Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Worldwide Theater Protest: Backlash Bigger Than Anyone Expected

John Kelly, Not Dead Yet
"It's exhilerating"
Excerpts from Buzzfeed:

In the face of the filmmaker's contention that the film is "just
about one character,” protesters maintain that they’ve been bombarded with movies about assisted suicide for disabled people for a century.

The last mainstream English-language film in which a character decides she would rather die than live with quadriplegia was 2004’s Million Dollar Baby . . . . That film provoked criticisms, as Me Before You has, but activists say their concerns did not resonate much in the mainstream. It was “nothing like this,” said John Kelly, the New England regional director of Not Dead Yet, a disability rights group that lobbies against assisted suicide; he also has an injury similar to Will’s. Kelly recalled an article in the New York Times in 2005 that addressed the disability rights perspective. But this time — in response to a torrent of critiques by writers and activists — The Guardianthe Washington PostPeopleVanity FairSalonBuzzFeed, and The Hollywood Reporter have all covered the controversy, which has become too clamorous to ignore. “It’s exhilarating,” Kelly said.

To read the entire article, click here.

Protesters, "Me Before You."

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