This week I had the odd fortune of running into two very different activist groups on Sunset Boulevard while writing my weekly column “Bus Stops,” which you can read here).
First, let’s talk about the one I’m more skeptical of “”mdash; the Citizens Commission on Human Rights’ “Psychiatry: An Industry of Death” Museum. Talk about bizarre ““ it basically argued that more people died in psychiatric hospitals in a 14-year period than in every war America has entered into combined. It had sections on race, the Holocaust and electroshock therapy, as well as torture device-looking contraptions such as a uterus compressor that patients supposedly compared to being raped.
I say “supposedly” because any intelligent person would sniff out the shadiness oozing out of this place from a mile away, if only because of the overdramatized, propagandistic style in which all of the museum’s films are directed in. In addition, many things weren’t attributed and many of the video quotes seemed out of context.
A little while later I walked by Disney’s hotel workers’ boycott of Disney films submitted for awards consideration. According to Leigh Shelton, the Unite Here Local 11 union spokeswoman, Disney is cutting health care benefits and wants workers to pay as much as $500 a month for health care, which would affect their ability to provide health care for their kids. Because Disney is willing to spend money to promote their award contenders, the protesters are following Disney around during the awards season, which is why I saw them at the Critics’ Choice Awards. I’m not sure how well their plan is working. Even standing right next to Shelton I couldn’t hear her over the screams of affection coming from the fans as celebrities arrived.
Have any Sunset Boulevard or cool celebrity sighting stories? Do you think I should have tried to get Amber Rose’s autograph? Leave a comment below.
