A movie theater in Portland, Oregon, pulled a screening of the 1990 comedy Kindergarten Cop in the face of mounting backlash to the film fueled by accusations that it glorified police traumatizing children.
The Northwest Film Center, which was going to begin its summer drive-in movie series with the flick because of “its importance in Oregon filmmaking history,” has abandoned its plans to show the movie amid nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice in the United States.
The theater will instead add a second showing of John Lewis: Good Trouble in honor of John Lewis, the late congressman known for his civil rights advocacy.
Kindergarten Cop, starring former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, revolves around a police officer who goes undercover as a kindergarten teacher in an attempt to bust a drug dealer.
Portland author Lois Leveen was a leading voice calling for the removal of the movie from the series.
“National reckoning on overpolicing is a weird time to revive Kindergarten Cop. IRL, we are trying to end the school-to-prison pipeline,” she tweeted. “There’s nothing entertaining about the presence of police in schools, which feeds the ‘school-to-prison’ pipeline in which African American, Latinx and other kids of color are criminalized rather than educated. Five- and 6-year-olds are handcuffed and hauled off to jail routinely in this country. And this criminalizing of children increases dramatically when cops are assigned to work in schools.”
Leveen told Willamette Week she believes showing movies with racial undertones may hurt broader public perceptions.
“It’s true Kindergarten Cop is only a movie. So are Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind, but we recognize films like those are not ‘good family fun,'” Leveen wrote. “They are relics of how pop culture feeds racist assumptions.”
The Northwest Film Center said it chose to replace the movie with the film about Lewis because of overwhelming demand, responding to Leveen’s concerns on Twitter.
“After discussion with staff and community members, however, we agreed that at this moment in history, John Lewis: Good Trouble is the right film to open this year’s Drive-In series,” the center said.
