Uber-Hollywood blogger Perez Hilton was on with CNN’s Jane Velez Mitchell last night, and wow, is Perez peeved over the Mormon support of Prop 8:
I’ve gone to Sundance for the past three years, and I won’t be going this year…
That’s a huge deal–Perez has a gianormous readership, and Sundance provides lots of blog-fodder and swag. When Velez Mitchell pointed out that Sundance was known for its diversity and screening of gay and lesbian films, Perez parried with the idea of those films being shown at during an alternative festival in Los Angeles.
Last week Americablog.com’s John Aravosis urged filmmakers to boycott the Sundance Film Festival:
Let’s start with the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. It’s high time Sundance found a better state to party in than the seat of the Mormon Church. Sundance is THE gathering of liberal Hollywood. The last place it should be is in Utah. Robert Redford, are you out there?
Alan Stock, CEO of the national movie theater chain Cinemark, donated $9,999 to Yes on 8, and Cinemark owns Park City’s Holiday Village, one of Sundance’s biggest screening venue.
So along with the pinch from the current state of the economy, the festival may soon feel the pinch from a gay boycott. Maybe Redford should, for this year, consider setting up shop elsewhere…
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Alan Stock’s $9,999 donation is telling. He wrote it to be under some (fictional) $10,000 reporting threshold. He probably thought it would slip under public notice, that his name would be off of the $10,000 lists.
Hey, why was Robert Redford not one of the handful of A-List celebrities who spoke out and donated against Prop 8? Was he afraid of alienating his sponsors?
Think of all the other money Alan Stock has tithed over the years to the LDS Church, which has used its resources since 1997 to fight gay equality in dozens of states. The revelations about the Mormon-Catholic alliance are truly frightening. The implications for gay and lesbian victims of this crusade are sobering indeed.
No one is saying it out loud, but how sad — and true — that our cause lacked broad Hollywood support. You can basically count on two hands the big stars who came out vocally or with donations. Pathetic… Maybe they were all afraid of putting their careers or reputations on the line or something like that.