Prop 8 sparks a potential Sundance boycott
Nov 19, 2008, 06:39 PM | by Missy Schwartz
Categories: Current Affairs, Movie Biz
The latest fallout from California’s controversial Proposition 8? A potential boycott of Park City, Utah’s Sundance Film Festival. Earlier this month, activist blogger John Aravosis urged filmmakers to skip the January 2009 fest as a way to hit back at the Utah-based Mormon church, whose members donated an estimated millions in support of the gay-marriage ban. Boycotting the fest would, Aravosis argued, hurt the overall economy of Utah — and therefore the Church. Then, it turned out that Alan Stock, CEO of the national movie theater chain Cinemark, donated $9,999 to Yes on 8. And guess who owns Park City’s Holiday Village, one of Sundance’s biggest screening venues? Yep, Cinemark.
For all the heated chatter it’s generated, the call to arms hasn’t gained much traction with industry players. That’s likely because Sundance has long supported gay cinema, helping launch landmarks like 1991’s Paris Is Burning and 1999’s Boys Don’t Cry. “We understand that people have real emotion around this issue,” says Sundance Institute spokesperson Brooks Addicott. “But we have a long history of championing diversity. So instead of staying away, we hope people come and have conversations.”
Assuming the festival proceeds as planned, the Mormon Church may soon face a new storm anyway. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are developing a stage extravaganza called Mormon Musical, which they hope will someday hit Broadway. Contrary to recent reports stating that the show will hit the Great White Way next year, Mormon Musical is only in the development stage. “We haven’t even written the whole thing,” says Stone. “We don’t have any financing, we haven’t sold the project to anybody. We’ve basically written some songs and some of the story.” While the show will undoubtedly pack the kind of polemical punch we’ve come to expect from the pop-culture pranksters, it won’t mention Proposition 8. “We’ve been working on it for years,” explains Stone, “so it’s not really current event-y. This comes from wanting to do a musical about Joseph Smith and Mormons and stuff. Trey and I both grew up with a lot of Mormons in Colorado — Mormons next door, Mormons down the street.” Stone expects raising funds in this economy to be tough. "Our agents and lawyers are like, ‘What the f---? Will you guys go make a movie and make some money?’ But hopefully," he says, "it’ll open and make as much as Cats.”
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