DECORAH, Iowa - The president of a company that owns movie theaters in Iowa and Nebraska is refusing to show director Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11."
R.L. Fridley, owner of Des Moines-based Fridley Theatres, says the controversial documentary incites terrorism.
Fridley said in an e-mail message to company managers that the company does not "play political propaganda films from either the right or the left."
"Our country is in a war against an enemy who would destroy our way of life, our culture and kill our people," Fridley wrote. "These barbarians have shown through (the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001) and the recent beheadings that they will stop at nothing. I believe this film emboldens them and divides our country even more."
I don't know how big a deal will be made of this; so far I haven't seen any mention of this on the major news sites. But I bet that fans of Moore's film, and the left in general, will probably call this yet another example of censorship.
That is, of course, total bunk. On the one hand, there is preventing someone from publishing their works or preventing people from having access to those works. On the other hand is choosing not to facilitate the publishing of or access to those works. The first is censorship. The second is not and is entirely legal. This man owns these theaters; it is his right to determine which movies will and will not be shown in them. He is under no obligation whatsoever to show a particular film. It doesn't matter at all what his reasons are. In this case, he has decided that the film emboldens terrorists (and I would tend to agree with him though, keep in mind, I haven't seen it), and he does not want it shown in his theaters. And, to be fair, he has also stated that his theaters will not show propaganda films from the left or the right. In other cases, the decision is based purely on business concerns (see: Air America). It doesn't matter what the reason is, this man is a private businessman and he cannot be forced to show a movie that he does not want to, whether it's Fahrenheit 9/11 or Spider-Man 2.
It's the same thing as happened after Natalie Maines said what she said about the President and many radio stations stopped playing the Dixie Chicks' music. They had the right to play or not play whatever songs they wanted (unless, as I've noted before, they had a contract to do so; I've never heard that there was any such contract). People had a right to buy or not to buy their CD's. Exercising that right is not censorship. It's freedom of choice.
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