter rant six tweets long about how the film is exploitative and has no comedic or redeeming qualities. She also referenced a "school-to-prison" pipeline and claimed the police frequently arrest American children and throw them in jail.
"What's so funny about School-to-Prison pipeline? Kindergarten Cop-Out: Tell @nwfilmcenterthere’s nothing fun in cops traumatizing kids. National reckoning on overpolicing is a weird time to revive Kindergarten Cop. IRL, we are trying to end school-to-prison pipeline," she began. "There’s nothing entertaining about the presence of police in schools, which feeds the “school-to-prison” pipeline in which African American, Latinx, and other kids of color are criminalized rather than educated."
Leveen added, "5- and 6-year-olds are handcuffed and hauled off to jail routinely in this country. And this criminalizing of children increases dramatically when cops are assigned to work in schools."
She then compared the movie to "Gone with the Wind" and "Birth of a Nation," claiming it to be inappropriate for families.
"Yes, KINDERGARTEN COP is only a movie. So are BIRTH OF A NATION and GONE WITH THE WIND, but we recognize films like those are not 'good family fun,'" she continued. "They are relics of how pop culture feeds racist assumptions. KINDERGARTEN COP romanticizes over-policing in the U.S."
NWFC said the tweets had nothing to do with the cancellation and instead credited "overwhelming demand" and discussions with its "staff and community members" for the change. However, their statement on Twitter was a direct reply to Leveen's thread.
They will instead show the second screening of "Good Trouble," the new documentary about the late Rep. John Lewis, who died last month.
Leveen reacted to the statement with disdain and said the NWFC should have admitted to making a blunder and apologized for it.
"I think what you meant to type was, 'Yes, we made a grave error in not realizing the implicit racism in that programming decision. We apologize and are rethinking who makes our programming decisions hereafter,'" she tweeted. "How deep a white normativity hole will @nwfilmcenter keep digging?"
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