Chris: Thanks for the clarification on Vaxxed/Tribeca. But it wasn't 'Tribeca recognizing that it needed to firm up its institutional character and to counter a reactionary push from powerful autocrats (De Niro)'. RDN bypassed the programmers to put Vaxxed on the schedule, and he alone pulled it out in reaction to the public heat in order to salvage Tribeca's reputation. It wasn't a move to shore up "institutional character" in terms of accountability, transparency, etc.
> Yanking a film because (as far as we know) a hypothetical compromise of > MOMA's emails, is super bad programming. we are all in agreeance on that, > right? Well, compromised emails weren't the issue. Berger ≠ Hilary. According to the NYT: "Berger expressed concern in late January about screening the film after reading an article suggesting that any organization that did so risked retribution from North Korea." That retribution could have been any number of things, not just a Sony-leak type document dump. Anyway, whether or not it's 'super bad programming' would depend on quite a few contextual factors -- including whether or not the film 'needed' the screening and the merit of whatever would be chosen to screen instead. MoMA's 'exposure' isn't a matter of yielding to wing-nut trolls. If anything, by NOT screening a film critical of 'commies' Berger may have incited the wrath of the right and her 'bosses' may have been concerned with some pressure from those quarters. When I said MoMA faces a different dilemma than small indie forums, I meant only in the specific case of worrying about North Korea. MoMA's unique as an art film venue in being a big enough institution over-all to have valuable assets that could be targeted by cyber-terrorism and to have enough status to qualify as a symbolic target for reprisals. I mean, if North Korea messed with Facets, they'd look like petty clowns, not international badasses. > Don't we want our cultural institutions to hold themselves accountable and to > be courageous? Well, I'm not going to endorse no-consequences cowardice. But it's far from clear those were the stakes here, or who was the unaccountable coward if anyone was. > If this were journalism, and a publication pulled a story because of outside > pressure, we would be going ballistic. Not even remotely analogous. Besides, news outlets drop stories all the time for one reason or another, and we just never hear about it. > With MoMA, we have to TRUST that they acting as they should. It's a private organization, with no government funding, more or less run by the Rockefeller family. 'Trust us, or f**k off,' is SOP for 1%ers, yes? Anyway, all of this is just to address your concerns over 'larger issues' hypotheticals. I doubt these were really central to Berger's dismissal, which smells like an internal power struggle, personality conflict or the like. _______________________________________________ FrameWorks mailing list [email protected] https://mailman-mail5.webfaction.com/listinfo/frameworks
