Protest Politics in the Marketplace: Consumer Activism in the Corporate Age by Caroline Heldman

Author:Caroline Heldman [Heldman, Caroline]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Political Advocacy, Consumer Behavior, Social Science, Political Science, Political Process, Business & Economics, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781501712111
Google: _Uk4DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 35142071
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2017-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Ender’s Game Campaign

In April 2012, gay rights activists organized a boycott of the film Ender’s Game because of the very public antigay stance of the author, Orson Scott Card. 55 Card is a member of the Mormon Church and a former board member of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a nonprofit that opposes same-sex marriage. During the California Proposition 8 debate in 2008, Card labeled homosexuality a “deviant behavior” and promised to overthrow any government that allowed same-sex marriage. 56 Geeks OUT, an activist organization that promotes the interests of the “queer geek community,” initiated a boycott of Ender’s Game when it was announced that Card’s popular book would be made into a film.

Geeks OUT was founded by five friends in New York in 2013, after they had endured years of discrimination in geek communities based on their sexual identity. The mission of Geeks OUT is to encourage visibility and acceptance of queer geeks in the comic and gaming worlds. The cofounders, Jono Jarrett, Matthew Levine, Keith Marran, Josh Siegel, and Joey Stern, are self-described “gay fan boys” intent on creating safe spaces for LGBT individuals through events, an informational blog, and online forums. In 2015, Geeks OUT hosted the first gay comic convention, Flame Con, in New York.

For the Ender’s Game boycott, Geeks OUT circulated a MoveOn.org petition that received over 12,000 signatures, urging a boycott of the film on opening weekend. This was a market campaign proper because it put pressure on a business entity directly. Within a week of the start of the boycott, Lionsgate, the company producing the film, distanced itself from Card’s beliefs and pledged to host a pro-LGBT benefit for its premiere, but this did not quell consumer activism. 57 When Ender’s Game opened in theaters in November 2013, Geeks OUT also organized Skip Ender’s Game parties in cities throughout the United States where boycotters could meet up. Ender’s Game was the top-grossing film on opening weekend, and it went on to make $125 million worldwide. 58 Nevertheless, the film cost $110 million to make, and it did not live up to revenue expectations. Variety deemed Ender’s Game the biggest box office bomb of 2013, and it is not possible to isolate the economic effects of the boycott because the film received mixed reviews. 59 The stated goal of the Geeks OUT campaign was to raise awareness of Card’s antigay positions, and this goal was achieved through a blitz of media coverage about the boycott. 60

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