The Cove

[Mark Roberts]

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
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