Voices Heard

The buzz and outrage in the adoption community this past week has been about an upcoming horror flick called The Orphan due to released on July 24th. Now I tend not to get worked up about everything little thing adoption related that could or could not be construed as stereotypical or shows adoption in a bad light, but this one irked me a bit. Mainly due to the trailer. The story is about a family who adopts an older girl from an orphanage, "who is not what she appears to be". The line in the trailer that completely pissed me off (for lack of a better word), "it must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own".
Seriously? I always wonder, who approves this stuff for release, does anyone think, hmmm, that sounds kind of harsh, or do they not care, are they clueless or are they looking for the extra controversy. Are they really that out of touch and insensitive or is the hype great for their bottom line. I have to say I am also very disappointed as the producer is Leonardo DiCaprio. I have always liked him and admired him as an actor.

Obviously there are many times when adoption is misrepresented in the media or even in our own daily lives, but that doesn't always upset me. I can't expect everyone to be as educated and versed in appropriate adoption language as an adoptive parent. Instead I try to do what I can to clear up the misperceptions and educate others. Generally this is well received.
This trailer though was very offensive to me as there are already horrible stereotypes regarding older child adoptions. There is even a fan page on Facebook for the movie and it is being billed as an anti adoption movie by the fans themselves!

The bottom line is that this movie trailer is extremely negative and just serves to reinforce misperceptions and stereotypes that adopted children (especially those from an orphanage, foster care or older children) are "damaged goods" and will only bring problems to the family.

While the trailer and language in it makes me angry I do not feel the movie should be outright boycotted or not released. We have Freedom of speech, we may not like what others say, do or make in the name of entertainment, but they are free to say it, just as we are free to express our feelings about it. I also think too much protest just helps fuel the interest and more people will go see it out of curiosity when they may have just blew past the ads and considered it to be just another ridiculous horror flick.
We can all choose not to see it and keep our children from seeing it. I think the main concern though was even if a child was in the theatre for another movie or watching TV and this trailer just happened to appear, how does that adopted child take it? Many would probably just brush it off, but there could be many who are already struggling with feelings and issues related to their adoption and this could serve cause more pain and anguish when they hear those words, "it must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own".

So my wish was for the trailer to be either pulled off completely or re-written. The adoption community rallied together and started an email and phone campaign to Warner Brothers.

The results:
From the Facebook group organized by Bethann Buddenbaum to boycott the movie:

"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.

In a piece done by ABC News, Scott Rowe admitted the company "messed up".
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=7702341&page=1

So kudos to everyone who spoke up. Action was taken and voices were heard!