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Jewish World Review May 10, 2005 / 1 Iyar, 5765 Person for Ethical Treatment of Audiences By Joel Stein
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Though I think animals are only good for eating and keeping Eddie Murphy from making live-action movies, I love the people from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. They're the only political entity with any sense of fun. Sure, homelessness and AIDS might be more pressing, but those guys seldom throw paint on anyone.
So when I heard that PETA was protesting the premiere of "Monster-in-Law," I told them I was in. Their angle was that J.Lo, who stars in the film, has fur in her new clothing collection and, for reasons I don't quite follow, wearing animals is far worse than eating them.
My reason for protesting "Monster-in-Law" was far more relevant: It is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Studios need to stop greenlighting this garbage, now.
My first dilemma as I drove to the National Theater in Westwood was that I stopped by In-N-Out on the way. No amount of Listerine strips was going to hide my burger breath.
This was particularly stupid because the only people who over-empathize with adorable animals are hot women. If fetuses could just cute up a little, pro-life protests would get a lot more coverage.
My second problem was that I couldn't simultaneously hold both my signs, which read, "Stop cruelty to people!" and "Ban stupid movies!"
Luckily there were 200 people there, and not nearly enough signs. So I gave my extra sign to protester Frank Saez, who I'm pretty sure didn't bother to read it. He was, however, sympathetic to my argument. "I've never liked any of her movies," Saez said of J.Lo. "If I see she's starring in a movie, I don't even look at it."
After about 30 minutes, Saez finally read the sign and exchanged it for one that said something about raccoons being skinned alive.
If Saez had been stuck in a screening room seeing Jane Fonda throw her 50th screaming tantrum, he would have begged to be that raccoon.
My favorite thing about liberal protesters is how respectful they are of other liberal protesters, no matter how stupid their cause. Everyone was nice to me.
When Saez was done with my sign, instead of throwing it out or giving it back, he found some tape and secured it prominently to a space high up on a wall. I was starting to understand why those WTO protests don't make any sense.
Lisa Goldman, who had protested animal testing at UCLA the day before, also backed my cause. "It looks insipid," she said of the film.
Still, despite my persuasive arguments, people seemed to stay pretty focused on the skinning-animals-alive angle. I couldn't get them to stop yelling "J.Lo! Fur ho!" and listen to me complain about the lack of Michael Vartan's character arc. It's hard to get film criticism to rhyme. I had new respect for Gene Shalit.
Flanked by raccoon and fox mascots, a woman ran around with a flat-screen strapped to her chest, showing a movie that juxtaposed photos of Jennifer Lopez in fur and foxes being de-pelted. Though the film did make a point about animal cruelty, I thought it did an even better job illustrating my point, because it was a lot better than "Monster-in-Law."
It was then that I spotted, jammed in a horde of protesters, two UCLA freshmen holding a sign with a collage of "Monster-in-Law" star Vartan that read, "Roses are red, violets are blue, you are so hot!!! Even my mom loves you too!!"
The Vartan fans were not upset that the protest had pretty much destroyed their chance of seeing their hero. They were also not dismayed by my warning about how bad the movie was. As you'd expect from Vartan fans, they were unshakably upbeat.
"He's very handsome," said Hang Do, who had been infatuated ever since seeing "Never Been Kissed." "There's just something nice about him." J.Lo, however, "should know better."
I agreed. Unlike Vartan, J.Lo is at the point in her career where she can wait for better scripts. But as much as I tried to persuade my fellow protesters to quickly switch gears, my brave protest of one never expanded.
"I think your cause is worthy," said Allison Ezell, the PETA campaign coordinator. "You just need a better networking system. I'm sure there would have been people from around the world if they knew. Ben Affleck would join you. I'm sure Matt Damon would have been even more excited to come."
Even though protesting, no matter how worthy the cause, is the most boring, repetitive waste of time I had experienced since seeing "Monster-in-Law," I was glad to be part of disrupting a premiere.
Not that you shouldn't try to get attention for your film and throw a party to celebrate the release. But people shouldn't be interested in the media's coverage of these generic nonevents.
And if I could help turn one into a real event, then I feel like I've contributed to improving the 21st century version of news.
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Joel Stein is a Los Angeles Times columnist. Comment by clicking here.
05/02/05 From Horror to Simply Horrible © 2005 Los Angeles Times Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
