Well gosh. You know... It's a bit scary but this really screams back to something Kirk Douglas was talking about in his special letter to Variety on Monday that was in defense of Jack Valenti and the MPAA. He mentioned that back in ye olden days, P.J. (Pre-Jack), censoring took place from town to town and state to state. How church groups and school boards and city councils and citizen groups would go off on holy wars against this or that film. And how... Today... Thanks to the wonderful work of Jack and the MPAA we have abolished this insanity, and now artists are more free than they have ever been. Well... Unless you happen to be in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and your talking about the Superintendent there... Or the weasels running the United Artist theater there. Now I can think of about a good dozen reasons to pull TEACHING MRS TINGLE from theaters (1. Bad movie, 2. It's Not Making The Theater Much Money, 3. Makes Room For THE IRON GIANT, etc...), but even though removing an eyesore like TEACHING MRS TINGLE doesn't hurt me much... it's the one excuse I can't sit idly by and watch it be removed for. This movie has been removed because if teenagers see the movie, then teachers will be being knocked off left and right. God knows we have seen the trend since the film's release this weekend. Violence has been widespread as High School Kids have been knocking off their teachers left and right. Soon the anarchy will spread to Elementary schools where children will poison their teacher's coffee with Gummi Bears.
Well... Gosh. Here's the letter from a concerned citizen in this fair city that is no longer showing TEACHING MRS TINGLE.... Ahhh the travesty...
Hello there Harry. I am a big fan and long time reader of your website. This is my first time writing because nothing much happens here in Baton Rouge. This isn't much news, but I think this deserves some notice. Earlier this week the Superintendent of the Baton Rouge Public School system asked the United Artists theaters in town to pull Teaching Mrs. Tingle because of its subject (students getting back at their teacher). Well, United Artists buckled and pulled the movie. I have begun fighting HOLY WAR against these communists. The SONOFABITCH Superintendent even admitied on television that he hadn't seen the movie and refused to watch it when invited to see it by a local theater owner. This liked to put me in a coma.
This really makes me angry. I don't give two shits about Teaching Mrs. Tingle. I have little desire to see the movie. I don't want to have to get pissed off and defend this movie, but it raises a sensitive issue for me. I am tired watching this country slowly digress in relation to this teen violence issue. I have seen television shows cancelled, movies re-written or halted and, until now, all this stuff happening pretty far away. This shit was too close to home for me. I will not sit still while these people take away my freedom looking for a simple solution to this complex problem. If this tyrant educator gets his way with this movie, where will he stop. I am afraid that he will ask United Artists to pull Matrix 2 or Sleepy Hollow. I have been writing people on the School Board and Newspapers and I plan to write the cowards at United Artists, but I feel like there is little I can do. Perhaps you know others who can write to Unites Artists theaters and express contempt for what they have bowed to. I just wanted to give you and everyone the heads-up that it is only a matter of time before stuff like this gets into other communities too. NO ONE should tolerate scared politicians in their city who take their impotence out on the the arts.
Just call me Provoker...
