Blindness opens this Friday and of course blind people are pissed because it’s super offensive.

Blind people quarantined in a mental asylum, attacking each other, soiling themselves, trading sex for food. For Marc Maurer, who’s blind, such a scenario — as shown in the movie “Blindness” — is not a clever allegory for a breakdown in society.

“The movie portrays blind people as monsters, and I believe it to be a lie,” said Maurer, president of the Baltimore-based National Federation of the Blind. “Blindness doesn’t turn decent people into monsters.”

The organization plans to protest the movie… Blind people and their allies will hand out fliers and carry signs. Among the slogans: “I’m not an actor. But I play a blind person in real life.”

The movie reinforces inaccurate stereotypes, including that the blind cannot care for themselves and are perpetually disoriented, according to the NFB.

“We face a 70% unemployment rate and other social problems because people don’t think we can do anything, and this movie is not going to help — at all,” said Christopher Danielsen, a spokesman for the organization.

Based on the 1995 novel by Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago, “Blindness” imagines a mysterious epidemic that causes people to see nothing but fuzzy white light — resulting in a collapse of the social order in an unnamed city. Julianne Moore stars as the wife of an eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who loses his sight; she feigns blindness to stay with her husband and eventually leads a revolt of the quarantined patients.

The book was praised for its use of blindness as a metaphor for the lack of clear communication and respect for human dignity in modern society. [THR]

These A-holes are just like the Tropic Thunder and Towelhead protestors.  I mean, where do they get off protesting a movie they haven’t even seen? **tap dances off stage**

Earlier today I wrote, “Kevin Smith has always seemed like a pretty cool dude.” In response, FilmDrunkard “T” sent me the above video. It’s old, but I hadn’t seen it before, and figured you probably haven’t either (I like to project like that). Anyway, it’s an old news story about religious whiners protesting Dogma, and Kevin Smith secretly joining their ranks. When the local news discovers him and interviews him about the movie, he still refuses to break character:

Smith: “I don’t think it stands for anything positive.”
Interviewer: “What does it stand for?”
Smith: “I don’t know, but I’ve been told …not good.”

Beautiful. It makes me sad Robert Downey Jr. didn’t dress up as a retard and Ben Stiller as his handler during the Tropic Thunder protests. “Ben Stiller is a bad man. His movies hurt my retard.” *RDJ groans like Chewbacca*

Slate recently discovered an 11-page action kit that from the coalition of disability groups that are protesting Tropic Thunder which offers step-by-step instructions on how to be the best humorless killjoy you can be.

The Rally for Respect action kit contains a basic checklist (designate "one person to organize efforts"; produce "flyers and posters for distribution") to help supporters achieve "coordinated and organized action" (Page 4). Group chapters are advised how to identify venues screening the film ("you can find that information by going to http://fandango.com and typing in your zip code"), and it’s suggested that mentally disabled people acting as "self advocates" be "present to meet and greet theater patrons." The words retard, idiot, imbecile, and moron are condemned as "hate speech …. on par with the N-word" (Page 3). The action kit also provides "talking points" for self-advocates ("as a person with an intellectual disability I have been affected by use of the R-word and other hate speech"; Page 5).

Basically, they want you to find a retarded person who’s just chillin out having a good time and take him to the movies with you to shame people over something he doesn’t understand.  That’s the thing – there aren’t actually any retarded people in the movie.  It’s Ben Stiller playing a bad actor whose last character was Hollywood’s conception of a retarded person.  Never once do they ridicule an actual retarded person.  And anyway, the quickest way to inspire fear and misunderstanding about a group is to make people feel like they always have to tiptoe around them.  Wanna be part of society? Step 1, learn to take a joke.  Now dance, retard.