Enders Game starts today, and you KNOW you’re not allowed to see it, right? It’s based on the best-selling YA book of the same name written by virulent homophobe Orson Scott Card, and although the producers and directors and actors and gaffers and PAs and Craft Service people have all distanced themselves from him and ASSURED us that NOBODY connected to the production has anything but love for the gay community, let’s face it: The movie helps sell books, and the more successful the movie is, the more we line Card’s pockets. So: BOYCOTT, QUEENS, BOYCOTT!
I’ve made a list here of various boycotts the gay community has initiated over the years. Remember the Cracker Barrel protests of the ’90s? And breaking your Donna Summer records when she went on her anti-gay rant in the early ’80s? Good times. It definitely seems we’re having more boycotts lately, though, doesn’t it? I suspect it’s not because there’s more discrimination these days, just that we’re more organized as a community and less willing to put up with anyone’s guff. We’re also more discriminating where we spend our dollars, and more comfortable with our role as civil rights watchdogs.
Do boycotts actually work? You tell me. Are you still shopping at Target, Walmart, and Best Buy? Did you accidentally get Barilla pasta last time you went to the grocery store? Has our boycotting hurt their bottom line? Has it forced them to change their policies? Not always. Often we just forget and move on to the next bête noire du jour. That doesn’t mean though, that you shouldn’t show solidarity with your gay brothers and sisters. So altogether now: I WILL NOT SEE ENDER’S GAME! I WILL NOT SUBSIDIZE A HOMOPHOBE! Go see Kill Your Darlings instead. You’ll undoubtably have a better time, I assure you.