The Cove

[Christine Marran]

Yes, exactly Mark.  And the use of such lame rhetoric to critique the 
film (as "anti-Japanese!" and "those terrorists!") just shows how out of 
touch and grasping at straws they are.  Almost as bad as Palin saying 
that American environmentalists caused the BP super-leak and trying to 
prove herself a fighter for America at the same time.

I look forward to the day when environmental issues can be considered 
outside of nationalist politics and personal gain.  The borderless Gulf 
currents prove the point that no one nation has claim to environmental 
health.

Christine
> What puzzles me is why exhibitors cave in to these threats. Since when 
> is scandal bad for business? Why not just let the sound trucks come, 
> let them make fools of themselves, and let the police do their job?
>
> Although it may be difficult to imagine, there have been successful 
> lawsuits for noise pollution in Japan, and unless the law has changed, 
> the right-wingers are required by law to present the police with a 
> written notice of when they'll be there with their sound trucks. Law 
> enforcement should be able to keep a fairly close watch on what's 
> happening at the theater. If the police were notified and they don't 
> want to do their job, well, that's a separate problem that taxpayers 
> might need to think about.
>
> Even if the right-wingers actually do accost or attack anybody, won't 
> it severely damage their own cause? Is the general populace really 
> going to say: "yeah, that usher deserved to get beat up in the back 
> alley -- he should have known better than to keep his job at Theater N 
> when management decided to screen 'The Cove'."
>
> M
>
>
> On Jun 4, 2010, at 8:33 AM, Aaron Gerow wrote:
>
>> The Asahi reports this morning that one of the theaters scheduled to 
>> show the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove has broken under pressure 
>> from right-wing organizations and decided not to show the film. The 
>> right-wingers, who had threatened to begin protests on the 4th in 
>> front of the theater, had already performed loud protests in front of 
>> the distributor in April, charging those associated with the film 
>> with being "anti-Japanese" and "terrorists destroying the Japanese 
>> spirit." Theater N in Shibuya, which is owned by the publishing 
>> distributor Nippan, decided not to show the film because for fear 
>> something might happen to one of the customers or someone in the 
>> building. Cinemart Roppongi, the other theater scheduled to show the 
>> film, is considering whether to go on with the screening.
>>
>> http://www.japantoday.com/category/entertainment/view/dolphin-hunt-film-canceled-in-tokyo-after-protests 
>>
>>
>> Aaron Gerow
>> KineJapan owner
>>
>> Associate Professor
>> Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
>> Yale University
>>
>> For list commands, send "information kinejapan" to
>> listserver at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>> Kinema Club: http://pears.lib.ohio-state.edu/Markus/Welcome.html
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>


-- 
Christine L. Marran
Associate Professor of Japanese Literature and Cultural Studies
Department of Asian Languages and Literatures
University of Minnesota