Cook: Dinner and no movie

photo David Cook

It was date night for Tom and Marilyn Phelps. They went to see a romantic comedy.

It quickly turned into a First Amendment horror story.

Last month, the Sewanee, Tenn., couple had planned to see "Obvious Child," which was playing at the campus theater at the University of the South.

The film is edgy, with some teeth to it: a Sarah Silverman-esque twentysomething comedian in Brooklyn gets pregnant from a drunken one-night stand, and then wrestles with decisions of love, relationship ... and abortion.

It's profane, and apparently quite profound.

"One of the most startingly honest romantic comedies to appear onscreen in years," reviewed the Washington Post.

But when the Phelpses got to the theater, they were told the film was no longer playing.

Officials at Sewanee - that beautiful bastion of intellectualism - had committed the unthinkable liberal arts crime.

"They censored the movie," Tom Phelps said. "They took it down."

Not because of the sex or F-bombs.

But because the film dealt with abortion.

And this is election time in Tennessee, and there's an abortion amendment on the ballot.

And some students had complained.

"Their concerns were about both the film's subject matter and the timing of its showing because of the upcoming Amendment 1 vote," said Laurie Saxton, media relations for Sewanee.

It's the oldest trap in the book: someone complains, we get the jitters, and then flee from our Big Principles.

Sure, it's an election year. Yes, abortion is a heavy topic.

All the more reason to show the film, especially at a college, the perfect place for art+politics tension.

Colleges are where the next generation learns how to graduate past the fear-based and binary I'm-right-you're-wrong politics of today and into that promised land of engaged and thoughtful difference, where we let the First Amendment be all it can be.

Especially at Sewanee.

"There seems to be a nascent McCarthyism in this country that is striving to block people's rights and try to do their thinking for them. I never thought that I would see it raise its ugly head here in Sewanee, but I think I just did," Phelps wrote in a letter to the Mountain Messenger.

This is not to dis the complaining students. I'm not wild about the film either. And protest? Don't ever stop.

But the America we strive for isn't an either/or nation. We must be able to hold multiple perspectives and beliefs in our hearts and minds - like ideas juggling - without resorting to silencing the ones we don't like.

And what does it mean when officials yank films about abortion, yet not dystopian violence or warfare, both of which were topics of recently screened films at Sewanee? Why is abortion always the biggest no-no?

Perhaps then, we should all go see "Obvious Child."

(Tom and Marilyn Phelps, your tickets are on me.)

Sewanee, grandly, has decided to bring back the film.

"It should not have been pulled," said Terry Papillon, dean of the college. "That was a mistake."

Papillon, who came to Sewanee in July from Virginia Tech, said the film was removed more because of miscommunication - the decision apparently made by someone who shouldn't have - and less about censorship.

So he rescheduled the film to return in November. (Still after the election.)

"We should show movies that are controversial and read books that have been banned in other places and have conversations about why that is," he said.

Papillon seems both gracious and big-minded. He invited some of the protesting students to join the film selection committee. Phelps, too, was asked to join.

"Since I have complained, I don't think I can turn that responsibility down," he said.

Maybe this is a good ending after all.

Epilogue: the night they took down "Obvious Child" from the screen, they - I'm guessing some really crafty students - replaced it with the absolute perfect choice.

The film adaptation of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451."

It's a story of censorship.

Contact David Cook at dcook@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6329. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter at DavidCookTFP.

Upcoming Events