What is family? Your answer is certain to be a hair more inclusive than that of Focus on the Family (FotF). But like it or not, the far-right Christian “values” group is taking its pro- “traditional” family (aka anti– single mothered, divorced, non-nuclear and, most pointedly, gay family) values to a theater near you.
In a one-night only special screening May 6th, their “documentary” Irreplaceable will be coming to over 700 theaters coast-to-coast – these ones, to be exact. This special event doesn’t end with just this single massive screen buy, but represents instead the launch of a $5 million dollar FOF campaign, “The Family Project,” intended to promote “God’s design for family” (source: http://www.familyproject.com/blog/about/):
The Family Project also offers a hope-filled, optimistic antidote to the current landscape of familial breakdown, sending a clear message that a return to the time-tested, historical model of the family is where so many of our culture’s wounds begin to heal.
The “experts” featured in the film are usual suspect professional homophobes, reports Joe Jervis of Joe.My.God.:
Among the anti-gay talking heads in the film is Rabbi Shmuel Goldin, who is perhaps best known for his campaign against the publication of gay wedding announcements in Jewish newspapers. Also in the movie is ex-gay torture advocate Dr. Miriam Grossman, the author of Bābai You’re Teaching My Children WHAT? Other anti-gay figures that appear in the film include right wing talker Eric Metaxas and film critic/Prop 8 proponent Michael Medved.
You can watch a trailer for the film over at Joe’s post.
FotF has purchased screen time from coast to coast at the top three theater chains in the country: Regal, AMC, and Cinemark. If you like to keep track of your Christian Right anti-gay propagandist enablers, it was Fathom Entertainment, your hosts for the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, who managed the placement in theaters. Mpower Pictures, a Christian production company, produced.
So, what to do? So far as I know, at this time neither GLAAD nor Family Equality Council currently has a coordinated response, though each may well be following the logic that this element warrants and deserves none of our attention. We’ll keep reporting back if and as a coordinated develops, but meantime, if you object to your local theater showing this (and/or its running ads for it, as our downtown San Francisco Cinemark theater has been), you can certainly take individual action.
Here again is the list of theaters across the country where Irreplaceable is showing, so you can find yours.
Lest your local theater manager think it’s too bold a move to consider saying no to FotF money:
- Years ago (2010), the NCAA said no to FotF ad money based on its politics, so neither Regal, AMC, and Cinemark nor Fathom Entertainment would not be going out on a limb to reject the FOF money: “NCAA Scraps Focus on the Family Ad because of the Group’s Anti-Gay Stance”
If you like a good petition:
- Here’s a petition on Change.org by a Belmont, CA man, to be sent to AMC Theatres and Cinemark theaters,“Cancel Focus on the Family’s Screening of Irreplaceable”.
If you want to track what’s going on with this via a Facebook page started by the Change.org petition poster, Shalom Rosenberg:
And if you want to share your thoughts with those who are enabling this screening nationwide, here are contact their pages:
Tag your pics #villageq to be included in the family album at 
Nothing like a little white, straight, middle-class nostalgia for the 1950s to start my Monday morning.
I’d love to be able to see this film without giving anyone associated with it my money.
Happy Monday!
When “Titanic” came out, I wanted to see it but was disinterested in giving blowhard James Cameron my theatergoer dollars (I had seen his “I’m the king-o-da-world!” outburst at the Academy Awards & didn’t realize it was a quote from his film. Oops!). So I bought a ticket for another movie at the same time, and then just tucked into his theater.
Not like I’m advocating for that here, but it did work for me & Mr. Cameron.
Please note VillageQ Readers that VillageQ does not endorse thievery or any flavor of malfeasance whatsoever.
But personally speaking, great idea, Polly!
Thanks for giving me a chance to clarify, sister Deborah! Me at 25 & independent, vs. me at twice that age and speaking from inside a community and putatively on behalf of a publication are two tot’ly different things.
For what it’s worth, I also think that not everyone, queer or straight ally, would be outraged that their local theater would both screen and advertise for this documentary. Imagine, for instance, if folks like us had the resources to create a documentary about our families and our vision of family and have *that* screened coast-to-coast, simultaneously. Though I advocate an inclusive rather than judgemental vision of family, I can see how others wouldn’t split the hairs so finely & think that both visions deserve a hearing.
For my part, now twice 25 yrs old and speaking as a member of the editorial team at VQ, I think folks should simply be informed and make their own decisions what to do with that info. A concerted campaign to promote one vision of a “right” or even “biblically correct” family is afoot. It’s more concerning to me, probably, because those promoting that vision have contributed to very damaging notions about LGBT youth ( see this GLAAD piece a few years back, and this one at Teaching Tolerance).
The most apropos connection to us at VQ, in my view, is this: those of us who write about our families in the public sphere – even more so, those of us who do so as spiritually inspired folks, be that Judeo-Christian or any other spiritual path – have a special responsibility to keep sharing the simple truths of our own family stories.