The original members of the singing group The Sapphires has called for a boycott of the US release of the Australian-produced movie on DVD.
The point of contention is pretty obvious. First, some of the Australian artwork, then the US 'blue' version.
Australian release:
And the US release above.
From
here:
'What has upset us is that the DVD cover appears to miss that point
[of the film] entirely,'' she said. ''It's disrespectful to the very
talented young Aboriginal actors in the film, and it's disrespectful to
us as a group.
''But in particular, it's disrespectful to women of colour
everywhere who have stood up against this sort of thing all their
lives.'' she said.
UPDATE: Even talk of a boycott was enough. From
Billboard:
The American distributor of the Australian film "The Sapphires" is
apologizing for the DVD cover, which some have called sexist and racist,
and says it is considering new cover art for future shipments.
Anchor Bay Entertainment said in a statement Monday that it "regrets
any unintentional upset" caused by the DVD, which will be on U.S. store
shelves Tuesday.
The rest of the story
is here
There has been some interesting, and positive, fallout from this casual backlining of the true stars of the movie. And The Sapphires DVD release has scored some major attention now in the US media, excerpts of the movie are being shown on the news, and the positive result will give the movie's release a massive boost. It's a great story, a decent movie, full of great young Australian stars and now more people than ever know about it.
