|
Police in Los Angeles and Philadelphia this week joined
counterparts in New York in calling for a boycott after the
Oscar-winning "Pulp Fiction" director described police as
murderers at a rally in New York.
Public outrage over the deaths of black men at the hands of
police in New York, Missouri, Baltimore, South Carolina and
elsewhere has spurred protests and prosecutions of police
nationwide for more than a year.
Carl Dix, one of the organizers of Saturday's rally, said the
attacks on Tarantino were aimed at sending a message to "anyone
whose voice carries great weight in society: if you speak out,
we will come after you, threaten your livelihood and attempt to
scare you back into silence."
"They want the people who suffer the brunt of this brutality
alone and ignored. This is unacceptable," Dix, a co-founder of
the group Rise Up October, said in a statement.
Tarantino's violent, anti-slavery movie "Django Unchained" won
an Oscar two years ago. His latest movie, "The Hateful Eight"
about bounty hunters in post-Civil War Wyoming, opens in U.S.
movie theaters on December 25 and is seen as a contender for
this year's Academy Awards.
Tarantino has not commented on the police backlash and the
boycott calls are not expected to have a significant impact on
the box office for his films, which are admired in Hollywood but
not always big commercial draws.
"When I see murder, I cannot stand by, and I have to call the
murdered the murdered, and I have to call the murderers the
murderers," Tarantino told protesters from the podium at the
rally, which was held days after a New York police officer was
shot dead while chasing a bicycle thief.
Craig Lally, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective
League, called Tarantino's comments "inflammatory rhetoric," and
said in a statement that members support a boycott of his films.
John McNesby, president of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of
Police Lodge 5, said Tarantino's films project "violence and
respect for criminals; it turns out he also hates cops."
Jazz musician Arturo O'Farrill, in a statement supporting
Tarantino, said the United States is "a free nation in which an
artist, or any citizen, (is) allowed to speak their mind without
fear of retribution."
(Reporting By Jill Serjeant; Editing by Lisa Lambert)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|
|
