On Thursday, November 20th, protests were made around the nation at local movie theaters. This protest came about due to the midnight showing of Mockingjay: Part 1. “At first I thought that there were just a lot of people coming to the movie,” said student, Mike Wasson. “But, they all had signs and were yelling at the people in line. The weirdest thing was that they were all dressed like Harry Potter characters.”
It all started with a controversial post on twitter regarding the upcoming Mockingjay movie. Peetalover195 tweeted “The Hunger Games are twenty times more interesting and exciting than Harry Potter ever was. #HPsucks.” This sparked a massive debate which soon escalated across many social media websites.
Stewart Black was the one who coordinated a protest at movie theaters in Logan. “With the incredibly offensive comment on twitter, it really inspired me along with many others to do something about it,” Joey commented when asked about the protest. His protest was one of 237 that happened around the U.S. for the midnight showing. “I took responsibility for Logan, set the times, picked the theaters we would protest, and told people what they should bring.” When asked specifically about the tweet, Joey responded “Hunger Games fans don’t know what they’re missing. I, personally enjoy both series, but Harry Potter is way better.”
Logan also was one of the few areas that held a counter protest. “We did it mainly so we could express our opinions,” said Price Evering, the organizer for Logan’s Mockingjay support rally. “I won’t lie, I think that the Hunger Games have a more compelling story and are way more realistic. But, more importantly I want to know that I can like a movie and not have a protest against my opinion for it.” Evering’s counter group was noticeably smaller than the Harry Potter group as they had 18 supporters compared to the 53 protestors.
“It’s all really stupid,” said USU student, Perry Johnson who was a witness to both the protests. “I just came here to watch the movie and all these people were protesting it. Leave it to these nerds to protest something dumb.” We then asked Johnson about what he thought of what protests stood for and he replied, “Look all they’re doing is embarrassing themselves. They can fight about it all they want online, but whining about their opinions isn’t going to solve anything whether it’s on the computer or in real life.”
While no theaters closed in response to the protests, the attendance did slightly decrease from the original anticipated number of movie goers.
