Karina on SpoutBlog

Last week after California passed the gay marriage ban Proposition 8, gay rights advocate and blogger John Aravosis called for a boycott of Utah businesses, specifically the Sundance Film Festival, which is headquartered at the Park City Marriott, which is owned by pro-Prop 8 donor Brent Andrus. Aravosis’ logic was that if the Mormon church was going to pump money into supporting a law that would impact Hollywood liberals, Hollywood liberals should enact their revenge by refusing to pump money into Mormon businesses.

I didn’t hop on this story when I first heard about it over the weekend, because it seemed so obviously crazy that I thought it would never stick. With Prop 8 now in the hands of the appellate courts, why waste energy on a revenge gambit that would inflict major collateral damage on innocent bystanders? And in fact, by Monday the indie film community at large began speaking out against the proposed boycott.

Yesterday, the festival released a statement urging against the boycott: “Sundance Institute was founded on the idea of championing diversity and freedom of expression. It would be a grave disappointment to us if our Festival were to be singled out for a boycott, especially as we celebrate 25 years of showcasing independent voices.” And at indieWIRE, Eugene Hernandez collected further statements from the Sundance camp, as well as criticism of the boycott from filmmaker Alison Anders and producer Ross Katz. Other members of the indie film world, including producer Bob Hawk and AFI’s Shaz Bennett, chimed in with  anti-boycott sentiment in the comments.

Even Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has given his blessing to the ongoing Prop 8 protests (and in the language of bodybuilding metaphor, no less!), but –and do correct me if I’m wrong — I can’t find evidence that anyone in the film community thinks the Sundance boycott is a good idea. Aravosis hasn’t published anything about it since Friday; it’ll be interesting to see if he keeps fighting for the boycott in the face of so much indie film opposition, or if he just quietly lets the idea die.