Raise your voice, and your day-glo yellow hands...

So we get the word at work tonight that a group of teenagers has written a letter to the home office of our theatre that they're planning to come in to either our place or Levis-Commons. This group is made up of anti-smoking protestors, and they have made it known that their purpose is to protest the movie "Constantine," because its lead character smokes. Their plan is to buy a block of tickets for the movie and sit in there, and whenever the character lights up, they will hold up their hands, on which will be glow-in-the-dark gloves, thus expressing their displeasure at this apparent romanticism of the habit, understanding that they will be ejected for disrupting the show, but making that sacrifice to have their voice heard.

Now, I hate smoking. I think it's an awful habit, and I really wish that those in my life who I care about that smoke (long glance in the direction of Sylvania, Ohio) would change their mind, for the sake of their own health. I'm not radical enough to demand that smoking be banned in public places (the evidence for the arguments against second hand smoke is not convincing enough for me to get THAT paranoid), but I have never smoked, and I never will. So, in theory, I can sympathize with the aims of this group.

In execution, however, I can't help but notice MANY flaws which lead me to believe that this wasn't very thoroughly thought out.

#1.) This is a group of teenagers planning to protest "Constantine." Teenagers. "Constantine" is rated R. This means that unless someone in the group is out of high school (or over 18), they probably couldn't even buy tickets for the whole of the group, because you can only buy for yourself if you're 17, and not at all if you're under. So, they're speaking out in protest of a movie that they legally could probably not even see.

#2.) Anyone who has seen the flick or read the comics knows this one: the character of Constantine is dying. It's kind of a central point that he's living on borrowed time. And WHY is he dying, boys and girls? That's right - because he smokes! Heck, the movie even has the arch-angel Gabriel explain to him that he's gonna die young because he's smoked since he was 13. So there you have it, a movie in which a character has lung cancer because he's a compulsive smoker. And they're PROTESTING this? They think it ROMANTICIZES the habit? Methinks we didn't read the reviews too carefully.

#3.) The protest was being done tonight - i.e., Tuesday. If you didn't know, Tuesday is not exactly the busiest night of the week for movies. Point of fact, if we get 10 people for a show on Tuesday, it's a big house. And THIS is the night that they decide to do this protest. They're gonna show up and raise their hands and speak out to the literally 8 or 10 people to whom their protest will be heard. The old adage about the tree falling in the woods comes to mind.

But in the long run, none of these thoughts mattered. Turns out the protestors didn't show up at Maumee, but over at Levis-Commons. And they did indeed raise their hands, and they were indeed ushered out.

Not out of "Constantine," though. They were ushered out of "The Wedding Date."

The mind reels. I've turned this event over and over in my mind several times, and I canna make sense of it, Captain. Did they try in vain to buy tickets to "Constantine," only to find out that #1 was indeed true, and decided that one way or another, by god, their gloves would be seen? Perhaps they thought that the older women seeing "The Wedding Date" (believe me, that's who's seeing it, mostly) would be more sympathetic to their plight than the 20-something demographic drawn to "Constantine?" Or maybe, just maybe...GASP!...there's smoking in "The Wedding Date," TOO? It's an epidemic! Hollywood has gone nicotine nuts! We need to protest EVERY film that has a character that smokes! No matter what, a cigarette must never be immortalized on celluloid again!

I dunno. Has anyone seen "Wedding Date," and can help me out here? Does that film glorify those devil's sticks, or was this just a horribly misfired protest from every angle?