'Kindergarten Cop' pulled from screening for glorifying police in schools
The movie follows a detective, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in arguably one of his most iconic roles, who goes undercover as a kindergarten teacher, only to quit his job and become a teacher.
By AARON REICHArnold Schwarzenegger is seen in a scene from the 1990 film 'Kindergarten Cop.'(photo credit: GAIL MRS GRAY/FLICKR)
An outdoor screening of the 1990 film Kindergarten Cop in Oregon was canceled following an online campaign accusing it of glorifying police officers traumatizing children, local news outlet Willamette Week reported on Monday.Organized by the NW Film Center (NWFC), the screening was slated to take place on Thursday at Zidell Yards as a drive-in movie, in honor of the film's 30th anniversary.The movie follows a detective, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in arguably one of his most iconic roles, who goes undercover as a kindergarten teacher, only to quit his job and become a teacher full time. The movie was successful at the box office and while it was met with mixed reviews by critics, it became famous for Schwarzenegger's comedic timing and some of his most famous and oft-quoted lines from his long career.Notably, the movie was shot on location in Astoria, Oregon. It is for this reason that the NWFC chose to show the film, "for its importance in Oregon filmmaking history," according to a press release seen by the Willamette Week.The screening was canceled, however, following an online campaign due to the current political climate in the US.Following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by police officers in May, protests against police brutality have sprung up in cities throughout the US. In Portland, Oregon, protests have gone on nightly, and have garnered significant attention in the US and abroad due to federal agents being seen on video forcibly taking protesters into unmarked vans.Portland-based writer Lois Leveen took to Twitter Saturday and slammed the NWFC for planning to screen the film."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."Speaking to the Willamette Week, Leveen clarified her concerns, despite some speaking against it due to it being "just a movie.""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,'" she told the local news outlet. "They are relics of how pop culture feeds racist assumptions."Birth of a Nation was a 1915 silent film that glorified the Klu Klux Klan, while the 1939 historical romance film Gone With the Wind was recently pulled from HBO Max over its depiction of slavery."Because despite what the movie shows," she continued, "in reality, schools don't transform cops. Cops transform schools, and in an extremely detrimental way."Following the cancellation, the NWFC decided to hold a second screening of Good Trouble, a documentary about John Lewis, the Georgia congressman and civil rights leader who passed away on July 17. According to the Willamette Week, the August 7 screening had already sold out.
