Why I'm Boycotting Warner Bros. "Orphan" Movie

I recently heard about the new movie, "Orphan" that is to be released in July. I was definitely bothered after watching the trailer. Especially because there is a line where the adopted child says "It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own." I then heard about a new group on facebook called I Am Boycotting Warner Bros.' "Orpan Movie" and I knew I had to join. Here is the group's description:

On July 24, Warner Bros. is releasing a horror/slasher film titled "Orphan" (http://orphan-movie.warnerbros.com/). The messaging in the trailer perpetuates misinformation about adoption, and it serves to reinforce the perception that older adoptees are very troubled. Those of us in the adoption community face these very real prejudices and misconceptions from the general public on a daily basis.

We encourage Warner Bros., Dark Castle Entertainment, and Appian Way to consider very carefully where and how they market this film, as the potential for emotional damage to children is great.

This group was launched by concerned parents to let these film companies know that this film is reprehensible to us, and we will be boycotting it. We will not allow children to be maligned while these companies profit from preying on the public's unfounded fears.

We ask anyone who joins this group to share this information widely, and to discourage your local theaters from showing this film.

The good news is that this boycot is having an effect. Here is an update from the moderator of the protest group:

First off, thank you for adding your name to the “Orphan” protest Group on Facebook. The membership has reached almost 1,000 in the course of just a few short days, which goes to show how very important this issue is to many.

I wanted to share with you that I just got off the phone with Scott Rowe, Sr. Vice President of Corporate Communication at Warner Bros. You will be happy to know that they have changed their marketing materials and have removed the offending statement “It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own” has been removed from all future trailers.

A few items of note:

• The current trailer (with the offending statement) will still be used during the previews of the horror film “Drag Me to Hell”, which opens this week-end. Unfortunately, on such short notice, there was nothing that can be done about this.

• The next movie that the trailer will be shown at is “The Hangover”, which comes out June 15th. By this time, the current trailer will be replaced with the new trailer (sans statement).

• They will swap out the trailers for all television advertising. They have not yet begun advertising for this film yet, so there should be no worries of children seeing it.

• The current trailer is still on the Web site, but they are working to rectify that immediately and Scott has spoken with the Warner Bros. Web team about this again this afternoon.

• Because the film is Rated-R, it will only be shown as a trailer for other Rated-R films. The trailer will also only be shown on television after 10 p.m. (i.e. not during times when young children would be expected to watch).

As I am sure many of you have assumed, there is a hook to the film that ultimately removes the child/orphan stigma, which is neither here nor there as it relates to current public positioning of the film -- and that issue is no more.

The producers and distributor took your concerns to heart and have made the changes in the public-facing marketing materials that we had hoped.

I would like to add that Scott mentioned that Warner Bros. employees get death threats for things as trivial as changing the release date of the new Harry Potter film. “Yet, the adoption community, who are protecting their children and who have every right to be angry, has been nothing but respectful.” he said.

Kuddos to all of you! Please do pass this information along so that others can know that their voice was heard.

It looks like sometimes voices are heard! :-)