Saturday, December 20, 2014

Should moviegoers punish theatre chains who caved to censorship by staying home on Christmas Day?

Thursday, Rachel Maddow pointed out that it was bookbuyers themselves who ended the ban on sales of Salmon Rushdie's The Satanic Verses by picketing the chain bookstores that sur­rendered to empty threats by radical Muslims by refusing to carry the acclaimed book.
     The same thing seems to be happening now. The nation's biggest cinema chains have refused to exhibit The Interview — Regal, AMC (now owned by a Chinese billionaire), Carmike and Cinemark. Comcast, owner of NBC, has said it won't offer The Interview on-demand. Paramount has said it won't allow screenings of Team America, which some theaters said they would exhibit in place of The Interview.
     Despite isolated court rulings to the contrary, AKSARBENT doubts picketing a shopping center cineplex would get you anything but kicked off the premises by a shut-up-and-shop mall cop, but what if you just didn't show up at the box office on one of the most profitable days of the year?
     Maybe it's time for moviegoers in 2014 to teach the movie industry the same lesson that chain booksellers learned from their customers in the 90s. Conspicuous censorship isn't a very good business model. #BoycottAppeasers

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