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Allison Decarlo, a senior in textiles, asks a question during the Q&A session following the movie showing. Photo by Luis Zapata
For an interview with Tucker Max, click here.
For an interview with actress Keri Lynn Pratt, click here.
For Tucker Max’s blog post response, click here.
The Union Activities Board released a statement during the film. It is viewable here.
The premiere of Tucker Max’s movie, “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” brought out students both to watch the film and to protest its showing on campus Wednesday night. Though no altercations arose from the close proximity of the picketers to the line to get into the movie, Juliette Grimmett, who works with the Women’s Center and is the University’s rape prevention education coordinator, said the protester’s presence made people think critically about what they were about to see.
“We brought a new perspective,” Grimmett said. “If we can get people to look at the film differently, then we did our job.”
Movie-goers were greeted with signs and handbills as they filed into Witherspoon Student Center for the film, which was sold out.
Bill Dawes, who works with the film tour, said he posed as a Duke graduate student writing a thesis on the linguistics of rape culture.
“[I said] I wanted to discuss the movement and see exactly what they meant by rape culture and where rape culture was in the book,” Dawes said.
Dawes said he theorized the protesters were ill-informed about the book and movie, and said he was proved right, though he said the protesters were very cordial to him, and that he had no issues with the group expressing its opinions. Still, he said the allegations that Max is a rapist are false.
“It’s the difference between voluntary manslaughter and double homicide,” Dawes said. “You can’t just equate going out getting drunk and hooking up with women with rape culture. It’s just wrong.”
Liam Gehling, a senior in business, said the protest wasn’t dependent on seeing the film or reading the novel but on what the two promoted.
“It’s not about reading the book or watching the movie,” Gehling said. “It’s about the promotion and moralization of sex and alcohol.”
Students who attended the movie, like Jessica Lawrence, a graduate student in entomology, said the movie was good. Lawrence drove half an hour from Prospect Hill in Cassel County to watch the film and said it was worth the trip.
Deputy News Editor Amber Kenney and Staff Writer Joanna Banegas contributed to this story.