Hollywood has never pretended to be pro-gun. They like guns for their movies, but that's the extent of it. Very few actors have the cajones to defend the right to keep and bear arms, with a couple of notable exceptions.
But March for Our Lives, a group that spun up following the Parkland shooting, is blasting A24 for a new film that doesn't seem to focus on gun control.
Now, in fairness, most movies don't focus on gun control, and that's fine, but with this one, there's a moment early in the film that upset the delicate flowers at March for Our Lives greatly.
Ahead of last night’s premiere of Kristoffer Borgli‘s The Drama, gun violence prevention organization March for Our Lives released a statement calling out the A24 dark romantic comedy’s “deeply misaligned” marketing campaign.
On Thursday, the student-led advocacy group posted a disclaimer to Instagram, noting that while the org didn’t want to spoil the film’s premise, it had the obligation to discuss the themes presented in the Zendaya and Robert Pattinson two-hander. While much of the press tour has side-stepped conversation regarding its subject matter, what has been billed as the film’s “twist” reveals itself early on in the runtime, as Zendaya’s bride-to-be Emma reveals the worst thing she’s ever done is orchestrate a mass shooting at her school — though she did not go through with it.
Now, I haven't seen the movie, but it seems that "Emma" didn't go through with the attack because of another mass shooting, which she watched devastate a community, and instead became a gun control advocate. This isn't secret information, as the entire plot is up on Wikipedia for anyone interested.
But for the anti-gunners, that's not enough. It's not enough that the character didn't go through with her plan, called it the worst thing she's ever done, that everyone around her looks at her like she's the most terrible of them all, despite the others actually doing horrible things and not just planning them. Nope, that's not enough. The entire freaking movie has to be about gun control, mass shootings, and literally anything but what the movie is about.
The marketing isn't anti-gun enough, the film is probably not anti-gun enough, and March for Our Lives thinks that the entire world should revolve around the narratives they choose, even when the character they're upset about never actually followed through with the plan and became one of them.
I mean, holy crap, these people are insufferable.
Pro-gun folks are generally treated like crazy, racist, or something else terrible, but we're expected to suck it up. However, when one of theirs isn't the entire focus of the story and marketing, in particular, with how anti-gun they actually are, it's a terrible injustice.