Anti-abortion activists sometimes use a tactic I call “WTF.” What the fuck? protesting involves going to a place where nobody in their right mind is thinking about abortion, or any sort of hot button issue, and then ruining everyone’s good time by screaming about abortion. You’ve probably run into this: dismembered fetus posters at the farmer’s market and a plane towing a banner for no discernible reason are two examples I’ve run into. I’m not sure what they think they’re accomplishing, but most people look at it and go “What the fuck?” before getting away from those psychos as fast as possible. Sometimes, they’ll get into a confrontation with people who were not planing on explaining D&X to their pre-school children that day, and now have some interesting questions to answer and tears to dry, but that’s about all they can expect out of that.
These people have apparently decided that Horton Hears A Who’s message of being nice to small things is the perfect opportunity to remind people that abortion is wrong. Because there’s nothing people respond to better than having their leisure time hijacked by barely-coherent protesters.
All hell broke loose at the Hollywood premiere of “Horton Hears a Who!” today when a group of pro-lifers infiltrated the screening, then chanted anti-abortion slogans after the flick.
The theme of the movie is based on the motto: “After all, a person is a person, no matter how small.” So the pro-lifers thought it was a good idea to use this theme to their advantage — even though their complicated message was falling mostly on the ears of children.
But hey, at least they made a difference:
Shouts of protest were returned by some in attendance, including, “This is a kids premiere,” “How dare you,” and “Do you really care that much about this?”
I’m reminded of that Dilbert cartoon in which Dilbert explains that reality is defined by the craziest person in the room – these people have to know that this intrusive, in-your-face form of protesting with its tenuous relation to whatever the situation is and its bizarre symbols (seriously, wtf is up with that red tape?) doesn’t win any converts, but it does piss people off. Do they really think they’re getting something done or are they just creaming their jeans at how rebellious and brave they are, confusing the public’s justified anger over the inappropriateness of the display with Satan-inspired anti-Christian persecution?
“Do they really think they’re getting something done or are they just creaming their jeans at how rebellious and brave they are, confusing the public’s justified anger over the inappropriateness of the display with Satan-inspired anti-Christian persecution?”
You just basically summarized the fundie mindset as a whole. Everyone who expresses an opinion different from Gawd’s Chosen Ones is obviously possessed by Satan and is doing it simply to try to persecute the poor dears. Obviously. (For a brilliant example of batshit insanity complete with paranoid persecution fantasies and demonization of people who don’t believe what xtians do, see Creationism.)
If you substitute the respective ‘greatest imaginable evil’ for ‘Satan’ and ‘the right attitude or belief’ for ‘Christian’ this covers pretty much every type of fundamentalist under the sun. And they are everywhere: in every religion, among animal rights activists, environmentalists, free-market-economy-priests, protectionists, Starbucks-haters, pro-lifers, pro-choicers, MRA activists, pacifists. Any faith, belief, idea shared by more than two or three people will spawn fundies which then will be a nuisance to everybody and discredit the very idea they think they are furthering.
OK. I get what you’re saying here. I get what you said in your “Dear Mr Patriarch” post, too.
… but aren’t they kind of contradictory?
I know, I know, WTF. Bear with me.
In that Patriarchy post and thread, the basic point was that whether or not men think they’re Mr Nice Guy, they should be told as often as possible that there is a patriarchy and they’re part of it. Saying “Oh, but I’m really nice and it’s nothing to do with me and telling me I’m an oppressor just makes me dislike you” is not an adequate response.
Damn straight. Couldn’t agree more.
But this post looks to another issue – abortion – and now the message is apparently reversed. It pisses people off to tell them they are involved in a system that legalises oppression and denies the rights of human beings*, particularly if you tell them about it when they were actually thinking about something else. You shouldn’t tell people such upsetting things, because they won’t like you much if you do. In fact, if you go around telling people things they don’t want to hear, you’re probably insane.
Why should pro-lifers not be allowed to present their controversial views with the same uncompromising fervour as feminists? Is this pro-life protest really very different from those classic feminist protests against Miss World beauty pageants? I can imagine these blog comments being aimed at those women – they’re too angry, they’re damaging their own cause, spoiling this nice evening with their hateful shouting, upsetting the children, probably nuts, etc.
(* Disclaimer: this is my attempt to present a pro-life viewpoint here. I’m not suggesting everyone sees abortion this way – obviously not. My point is just that if you DO see the world this way, then behaving like this is completely understandable,)
I think the issue is not so much who expresses what view, but how they do it, or where and when.
Nobody denies the pro-lifers the right to express their views, or to try to make others see things their way. Whether those views make sense, whether they are relevant for or offending to some or many doesn’t make any difference, really (and the same goes for any opinion, idea, or world-view).
What Horton is not sure… is about is not so much the message that anti-abortionists have, but the stage they chose to present it. As it says above, there is nothing people respond to better than having their leisure time hi-jacked by barely-coherent protesters.
There are a number of problems with their approach:
When I take my kids to a children’s movie I want us to have fun together, not discuss any difficult things like abortion (often, this fact alone would be taken as proof that I make light of abortion, or am in favour of using abortion as a contraceptive rather than the last resort it really is).
I want to decide when and how to let my children learn about these things. I would want to explain things to them myself, or have someone I trust do that, rather than having some fanatics kick them in at the deep end.
The feminists of Dear Mr. Patriarch… didn’t go to a kindergarten to chant gay-rights slogans or engage in a bit of hetero-bashing. This is why there is no contradiction between the two posts.
Why should pro-lifers not be allowed to present their controversial views with the same uncompromising fervour as feminists?
When was the last time, off a college campus where that sort of thing is expected, that you saw a bunch of feminists crash some random place and start shouting? Feminists, anti-war protesters, hell, even the Free Mumia crowd waits until there’s at least a high-visibility protest going on for other reasons before they show up and start shouting about Mumia. As far as I can see, the anti-abortion crowd is the only one for which doing this shit is a legit tactic, and not just the work of a few over-enthusiastic crazy members.
Now, assuming that I’m right: most people find it very, very off-putting (and I’ve never spoken to a person who found such displays not tacky and inappropriate, it’s something that the pro- and anti-choicers in my workplace can all agree on) then the only reason I can think of for doing this shit is attention-whoring and building up a good persecution complex.
As an aside, didn’t both Dr. Seuss (and later his widow) try to sue pro-life groups for using that phrase?
They just can’t stand the idea of people doing stuff that they don’t control, be it have sex or enjoy a silly movie in peace.
I have never seen someone yelling about the patriarchy or Mumia at my local community garden, but I have often seen the bloody fetus creeps. And since community gardens in Austin are dominated by crunchy hippies, the Mumia people would have better luck. The only people even close to as inappropriate and weird as anti-choicers are PETA people, and even they have a slightly better idea of how to pick their battles.
I think a more appropriate protest would be directed at the Seuss estate for allowing his works to be so crassly exploited and cheapened by overlong animated features full of pop culture references that no one is going to get in ten years.
John Kovalic just posted a great cartoon on this subject: here.