Oregon Film Festival Cancels ‘Kindergarten Cop’ Screening
... for "romanticizing over-policing children"
A screening of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1990 movie, ‘Kindergarten Cop’ has been pulled from an Oregon film festival after protesters claim that it glorifies police traumatizing children.
Festival organizers announced the movie would be replaced with a documentary celebrating the late Congressman John Lewis.
The reason ‘Kindergarten Cop’ was originally chosen is because it was filmed in Astoria, Oregon and is important to the state’s history in film making as well as to honour the movie’s 30th anniversary this year.
Lois Leveen is a local author who led the protest claiming the film was a relic of ‘how pup culture feeds racist assumptions’ in a Tweet.
Her Tweets are now protected, but the original messages said:
“What’s so funny about School-to-Prison pipeline? Kindergarten Cop-Out: Tell @nwfilmcenter there’s nothing fun in cops traumatizing kids. National reckoning on overpolicing is a weird time to revive Kindergarten Cop. IRL, we are trying to end school-to-prison pipeline.”
“Yes Kindergarten Cop is only a movie. So are BIRTH OF A NATION and GONE WITH THE WIND, but we recognize films like those are not “good family fun.” They are relics of how pop culture feeds racist assumptions. KINDERGARTEN COP romanticizes over-policing in the U.S.”
Many were unhappy with the festivals decision to pull the movie after her complaints:
Kindergarten Cop and Birth of a Nation are "both problematic movies" in the same sense that my kids and Vincent van Gogh are "both painters". https://t.co/pcvkBAeM2x
— Alexandra F. Baldwin (@VerumVulnero1) August 4, 2020
Who had Kindergarten Cop being linked to Birth Of A Nation on the 2020 bingo card? pic.twitter.com/nYPTCg2AgU
— Rigormorton (@WeirdNPissdOff) August 5, 2020
