Ashley Miller had a horrible, upsetting experience yesterday evening. It should have been a great experience:
As a filmmaker, intersectional scholar, and a huge fan and supporter of the original trailer and campaign for “Dear White People,” I was ecstatic to be able to go see the film here in Columbia, SC. The film itself didn’t disappoint. Clearly influenced by Wes Anderson in cinematography, but wholly unique in tone, it was a brilliantly funny, biting, and moving film. The acting, the directing, the cinematography were all superb, even before you take into account the origin story and budget of the film.
But there was a problem, a big big problem.
Spoilers alert.
Just as the trailers were ending and the movie starting, a hundred people started pouring into the theater. This was the Morehouse College Football Team, here in Columbia to play Benedict College tomorrow. Morehouse is an all-male historically black college in Atlanta not too far from my own undergraduate institution of Emory. It is the alma mater of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As the movie started, I was excited that this many people were in the theater to see the movie. It was a short-lived excitement.
There are three main plots in “Dear White People,” and one of them focuses on a black gay kid named Lionel, played by “Everybody Hates Chris” star Tyler James Williams, who doesn’t fit in with any group — not with gay kids, not with white kids, and not with black kids, who have historically treated him with homophobia and cruelty. His story is about the toxic effect of homophobia in the black community. In addition to the heterosexual romances involving all the other characters, there is also a budding romance between Lionel and another man. The initial hints at this romance did not win the Morehouse College Football Team’s approval. They started saying homophobic things every time Lionel was onscreen. When Lionel had a same-sex kiss, the team went into a frenzy — everyone turned on their phones and said they weren’t looking, they started yelling, “What kind of movie is this?” Several of them walked out, others started yelling at anyone on their team for looking at the screen when the kiss happened, “Man, you looked at that, I saw you!” “What is this gay shit?” “Some of y’all didn’t turn your heads away!”
And then it got worse, much worse.
Lionel has a major heroic moment toward the end of the film in which he breaks up a racist party being held by an entitled white jerk, who is, more or less, the antagonist of the film, and who verbally and sexually harassed Lionel over his sexuality throughout the film. The racist white guy tackles Lionel and pins him down. In retaliation, Lionel kisses him (this freaked out the audience again), but the racist white guy responds by punching Lionel repeatedly in the face.
They cheered. This room full of black men who attend Dr. King’s alma mater. They cheered for the racist white guy because the black man he was being allowed to beat without repercussion was a faggot.
Go read Ashley’s full account, and the comments, which include some from Morehouse students who were there, and a professor at Morehouse.
You know what I keep saying about football culture? Yeah.
Ouch. Free speech kinda sucks sometimes, huh?
But…. being Black, the football players are officially in the pomofoco class of Poor Little Dears. They are pre-exonerated for any and all racism, sexism, homophobia and religious bigotry. Because Israel.
@1 sonofrojblake,
Ignoring just for the moment the specific atrocious details of their behavior, are you really under the impression that these football players coming in and disrupting the experience of the other members of a paying audience in a private movie theater* is a free speech issue, or that they have some sort of free speech right to do that? Seriously…?
*I got the impression from Ashley’s post it was at a regular private movie theater, although I don’t think she explicitly said that. But even if it was an event, say, on a college campus that still doesn’t give them a free speech right to do what they did.
They’re entitled to their wrong opinions. They’re entitled to express those opinions. I don’t see any reports of hate speech, violence or even incitement to violence. There’s no suggestion that the people in question didn’t pay for a ticket, so they had as much right as anyone else to be in that movie theatre, and last I checked, while talking in a movie theatre is annoying, it’s not a crime. And they cheered – every time I’ve been in a movie theatre when a cheer went up, it’s been brilliant. You can’t seriously be suggesting that cheering in a cinema ist verboten?
The movie theatre, as a private enterprise, have a right to throw them out for being disruptive, if that’s how they judge cheering (which I doubt…).
But the incident as described bears all the hallmarks of the kind of non-violent disruption protesters on the Left use all the time (except, of course, that the opinions they’re expressing are not on the Approved List, and, worse, they’re apparently race traitors for holding them).
Now, obviously this is a deeply unpleasant group of people, nasty, entitled, inconsiderate brutish barbarians. How might one go about preventing a recurrence of such an event?
Ugh. Sonofrojblake, being a horrible fucking asshole again.
Cheering the onscreen depiction of a hate crime can reasonably be seen as hate speech, I think.
Well, if it didn’t happen, sonofrojblake is here to invent it happening, so he can attack a fabricated position! Yay! Thanks for that helpful addition to the discussion, asshole!
So fabricate. Much invention. Wow.
Ophelia, why do you allow this person to continue posting?
sonofrojblake, you don’t think it raises interesting questions about intersectionality of privileges? I guess your buddies would probably ostracise you if it seemed like you tried to understand these “SJW” topics, but it really is worthwhile… especially if you intend to comment on them publicly.
Do you think it doesn’t matter what the cheers were for? Do you think these footballers would have been cheering if the white racist was beating a straight black guy? How about a gay black girl?
If you were really interested in figuring out how this might not happen in the future, a positive first step might be to think about the realities (including the subtleties) of what actually happened.
Well, I for one am willing to take sonofrogblake at his word here and try to answer his question. Yes, there are lots of things that could be done by those in authority at their college. Since the team attended the movie during a school-sponsored trip, they were essentially representatives of their college at the time; therefore, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be disciplined, or at least educated – if I taught these students, I’d take the publicity as the perfect time for a “teachable moment.” Some things that could be done include
– A session on the history of the movement for homosexual rights, perhaps with a showing of the documentary on Stonewall.
– A Q&A with a speaker on the topic. (Awesome if they could line up Michael Sam.)
– A discussion of statistics. Chances are high that at least one member of the team is secretly gay, and hiding it. How would you feel if that was you?
– English class: Write an essay laying out the arguments both for and against gay marriage
And so forth. See? There are ways of getting through to people without shutting down their right to Free Speech – in fact, actually encouraging it. This is especially true for those attending a University. It’s a little thing we call “education.”
I think this football team needs a visit from Chris Kluwe.
Heads will be assploding all over Morehouse.
Whether or not it was hate speech is irrelevant to whether it’s free speech. America has no laws against hate speech– the First Amendment does not permit it.
It can easily get you kicked out of the movie theater, and in this case it should have. Being disruptive in a movie theater makes it harder for patrons to enjoy the movie, and most cinemas are willing to take action against disruptive patrons based on that.
But really it’s not about either of those things, and you know that. Free speech ! = moral speech. Cheering on a white racist beating the shit out of a gay black man because you’re a homophobe too is reprehensible whether you have a right to do so or not.
@SallyStrange, 5:
Regarding my supposed “invention” of a rule against cheering, let me help you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question
@SallyStrange, 6: Regarding “race traitors”.
The original post said: ” This room full of black men who attend Dr. King’s alma mater. They cheered for the racist white guy “. When you read that juxtaposition, what do YOU think the author is trying to imply?
@B Lar: Yes, I think it does indeed raise those questions. And others about the toxic culture of football in particular and “jock” sports in general. BUT: as I said – those people are entitled to their wrong opinions. And they made a loud, nonviolent protest against something that conflicted with those opinions. Which is what WE do when we disagree with something, isn’t it? And yes, they inconvenienced others in their protest… which is what we do when we march down a street with banners protesting against a war (Feb 15th 2003, where were you?).
Their views are repellent and their expression upsetting (I sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted to be in that cinema), but my point in saying “How do you stop it happening again?” was precisely that their right to do that is MY right too, my right to state my opinions where people can hear.
And all I can say to brucegee1962 is: this, this, and more this. Especially:
If football players’ hazing rituals are anything to go by, chances are high that most of them are secretly gay.
@Gretchen, 10: And your idea of moral speech != other people’s idea of moral speech. How would you change things so that this didn’t happen again? (No sneaky reading post 8, though, that’s cheating…)
Also:
Even in the UK, which does criminalise hate speech (and since 2008 has included sexual orientation as a ground for protection), this kind of behaviour would likely fail the test. In the first instance, hate speech by its definition requires that the “speech” (whatever it is) be directed at a person or persons with intent to cause harassment alarm or distress. When a person or group cheers something happening on a movie screen, it would be hard to argue that they’re cheering AT any of the other audience members, and even harder to argue that they’re cheering specifically in order to cause distress.
Furthermore, in the circumstances of hatred based on religious belief or on sexual orientation, the relevant act (namely, words, behaviour, written material, or recordings, or programme) must be threatening and not just abusive or insulting. And that’s in the UK.
But as Gretchen points out in (10), hate speech is strongly protected under US law, unless it explicitly promotes imminent violence.
Which is, I think, where I came in.
sonofrojblake said:
No shit. And? Unless you’re going to argue that their idea is right and mine is wrong, what’s the relevance of this?
No, you came in before that. You were, apparently, the first commenter (poor memory?), who came in to offer a non sequitur about freedom of speech. In 10, I pointed out– to you– that freedom of speech is irrelevant.
Do you ever post comments that are on-topic, or are non sequiturs your specialty?
Oh dear. You appear to have missed the point, and by a rather wide margin. Here let me help.
Post 1, me: free speech sucks sometimes. (I.e. it allows people to say things other people find upsetting).
Post 5, SallyStrange: It’s hate speech!
Post 10: you point out that whether it’s hate speech is irrelevant, because hate speech is protected free speech in the US.
Post 12: I observe that that was rather my point in post 1… which was where I came in.
Post 13: you miss the point. /shrug/